a made-up, magisterial, monotonous and mahogany visage, strongly impregnated with molasses, Jamaica rum, and bitter aloes;-the poetical vagary, with its infinite and inexplicable bends, contortions, freaks, and undulations (the maker would not know his own handywork in its present state of uncivilization and absurdity; it always inclines one to fancy that the bearer has lately been "in a fine frenzy rolling ;")-and the obdurate, hard-brimmed, and frost-bitten hat of anti-sociality, under which a sharp, thin, satirical, and calumniating nose juts out, with its prolonged extremity beetling over a venomous adder's nest-looking mouth, and a chin that altogether repels communion.

I shall never forget the reverence and awe with which the scholars at school were wont to inspect the hat of our head-master. “I shall not look upon its like again." It was large and expansive, encrusted with powder and the learned dust of many a year. It was hallowed by recollections of imperative frowns, grave lectures, and profound disquisitions on the Greek and Roman tongues. It would have been deemed akin to sacrilege to touch it irreverently. He often left it in the most conspicuous part of the room, to preserve order in his absence. No one could forget him who beheld his hat; they were so mixed up and amalgamated together, that the hat was a component, and almost essential part of the man. It looked dominant, impressive, and gubernatorial.

A.

CONVERSATION.

Ut ventum ad cœnam est, dicenda, tacenda locutus.-HOR. Epist. i. 7.

If speaking, why a vane blown with all winds;
If silent, why a block moved with none.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

THESE are the opposite imputations, Mr. Editor, thrown on him who seeks to shine by his own conversation, and him who is content to profit by that of others. In social life there is no one we envy more than him who entertains or instructs the convivial party by wit or knowledge. On a first view this appears a very attainable advantage. Where all are disposed to be merry, it would not be thought difficult to divert; and he who communicates knowledge would seldom, one would think, fail in attracting respect, however he might in exciting attention. "Oh it is much," says Falstaff, "that a lie with a slight oath, and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders." But on closer inspection, it is found that the character of an entertaining companion is not to be earned so easily. The success of the few who do succeed, will often be seen to result from their station and fortune; for, as the Vicar of Wakefield says, "the jokes of the rich are ever successful;" while on the other hand, so much depends on the nature of the recipient, the party whom the talker struggles to amuse, that his prosperity will frequently

depend on chance. Perhaps I cannot better illustrate my sense of the difficulty he has to contend with who aims at the character of an amusing companion, than by detailing the different efforts I have fruitlessly made to attain it.

Never mind my education: that has not necessarily much to do with it; for how often do we see a shallow ignorant fellow succeed in setting the table in a roar. But my parentage and prospects have; for none has so little chance of pleasing as he who must live by doing it. Suffice it to say, that I was born a gentleman, and enjoy a small independence.

I remember soon after I was left to follow my own way, which I decided should be the law, I met at dinner at the house of a cousin of mine of that profession, one of his friends who was the life of the party, and whom, in fact, the others, students of the law, had been invited to meet. His style was quoting, for succeeding in which he was excellently qualified by a retentive memory and a copious collection of sentences from English, Latin, and even Greek poets. Whatever happened, whatever was said, he had some quotation at hand, which either delighted by its appositeness, or astonished by its erudition: the latter seemed to be most his object; and perhaps in relating his success in the former, I ought not to omit that he was heir to a wealthy baronet, to whose property he unexpectedly succeeded from the baronet being childless.

