manner, or to behave as if we thought them inferior to ourselves. A Christian is taught to "bear and forbear;" and a gentleman ought to follow the same precept.

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Ill-manners seem to arise from three sources, ill-nature, pride, and the want of sound sense. The first indicates an intention of offending, rather than a wish to oblige; it makes harsh reflections and illiberal remarks. Pride assumes dogmatical air, treats even its equals with contempt, and wounds the feelings of its inferiors by a show of condescension and an affectation of civility. Folly acts and speaks at random, and makes no distinction of persons or occasions. Good-manners, by being opposed to these instances of misbehaviour, may seem to form merely a negative quality or habit; yet the result is that positive complacency which is calculated to give general satisfaction.

There are some established forms of good-breeding which are to be learned by mingling with general society; but there is one plain rule, equivalent to all the rest. A person who pretends to possess the feelings of a social man, or who claims the character of a gentleman, ought to exhibit an easy, quiet, friendly manner, which doubles the value of every word and action. A forward, noisy, importunate, overbearing way of talking, is a strong proof of ill-breeding; and hasty contradiction, unseasonable interruption of persons in their discourse, loud laughter without apparent cause, winks, grimaces, and affected contortions of the body, are not only of low extraction in themselves, but are the sure symptoms of self-sufficiency and impudence. True gentility, when improved by good sense, avoids every assumption of self-conceit, and polite humility takes all opportunities of giving to the company that importance which each individual may fairly claim. In our intercourse with mankind, we ought to consider that the affairs of others are of greater consequence in their eyes than our's are, and we should treat them on this principle, unless we should be occasionally questioned, and directed to our - own concerns by the turn of the conversation. Discretion will generally fix on some subject in which the assembled persons have a common share. If all, except yourself or perhaps one other guest, should be unscientific, do not intro

duce the abstruseness of science; if you should be the only man of the law in the social circle, do not dwell on the forms or the technicalities of your own profession. He who speaks chiefly of such subjects as are familiar to himself, but which are little known to others who are present, treats the company as the stork did the fox, presenting a refreshment to him in a deep pitcher, out of which no creature but a long-billed bird could extract any thing.

We ought to add, that, among intimate and confidential friends, the strictness of these rules may be relaxed. In such company, freedom and pleasantry may occasionally be allowed to supersede the rigors of formality. Yet, even in the most friendly party, too great familiarity, if it be accompanied with roughness and importunity, may become offensive, and injurious to the permanence of friendship, which must be treated with some degree of tenderness and delicacy.

While we thus exhort our readers to cultivate good-manners, we do not recommend the meanness of obsequious complaisance or abject humility. We ought not to encourage, by indiscriminate acquiescence, the rudeness or ill-behaviour of others.

Let us rather defend, but without passion, those individuals, more particularly females, who are insulted or unjustly attacked. Let us boldly support the cause of religion by rebuking the infidels who dare to scoff at it, maintain the interests of morality by remonstrating with the unprincipled men who assail or undermine it, and advocate the claims of good government by animadverting on the sinister views and objects of those who, under the pretence of reform, would wish to overthrow it. This will be no violation of the genuine rules of good-manners.

It is remarkable that dean Swift, who was frequently very coarse and vulgar in his behaviour, and disposed to ridicule all delicacy or refinement, should have composed some rules for good-manners, far superior to those of the earl of Chesterfield, who yet was considered as a finished gentleman. The reason may be, that the divine, though eccentric, had better stamina of sense and virtue than one who mingled frivolity with his talents, and degraded his understanding by a neglect of moral principles.

CONFESSIONS OF LOVE,

by Dr. Doddridge.

THE worthy divine, though he refused to conform with the religious establishment, was sufficiently inclined to follow that civil and social custom of his country, or that law of nature, which prompts young persons to fall in love, or at least to fancy that they are in love. In early youth, he said to a female friend, after hinting that he had a most important secret to disclose, "I must give it utterance in these words. Madam, I am-in-love,—and that is all; and, you will say, enough too. And yet, upon second thoughts, that is not all either; for I am most violently in love with a charming girl that lives in the neighbourhood of Leicester, about seventeen years of age, and, to borrow an Arabian phrase, as beautiful as the moon in her fullness.

