What stories they tell of one another, more particularly of their friends! If I durst only give some of these confidential communications!... The reader may perhaps think the foregoing a specimen of them:--but indeed he is mistaken. I do not know of any greater impertinence, than for an obscure individual to set about pumping a character of celebrity. "Bring him to me," said a Doctor Tronchin, speaking of Rousseau, "that I may see whether he has anything in him." Before you can take measure of the capacity of others, you ought to be sure that they have not taken measure of yours. They may think you a spy on them, and may not like their company. If you really want to know whether another person can talk well, begin by saying a good thing yourself, and you will have a right to look for a rejoinder. "The best tennis-players," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "make the best matches." ----------------For wit is like a rest Held up at tennis, which men do the best With the best players. We hear it often said of a great author, or a great actress, that they are very stupid people in private. But he was a fool that said so. _Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your manners._ In conversation, as in other things, the action and reaction should bear a certain proportion to each other.--Authors may, in some sense, be looked upon as foreigners, who are not naturalised even in their native soil. L---- once came down into the country to see us. He was "like the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." The country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his jokes. It would be strange if they had; for he did not make any, while he staid. But when he crossed the country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well met; and in the quadrangles, he "walked gowned."