you affected to dazzle me, who am myself the dispenser of all mortal attainments, with the vain display of your wealth and wisdom; and when you rashly assailed the ears of Apollo himself, who presides over music and poetry, with the barbarous jingle of your lyre, and the hoarse untunable dissonance of your voice, you foolishly forget both yourself and us; and by talking and singing without intermission, when you should rather have listened to us with attention, you reverse the application of those faculties I have bestowed upon you, not considering that when I gave to man two organs of hearing, and only one of speech, I marked out the use he was to make of these dispensations: to remind you therefore of my design and your duty, I shall curtail your tongue, and lengthen your ears."-Jupiter ceased speaking; and whilst the deities ascended to Olympus, the ears of the monarch sprouted up into the ears of an ass.'

The moral of the fable, and the personal application of it, were too obvious to be mistaken by any of the company. Vanessa's sensibility suffered visibly on the occasion; but she soon broke the painful silence, and addressing herself to the old gentleman 'I am obliged to you for your fable,' says she,' and shall edify by the moral; but still I cannot help the weakness of a woman, and must needs feel a compassion for poor Midas, whose trespass, being of a good-humoured sort, deserved more mercy than it met with.-I confess the art of being agreeable, frequently miscarries through the ambition which accompanies it. Wit, learning, wisdom-what can more effectually conduce to the profit and delight of society? Yet I am sensible that a man may be too invariably wise, learned, or witty, to be agreeable: and I take the reason of this to be, that pleasure cannot be bestowed by the simple and unmixed

exertion of any one faculty or accomplishment: if every word a man speaks is to be wit or wisdom, if he is never to relax either in look or utterance from his superiority of character, society cannot endure it: the happy gift of being agreeable seems to consist not in one, but in an assemblage of talents tending to communicate delight; and how many are there, who, by easy manners, sweetness of temper, and a variety of other undefinable qualities, possess the power of pleasing without any visible effort, without the aids of wit, wisdom, or learning, nay, as it should seem, in their defiance; and this without appearing even to know that they possess it? Whilst another, by labouring to entertain us too well, entertains us as poor Midas did his visitors.

When Vanessa had done speaking, the hour reminded me that I ought to take my leave, which I did with regret, repeating to myself as I walked homewards- This lady should never be seen in a circle.'

NUMBER XXXIV.

Favete linguis !-HORAT.

AN ingenious author, who some years ago published a volume under the title of Maxims, Characters, and Reflections,' has the following remark:- You would know how a man talks to judge of his understanding, and yet possibly (however great the paradox) the very contrary method might be less fallible; the knowing how he hears might shew it you much better.' As I had not seen this book when I gave my account of Mr. Jedediah Fish's Academy for

Hearing, it gave me great pleasure to fall in with the sentiment of a contemporary, who, whilst he mixes with the world as a man of fashion, reviews the living manners with the segacity of a philosopher. I transcribed the whole article, from which the above passage is extracted, and sent to Mr. Fish it will be found in the author's volume, N° LXXI, and is aptly illustrated by two sketches of character; one of which, called Cleon, is a talker, and Theocles, the other, a hearer.

I have been favoured with the following answer from Mr. Fish.

'Yours is received: I approve of the extract, and like the author's manner well: he deals in ideas rather than in words; some men talk more than they hear; others write more than they read: as benevolence should act without display, so good advice should be given in few words.

I send you the following cases, according to desire.

A young man, known to his familiars by the name of Jack Chatter, came under my hands: the symptoms of his disorder may be thus described— Garrulitas vix intermissa cum cachinno tantùm non continuo.-Garrulity, attended with immoderate fits of laughing, is no uncommon case, when the provocation thereunto springs from jokes of a man's own making; but there was this peculiarity in Mr. Chatter's disease, that he would laugh where no jest was, or even at the jests of other people, rather than not laugh at all. I soon perceived this to be occasioned by exceedingly weak intellects, and an even row of very white teeth. As his melody would not yield to the ordinary prescriptions, I was forced to throw him into a regimen of skating, for which the season was

then favourable: the operation succeeded to my warmest wishes, and the patient was effectually silenced by a happy dislocation of two of his foreteeth from a fall on the ice.

Miss Kitty Scandal was put into my hands by her acquaintance in a very deplorable condition; it was the cacoethes defamationis scabiosum: the common antidotes had no effect upon her: I administered detergents out of Miss Carter's Epictetus and Mrs. Chapone's Letters, but the dose would not stay upon her stomach; I tried the Pythagorean pill, but with no better success. As the patient had a remarkable swelling about the waist, which I conceived might arise from an overflowing of the spleen, I called in my excellent friend, Dr. Ford: the doctor delivered her of her swelling, and Miss Kitty Scandal has not been known to open her lips since.

Tom Belfry was the nuisance of society: he applied to me when he was far gone indeed; he had been black-balled by half the clubs in town, and sent to Coventry by the other half. I examined his case, and found it under the following class-Vor sten→ toria, sempiterna, cum cerebello vacuo, necnon auribus obtusis admodùm ac inertibus.—As his organs of speech seemed in want of immediate modulation, I tried the pitch pipe upon him repeatedly, but the vehemence of his complaint baffled all my efforts: I could never bring him down within a full octave of sound health. I was unwilling to proceed to extremities, till I had done all that my more regular practice could suggest for his relief; but when I found none but desperate remedies could save him, I caused a vein to be opened in his right arm, and drew out fourteen ounces of blood: this was in the month of March last, and the wind was then in the east with sleet and rain: I immediately ordered the patient to take boat at Blackfriars, and be rowed

to Chelsea-reach and back again in an open wherry: the expected consequence ensued; a total deprivation of voice took place, and Mr. Belfry, being no longer able to articulate, is become a very companionable man, and is now in as much request with his club, as heretofore he was in disgrace with it.

'Counsellor Clack is a young man of quick parts, ready wit, and strong imagination, but sorely troubled with the disease called Lingua volubilis cum sui ipsius amore nimio et prægravante.-This patient was radically cured by a strong dose of his own praises, which I took from his mouth, and made him swallow grain for grain as he had uttered them: the nausea, occasioned by this dose, operated so strongly on his constitution, as totally to eradicate all seeds of selfconsequence, and the counsellor is become one of the modestest men, and best hearers in his profession.

Captain Swagger was continually talking of battles, and sieges, and campaigns, though he had never seen either: he arraigned the conduct of every enterprise; and proved to demonstration, by the force of oath, how much better it would have been managed, had he been the commander: the symptoms were too apparent to be mistaken-Os grandiloquum, rotundum, cum dextrá bello frigidá-In this state of his disorder he was recommended to my care by the officers of his mess. I found the tumefaction so vehement, that I prescribed an opening by incision. The captain was accordingly sent out by his commanding officer upon a scouting-party, and suffered a surprise, which effectually repelled the tumefaction: Mr. Swagger threw up his commission, and has been a very silent member of the civil community ever since.

I have sent you these cases out of many, as being pecular; in common cases, the general method I take to bring any gentleman to a patient hearing, is