This man's success, from whatever causes derived, filled me with an irrepressible desire to follow his system. I rummaged Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and other writers, to look for passages to be appositely applied, which I copied into a common place-book, that soon contained a collection infinitely exceeding all the "dictionaries of quotations" that ever were published. I committed my stock to memory, and produced it in company sometimes with propriety, and sometimes, as must occasionally happen, à tort et à travers. On the whole, my success for a time was such as to content and encourage me. I remember two or three of my attempts which met with signal applause, and I will relate them as specimens.-A young coxcomb of my acquaintance who had taken to drawing, was telling us of his having just begun to paint in colours, in which his first attempt had been so good that his drawing-master said he would be a great proficient; on which I turned to him, and said with a look of affected compassion, "Oh formose puer, nimium ne crede colori." This was cheered by the whole party as brilliant.-During the O. P. riots at Covent Garden, a gentleman at dinner was expressing his surprise at Kemble, who had been so generally a favourite with the public, having become so extremely unpopular on so slight a ground. On which I exclaimed, "Opes irritamenta malorum."-One more, and I have done with Latin: I was dining in company with Sir C. H., a Colonel in the city militia, who was saying that he had lately, at the request of the Duke of procured an ensigncy in his regiment for a man whom he was not over-glad to receive in it, a jack of all trades, who had lately failed in one business and adopted another. I could not resist reminding Sir C. of Horace's description of his friend, "Et centum puer artium, dignè militiæ signa feret tuæ."

This continued for some little time, but I soon found that it could not continue for ever. My classical jokes became exhausted, I gradually found the laugh less hearty on their utterance, and I was more than once reminded that I had said a thing before by some charitable friend, who thus effectually damped my spirits for the rest of the evening. I was subjected to other inconveniences: I was once or twice attacked on classical subjects by some really learned member of the company, who thought himself justified, by my quoting Latin, to single me out for discussion; and as I had not application enough to be possessed of solid learning, my ignorance was soon exposed, and of course remembered. Besides, one must not quote Latin before ladies, and I discovered by accident that I had lost more than one invitation to parties at which ladies were invited, because, in moments of enthusiasm, I had come out with what struck me as a happy quotation in a company of both sexes. I found that I was in consequence set down as one who must be asked only to men's dinners.

This stung me to the quick, for I never could conceive what society was good for, if the other sex did not form part of it. I determined therefore, whatever line I followed, to avoid that of quoting. My uncertainty in adopting a new one was removed by the character which I heard of an officer from a young lady whom I one day sat next. "He was the pleasantest man she knew." I inquired, as closely as good-breeding permitted, what were the qualities that entitled him to this enviable distinction. I found that he drew very well," and sung so sweetly, and was always so ready to take any part at the piano-forte." Well, thought I, my great object is to please, and the way is now pointed out to me by undoubted authority, by one of those whose favour I most desire to gain. I must learn to sing and to draw.

"Sad was the hour and luckless was the day," when I formed this determination. Oh, Mr. Editor, the labour it entailed on me baffles description. "Si sis desidiosus, ama," says Ovid. If he had ever had a music-master, he would have recommended singing. I succeeded, however, tolerably in understanding the science, after ten months incessant labour, during which I did nothing but study all day, and dream all night, of notes, half-notes, crotchets, and minims. When I had got a footing in this torturing science, I began on my drawing, and the union of the two somewhat lightened the irksomeness of my labour. But I discovered, like the philosopher who found that the acquirement of knowledge only taught him his ignorance, that Nature must have the greatest share in the merits of the singer and draughtsman. Some happy beings with little labour attain great perfection, because they have a natural turn for the pursuit: others, who have not, may toil for years without success; and to these accomplishments may be reasonably applied what Gibbon has unjustly said more generally, "The power of education is seldom of much avail except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."

The period at length arrived at which I was to receive the longdesired reward of my labours: I stood up one evening in compliance

with urgent requests, and bore my part in a song; I succeeded, rather, to be sure, in assisting others to please than in pleasing myself, but I was gratified by the commendations bestowed on my performance, and by being told what a useful man I should be. Mortifications, however, soon followed. I was sometimes out, sometimes turned over the leaf of the music-book too soon, sometimes was condemned to sing with a lady whose voice was as ill-suited to mine as the scream of a mackaw to the roar of a lion, and more than once was annoyed by being chained to the piano-forte, when a charming girl, whom I was longing to talk with, was sitting at a distant corner of the room with some happy unaccomplished child of leisure by her side, looking unutterable things. I found too that I was asked to "a very small party" in the evening, instead of being invited to dinner; and after all, my chief purport of making myself agreeable in conversation was unanswered, for I could not, of course, talk about music, and, as I could not sing without it, I had not the power of promoting conviviality by "chansons à boire." As to drawing, I never had an opportunity of exercising my talent, except once at the house of a friend in the country, who requested me to make a sketch of his house; in compliance with whose wish I passed most of my short visit in reducing to perspective the lines of an uninteresting square house, while the rest of the party were taking a ride over the beautiful country round it.