I have frequently told you that I have a heart exactly prepared to receive the fondest and tenderest impressions. But Clarinda has charms that would awaken the most stupid, and subdue the most obdurate. She is the darling of the old, and the joy of the young; the idol of our sex, and the envy of her own. You see my style begins to grow exalted, and my sentiments rapturous. But, en vérité, she is such a girl that language cannot paint. And now, madam, do you judge what work such a dreadful lovely creature must create in the soft sensitive breast of your dutiful nephew. Reason and philosophy yielded at her first ap pearance; and, when they afterwards rallied their forces, it was only that they might receive a more signal defeat. I own, madam, that your letters have done me considerable service; for who can resist the force of reason and the charms of wit, when communicated with so much freedom and good-nature? but, as soon as those dear papers are laid aside, I forget every thing but Clarinda. I dream of her in the night, and rave of her in the day. If my tutor asks me a ques tion about predestination, I answer him that Clarinda is the prettiest creature in the world! Or, if I sit down to make a sermon against transubstantiation, I cannot forbear cautioning my hearers against the excesses of love. Now and then, after a long course of abstinence and mortification, I get a lucid interval for a few moments; but, if I touch a romance

or a play, drink a glass of wine, or take a cup of chocolate, I presently relapse. I am at this time tolerably serene, and therefore I earnestly entreat you to tell me what I must do. Recollect I have a wonderful opinion of your skill, or I should not put myself into your hands; but I beg that you will use me with a great deal of tenderness, or I shall certainly be killed outright. I do not inquire how I may gain my mistress, which, perhaps, might be very possible,— but how I may conquer this impetuous, ungovernable passion. It will certainly be a hard task, but I see that it is a very necessary one; for, in the first place, I have not the least thought of marrying till near thirty, unless I have a very clear and undeniable call, which, I think, will not be these ten years. And a more important consideration remains to be told; this dear, charming Clarinda, with all her wit, beauty, and tenderness, goodbreeding and piety, is-I am sorry to say it, but she is the daughter of a dissenting minister, that has half-a-dozen children more to provide for! O aunt! why have not I five hundred a-year, that I might marry a girl of a small fortune, without ruining both her and myself."

To the fair Kitty, for whom he seems to have cherished a more fervent passion than for any other of his sweethearts, though he had not the happiness of leading her to the altar, he thus writes :-" It is with a great deal of pleasure that I sit down to converse for a few moments with my dear and charming mistress, whose company is more to me than the whole world besides, and without whom I seem to be half alone, even in London, that seat of entertainment and improvement, although surrounded by a circle of the kindest and most agreeable friends. I have a thousand tender things in my heart, which I should be very desirous to transcribe upon this occasion. But it is my misfortune, that, instead of a whole delightful morning, it is but a few minutes that are allowed me to converse with you; and, if I am not upon my guard, I shall spend the whole of my time in describing and lamenting its shortness. I will not, my dear creature, throw away these precious moments merely in saying that I love you. I have told it you already a thousand times, and you have had the justice to acknowlege that you believe it; indeed, if I had never given my passion

utterance, your own merit and my disposition, joined with our intimate acquaint ance, might have prompted you to suspect it. You have sometimes been pleased to express your apprehensions that some of the polite ladies about London might make a more powerful impression upon my heart; and I would fain remove such ideas, which, as they are very unreasonable in themselves, may be equally prejudicial to me; and I hope I shall now be able to succeed; for I have within these few days conversed very freely with a great variety of the most agreeable women whom I have the pleasure of knowing, and have been very curious in remarking their behaviour, and examining their characters; and, upon the whole, I have not found any one of them that could have made herself mistress of my heart, though it had been entirely disengaged, much less for whom I could be contented to exchange you. Indeed, I cannot but feel surprised to think, that I have found a dear girl at Burton, who so far exceeds the most celebrated among them, not only in beauty, seriousness, sincerity, and good. nature, which seem the more natural growth of the country, but even in good sense and politeness, which they are ready to challenge as their distinguishing prerogative. I therefore once more posi. tively assure you, and I give it you under my hand, that I neither will nor can entertain any thought of a change, but that you may be as secure of the constancy as of the sincerity of my affection, I heartily wish I could have the same confidence in you. But indeed, madam, you must pardon me, when I say, that I have many tormenting fears, as to the effect which may be produced in your mind, which was never over-resolute, by an absence of so many weeks; and these apprehensions are very much increased, when I consider that there are some persons about you, who, though they may be my friends in every thing else, are yet my enemies in that one great affair, in which I have the most occasion for their kind assistance. I hope they will not be so injurious as to assault me while I am at so great a distance, and utterly unable to defend myself. But, if they should insinuate any thing to my disadvantage, I do most earnestly entreat you to remember, that, as my worldly happiness is centred in you, so in all human probability they are pleading for the ruin of

