in blunt honesty, as he calls it, now and then speaks his mind, to the pain and disgust of all present; or, with an importance, which nothing but his dulness can exceed, occasionally distills a sentence or two, drop by drop, from his oracular lips.

Politeness, in the common intercourse of the world, is a subsidium to what Christian love is in the better system of religion and virtue. The former may be defined, "A constant attention to oblige, to do or say nothing, which may give pain or offence." And Christian love is a continual endeavour to please, in order to promote our neighbour's best welfare. While, therefore, my young friends, you act upon the amiable principles of Christian truth, let that love especially, which is the most refined politeness, be the principal regulator of your behaviour in conversation. "Study always to please, in order to improve and do good." Good sense, good humour, and good breeding, unite in nearly the same dictate; and if they carry not the motive so far as it is carried by Christianity, rejoice, that you have the happy, the plain direction of a precept to form your behaviour, which is no less infallibly productive of your own internal peace and felicity, than it is certain to recommend you to the approbation and good esteem of others.

Anecdotes respecting Conversation.

1. Plutarch tells us, in a few words, what an infinite advantage Alexander reaped from the fine taste wherewith his preceptor Aristotle inspired him, even from his tenderest infancy. "He loved," says our author, "to converse with learned men ; to improve himself in knowledge; and to study." Three sources these, of a monarch's happiness, which enable him to secure himself from numberless difficulties; three certain and infallible methods of learning to reign without the assistance of others.

2. It was Mr Locke's peculiar art in conversation, to lead

people to talk of their own profession, or whatever they best understood. With a gardener, he discoursed of gardening; with a jeweller, of diamonds; with a chemist of chemistry; with a watchmaker, of clocks, watches, &c. "By this means," said he, "I please all those men, who commonly can speak pertinently upon nothing else. As they believe I have an esteem for their profession, they are charmed with shewing their abilities before me; and I in the meantime improve myself by their discourse." By thus putting questions to artificers, he would sometimes find out a secret in their art which they did not understand themselves; and often give them views of the subject entirely new, which they put into practice with advantage.

3. The faculty of interchanging our thoughts with one another, or what we express by conversation, has always been represented by moral writers, as one of the noblest privileges of reason, and which more particularly sets mankind above the brute part of creation. Monsieur Varillas once told his friend, the author of the Menagiana, that out of every ten things he knew, he had learned nine in conversation. And I too, says M. Menage, can in a great measure declare the same.

6. The utility and excellence of rational conversation cannot perhaps be expressed in words more beautiful and elegant than the following, by Dr Young :—

Good sense will stagnate. Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.

Had thought been all, sweet speech had been deny'd;
Speech, thought's canal! Speech, thought's criterion too!
Thought in the mine, may come forth gold or dross;
When coin'd in words we know its real worth.

If sterling, store it for thy future use;
'Twill buy thee benefit, perhaps renown.
Thought too, deliver'd, is the more possess'd;
Teaching we learn; and giving we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.

ST BERNARD'S DYING CHARGE.

Speech ventilates our intellectual fire;
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie,
Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rusted in; who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech;
If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange, which, like th' alternate push
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the student's standing pool.

Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field;
Converse, the menage, breaks it to the bit
Of due restraint; and emulation's spur
Gives graceful energy, by rivals aw'd.
'Tis converse qualifies for solitude,
As exercise, for salutary rest.

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8. Of all the inconveniences attending the intercourse of mankind, slander and detraction are the most frequent, and in a very high degree odious and detestable. We are told of St Bernard, that when he was drawing near his end, he thus solemnly addressed himself to his brethren, as a dying man bequeathing legacies to his friends. "Three things I require you to keep and observe; which I remember to have kept, to the best of my power, as long as I have lived. 1. I have not willed to slander any person; and if any have fallen, I have hid it as much as possible. 2. I have ever trusted less to my own wit and understanding than to any other's. 3. If I were at any time hurt, harmed, and annoyed, I never wished vengeance against the party who so wronged me.” This memorable sentence is peculiarly applicable to every branch of the present subject; defamation, insolent overbearing, and petulant animosity, being the chief ingredients that tend to embitter conversation, and preclude its improvement and advantage.

15. A prudent man will avoid talking much of any particular science, for which he is remarkably famous. There is

not a handsomer thing said of Mr Cowley, in his whole life, than that none but his intimate friends ever discovered he was a great poet by his discourse. Besides the decency of this rule, it is certainly founded in that good policy of which Mr. Locke, as above mentioned, so well availed himself. A man who talks of anything he is already famous for, has little to get, but a great deal to lose.

17. Sir Richard Steele observes, that there are some men who on all occasions, in all companies, talk in the same circle and round of chat as they have picked up in their daily peregrinations. I remember, says he, at a full table in the city, one of these ubiquitary wits was entertaining the company with a soliloquy (for so I call it, when a man talks to those who do not understand him) concerning wit and humour. An honest gentleman, who sat next to me, and was worth half a plumb, stared at him, and observing there was some sense, as he thought, mixed with his impertinence, whispered me, "Take my word for it, this fellow is more knave than fool." This was all my good friend's applause of the wittiest man of talk that I was ever present at, which wanted nothing to make it excellent, but that there was no occasion for it.*

18. The same ingenious author has the following remarks on loquacity. I look upon a tedious talker, or what is generally known by the name of "a story-teller," to be much more insufferable than even a prolix writer. An author may be tossed out of your hand, and thrown aside, when he grows dull and tiresome; but such liberties are so far from being allowed towards these orators in common conversation, that I have known a challenge sent a person, for going out of the room abruptly, and leaving a man of honour in the midst of a dissertation. The life of man is too short for a story-teller. Methusalem might be half an hour in telling what o'clock it was but for us post-diluvians, we ought to do everything in

* See Tatler, No. 244.

haste; and in our speeches, as well as actions, remember that our time is short. I would establish but one great general rule to be observed in all conversation, which is this, "That men should not talk to please themselves, but those that hear them." This would make them consider, whether what they speak be worth hearing; whether there be either wit or sense in what they are about to say; and whether it be adapted to the time when, the place where, and the person to whom it is spoken.

DR OGDEN.

SAMUEL OGDEN was born at Manchester, July 28, 1716. He studied first at King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards at St John's. For some time he was master of the Free Grammar School at Halifax; but in 1753 he resigned it and came to reside at Cambridge, where he continued till his death, March 22, 1778. He was not only a Fellow of St John's, but Woodwardian Professor; and most of his sermons were delivered in the parish church of St Sepulchre to a numerous audience of students and the younger members of the university.

Usually cold, and sometimes feeble, there is nevertheless in Dr Ogden's sermons much that is instructive and pleasing. They are short-they are neat-they usually contain some important thought or original idea-and they are the work of a man who knows his own mind.