While I was regretting the inapplicability to my purpose of shining in society as an agreeable man, of my studies in music and drawing, I met a gentleman at dinner one day who delighted me, and apparently others, by his success in a very different line. He had an amazing fund of general knowledge, and an infallible memory for the dates of history and chronology. Whatever subject was started, he had something to say on it, and something which removed all doubts respecting it. In one instance only did he hesitate. We were disputing the age of the celebrated Duchess of This he would not take

on himself to state from memory, but he supplied the defect by drawing from his pocket a very small memorandum-book, written in a neat diminutive hand, from which he read to us the date of her birth. This man delighted me more than any I had yet met, as mixing so much of the useful with the agreeable. I outstaid him, that I might hear the opinion of others, before I fixed or acted on my own; and all the party, even the youngest of the ladies, agreed that he was "one of the pleasantest men they knew."

This was enough for me. To work I went immediately: I increased my library as much as a prudent regard to finances permitted me; I subscribed to the most extensive circulating library in town; I attended Feinagle's lectures, and got by heart all the Memoria Technicas that ever were; I carefully read the histories the events of which were most likely to be discussed in conversation, making copious notes from them in a commonplace-book, and I did not forget the small memorandum-book (which, however, I resolved should appear as seldom as possible) in which I noted down the dates of such occurrences as are most generally the theme of conversation. All this cost

me infinite labour and no small degree of confinement; but I consoled myself with the reflection, that even if I missed my first object of shining in society, I was acquiring a good stock of useful and available knowledge.

I succeeded in this line with more satisfaction to myself than in any I had yet tried, for the display of my stores evidently procured me respect. But I found I had put myself in possession of a weapon which nothing but the most delicate management could prevent from recoiling on my own head, like a flail in an unskilful hand. I was placed on my guard against this by an incident that occurred soon after I began to shew my powers. A gentleman was shewing in a party where I was present an old English coin, much defaced, of which the date was all obliterated except the figure 8. This he passed round with great delight as one of Egbert, and descanted very learnedly on his reasons for attributing it to that monarch; but I defeated his arguments at one blow, by saying that the Arabie figures were not introduced into Europe till 991, nearly two hundred years after Egbert's accession to the throne. My triumph was complete, and I got great credit for my accuracy; but I had made an enemy of the possessor of the coin, whose ignorance I had exposed, and whose temper was in consequence soured for the rest of the evening, a result for which I suffered in the estimation of the lady of the house, for his fortune and station made him a much more welcome guest at her table than I was.

I could guard against this in future; but there was another inconvenience, from which I found it more difficult to shield myself. I discovered that it required higher rank and more consideration than I enjoyed to be so prominent a figure in company as I was frequently rendered by the introduction of my knowledge. No one could be more cautious than I was not to obtrude my learning, to avoid which I found the safest way was never to begin a subject, but to take it up when advanced by others: but still I often saw that for one who was edified or pleased by my illustrations, three or four were ennuyés (with all my studies, Mr. Editor, I could never find an English word to express that); and this happened the more frequently to me, because, as my character spread, I was applied to by some one, at the end of the table perhaps, whom I could not answer without being heard by all the rest of the party. Among my young acquaintance, too, I got the name of "the Dictionary," a character which subjects a man to numberless disappointments, for he loses more reputation by owning his inability to answer one question, than he gains by replying to fifty. I was once indirectly attacked by a dolt, who scarcely ever spoke three words, and when he did, two of them were not to the purpose, with a sneer against those who read for conversation. I did not condescend to defend this class of men against him; but surely, Mr. Editor, this is a most unjust prejudice, for if a man be entertaining, what can it signify to those whom he amuses how he collected his materials? These evils struck me so forcibly, that I began to take almost as much pains to hide my knowledge as I had before to acquire it.