It is a substantial affliction, when men govern themselves by the rules of good-breeding, that by the very force of them they are subjected to the insolence of those who either never will, or never can, understand them. The superficial part of mankind form to themselves little measures of behaviour from the outside of things. By the force of these narrow conceptions, they act amongst themselves with applause, and do not apprehend they are contemptible to those of higher understanding, who are restrained by decencies above their knowledge from showing a dislike. Hence it is, that because complaisance is a good quality in conversation, one impertinent takes upon him on all occasions to commend; and because mirth is agreeable, another thinks fit eternally to jest. I have of late received many packets of letters complaining of these spreading evils. A lady who is lately arrived at the Bath acquaints me, there was in the stage-coach wherein she went down, a common flatterer, and a common jester. These gentlemen were (she tells me) rivals in her favour; and adds, if there ever happened a case wherein of two persons one was not liked more than another, it was in that journey. They differed only in proportion to the degree of dislike between the nauseous and the insipid. Both these characters of men are born out of a barrenness of imagination. They are never fools by nature, but become such out of an impotent ambition of being what she never intended them, men of wit and conversation. I therefore think fit to declare, that according to the known laws of this land, a man may be a very honest gentleman, and enjoy himself and his friend, without being a wit; and I absolve all men from taking pains to be such for the future. As the present case stands, is it not very unhappy that Lysander must be attacked and applauded in a wood, and Corinna jolted and commended in a stage-coach; and this for no manner of reason, but because other people have a mind to show their parts? I grant indeed, if these people (as they have understanding enough for it) would confine their accomplishments to those of their own degree of talents, it were to be tolerated; but when they are so insolent as to interrupt the meditations of the wife, the conversations of the agreeable, and the whole behaviour of the modest, it becomes a grievance naturally in my jurisdiction. Among themselves, I cannot only overlook, but approve it. I was present the other day at a conversation, where a man of this height of breeding and sense told a young woman of the same form, "To be sure, madam, everything must please that comes from a lady." She answered, "I know, sir, you are so much a gentleman that you think so." Why, this is very well on both sides; and it is impossible that such a gentleman and lady should do other than think well of one another. These are but loose hints of the disturbances in human society, of which there is yet no remedy; but I shall in a little time publish