I. The signification of the word Urbanity is equivocal, so that when you read it in different authors who lived in distinct times, you will find, the sense they understood it in varied exceedingly. It’s immediate derivation is from the Latin word _Urbanus_, which springs from _urbs_ a city; but notwithstanding this, it did not imply city in general; for it’s meaning at first, was confined in an especial manner to signify the city of Rome. II. The reason of this was, that the word _urbanus_ began to be first made use of, at the time that the Roman republic was in the zenith of it’s prosperity, and this may be evidently inferred, from Quintilian’s saying the word was new in the days of Cicero; _Cicero favorem, et urbanum nova credit._ It was then that the generical word _urbs_ began to be used by way of eminence, to signify the city of Rome, on account of it’s portentous grandeur; and with the same pace that Rome proceeded to domineer over the world, that sort of culture which the Romans looked upon as an excellence peculiar to themselves, proceeded to gain ground, and prevail in the city, and it was then that the Romans began to make use of the word _Urbanus_, to express that compound sort of cultivation that people received there, which seemed not to be confined to letters and sciences only, but also to comprehend manner and punctillo also; _homo urbanus_, _sermo urbanus_; and they used the word _urbanitas_, to express those accomplishments in an abstracted sense. III. But all authors did not give the same extension to the cultivation implied by the word _urbanitas_. Cicero, as we know from his book _de claris oratoribus_, restrained it to a graceful manner of speaking, which was peculiar to the Romans. IV. Quintilian thinks, the graceful manner of speaking, which was peculiar to the Romans, and which consisted in their proper choice of words, their just application of them, and the decent tone of their voices, did not comprehend the whole, but was only a part of the accomplishment that was meant to be expressed by the term Urbanity; and he assigns as another part appertaining to it, a tincture of erudition acquired by frequent conversation with learned men; _nam, et urbanitas dicitur, qua quidem significari sermonem præ se ferentem in verbis, et sono, et usu proprium quemdam gustum urbis, et sumptam ex conversatione doctorum tacitam eruditionem, denique cui contraria sit rusticitas_.