such narrations their quota of the conversation. This is of all other the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he finds an account of his head-ache answered by another's asking what news in the last mail? Mutual good humour is a dress we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice; but indeed there are crowds of people who put themselves in no method of pleasing 10 themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call indolent persons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurse's arms. Such an aversion to labour creates a constant weariness, and one would think should make existence itself a burden. The indolent man descends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative. His life consists only in the mere increase and decay of a body, which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been unin20 formed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind.

Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Tersett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. These two people of seeming merit fell into each other's arms; and, passion being sated, and no reason or good sense in either to succeed it, their life is now at a stand; their meals are insipid and their time tedious; their 30 fortune has placed them above care, and their loss of taste reduced them below diversion. When we talk of these as instances of inexistence, we do not mean, that in order to live, it is necessary we should be always in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of roses, as the merry fellows among the ancients are described; but it is intended, by considering these contraries to pleasure, indolence, and too much delicacy, to show that it is prudence to preserve a disposition in ourselves to receive a certain delight in all we hear and see.

This portable quality of good humour seasons all the parts 40 and occurrences we meet with in such a manner, that there are

no moments lost: but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load,) that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears. The sad, the merry, the severe, the melancholy, show a new cheerfulness when he comes amongst them. At the same time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever said that deserves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is so 10 to him. He does not seem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimsically said of a gentleman, that if Varilas had wit, it would be the best wit in the world. It is certain, when a well-corrected lively imagination and good-breeding are added to a sweet disposition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest blessings as well as pleasures of life.

Men would come into company with ten times the pleasure they do, if they were sure of hearing nothing which should shock 20 them, as well as expected what would please them. When we know every person that is spoken of is represented by one who has no ill-will, and every thing that is mentioned described by one that is apt to set it in the best light, the entertainment must be delicate, because the cook has nothing brought to his hand but what is the most excellent in its kind. Beautiful pictures are the entertainments of pure minds, and deformities of the corrupted. It is a degree towards the life of angels, when we enjoy conversation wherein there is nothing presented but in its excellence; and a degree towards that of demons, wherein 30 nothing is shown but in its degeneracy.

Spectator, No. 100.]

No. 13. On Being Agreeable in Company.

[June 25, 1711.

Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere.-TULL.

The piece of Latin on the head of this paper is part of a character extremely vicious, but I have set down no more than

may fall in with the rules of justice and honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who, he said, 'lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleasantly; he added, 'with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lasciviously.' The two last instances of his complaisance I forbear to consider, having it in my thoughts at present only to speak of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of design and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner cannot be agreeable, 10 except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming prostitution imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain no other end but an unjust praise from the undiscerning, is of all endeavours the most despicable. A man must be sincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others; for this reason it is a most calamitous circumstance, that many people who want to be alone, or should be so, will come into conversation. It is certain that all men, who are the least given to reflection, 20 are seized with an inclination that way: when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company; but indeed they had better go home and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon others to recover their good humour. In all this, the case of communicating to a friend a sad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, stands excepted; but what is here meant is, that a man should always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or not pretend to be of the party. It is certainly a very happy temper to be able to live with all kinds of dispositions, because it argues a mind 30 that lies open to receive what is pleasing to others, and not obstinately bent on any particularity of his own.

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This is it which makes me pleased with the character of my good acquaintance Acasto. You meet him at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one sect of men; but Acasto has natural good sense, good nature, and discretion, so that every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acasto contributes nothing to the entertainment, he never was at a place where he was not welcome a second

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time. Without the subordinate good qualities of Acasto, a man of wit and learning would be painful to the generality of mankind, instead of being pleasing. Witty men are apt to imagine they are agreeable as such, and by that means grow the worst companions imaginable; they deride the absent or rally the present in a wrong manner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a man till he is uneasy in his seat, or ungracefully distinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him.

I was going to say, the true art of being agreeable in company (but there can be no such thing as art in it) is to appear well pleased with those you are engaged with, and rather to seem well entertained, than to bring entertainment to others. A man thus disposed is not indeed what we ordinarily call a good companion, but essentially is such, and in all the parts of his conversation has something friendly in his behaviour, which conciliates men's minds more than the highest sallies of wit or starts of humour can possibly do. The feebleness of age in a man of this turn has something which 20 should be treated with respect even in a man no otherwise venerable. The forwardness of youth, when it proceeds from alacrity and not insolence, has also its allowances. The companion who is formed for such by nature, gives to every character of life its due regards, and is ready to account for their imperfections, and receive their accomplishments as if they were his own. It must appear that you receive law from, and not give it to, your company, to make you agreeable.

I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of Antony, says, that, in eo facetiæ erant, quæ nulla arte tradi possunt: 'He had a 30 witty mirth, which could be acquired by no art.' This quality must be of the kind of which I am now speaking; for all sorts of behaviour which depend upon observation and knowledge of life are to be acquired; but that which no one can describe, and is apparently the act of nature, must be every where prevalent, because every thing it meets is a fit occasion to exert it; for he who follows nature can never be improper or unseasonable.

How unaccountable then must their behaviour be, who, without any manner of consideration of what the company 40 they have just now entered are upon, give themselves the air

of a messenger, and make as distinct relations of the occurrences they last met with, as if they had been dispatched from those they talk to, to be punctually exact in a report of those circumstances! It is unpardonable to those who are met to enjoy one another that a fresh man shall pop in, and give us only the last part of his own life, and put a stop to ours during the history. If such a man comes from 'Change, whether you will or not, you must hear how the stocks go: and, though you are ever so intently employed on a graver subject, a young 10 fellow of the other end of the town will take his place and tell you, Mrs. Such-a-one is charmingly handsome, because he just now saw her. But I think I need not dwell on this subject, since I have acknowledged there can be no rules made for excelling this way; and precepts of this kind fare like rules for writing poetry, which, it is said, may have prevented ill poets, but never made good ones.

Spectator, No. 386.]

[May 23, 1712.

No. 14. On Solitude; Character of Irus.

Secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ.

HOR. Ep. i. 18. 103.

It has been from age to age an affectation to love the pleasure of solitude, among those who cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing life in that manner. This people have 20 taken up from reading the many agreeable things which have been written on that subject, for which we are beholden to excellent persons who delighted in being retired, and abstracted from the pleasures that enchant the generality of the world. This way of life is recommended indeed with great beauty, and in such a manner as disposes the reader for the time to a pleasing forgetfulness, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which he is engaged, together with a longing for that state which he is charmed with in description. But when we consider the world itself, and how few there are capable of a 30 religious, learned, or philosophic solitude, we shall be apt to change a regard to that sort of solitude, for being a little