VOL. X.

"My Dear

Pisa, Feb. 6, 1822.

Try back the deep lane,' till we find a publisher for the Vision; and, if none such is to be found, print fifty copies at my expense, distribute them amongst my acquaintance, and you will soon see that the booksellers will publish them even if we oppose them. That they are now afraid is natural; but I do not see that I ought to give way on that account. I know nothing of Rivington's Remonstrance by the Eminent Churchman; but I suppose he wants a living. I once heard of a preacher at Kentish-town against 'Cain." The same outcry was raised against Priestley, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, and all the men who dared to put tithes to the question.

"I have got -'s pretended reply, to which I am surprised that you do not allude. What remains to be done, is to call him out. The question is, would be come? For, if he would not, the whole thing would appear ridiculous, if I were to take a long and expensive journey to no purpose. You must be my second, and, as such, I wish to consult you. apply to you as one well versed in the duello or monomachie. Of course, I shall come to England as privately as possible, and leave it (supposing that I was the survivor) in the same manner, having no other object which could bring me to that country except to settle quarrels accumulated during my absence.

I

"By the last post I transmitted to you a letter upon some Rochdale toll business, from which there are moneys in prospect. My agent says two thousand pounds; but, supposing it to be only one, or even one hundred, still they be moneys, and I have lived long enough to have an exceeding respect for the smallest current coin of any realm, or the least

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sum, which; although I may not want it myself, may do something for others who may need it more than I. They say that knowlege is power;'-I used to think so; but I now know that they meant money and when Socrates de clared, that all he knew was, that he knew nothing,' he merely intended to declare, that he had not a drachm in the Athenian world. The circulars are arrived, and circulating like the vortices of Descartes. Still I have a due care of the needful, and keep a look-out a-head. As my notions upon the score of money coincide with yours, and with all men's who have lived to see that every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his touchstone, you will doubt me the less when I pronounce my firm belief, that cash is virtue. I cannot reproach myself with much expenditure, my only extra expense (and it is more than I have spent upon myself) being a loan of two hundred and fifty pounds to and

fifty pounds' worth of furniture which I have bought for him, and a boat which I am building for myself at Genoa, which will cost about a hundred pounds more.

"But to return. I am determined to have all the money I can, whether by my own funds, or succession, or lawsuit, or MSS., or any lawful means whatever. I will pay (though with the sincerest reluctance) my remaining creditors, and every man of law, by installments, from the award of the arbitrators. I recom. mend to you the notice in Mr. Hanson's letter, on the demand of money for the Rochdale tolls. Above all, I recommend my interests to your honorable worship. Recollect, too, that I expect some money for the various MSS. (no matter what); and, in short, Rem quocunque modo, Rem!' The noble feeling of cupidity grows upon us with our years.

"Your's, ever and truly,
"NOEL BYRON."

Genoa, Nov. 1822. "My Dear—.—I have finished the twelfth canto of Don Juan, which I will forward when copied. With the sixth, seventh, and eighth in one volume, and the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth in another, the whole may form two volumes, of about the same size as the two former. There are some good things in them, as perhaps may be allowed. Perhaps one volume had better be pub

lished with one publisher, and the other with another; it would be a new experiment: or one in one month and another in the next, or both at once. What thinkest thou? Murray, long after the piracies, offered me a thousand guineas a canto for as many as I might choose to write. He has since departed from this proposal, for it was too much, and I would not take advantage of it. You must, however, use your own judgement with regard to the MSS. and let me know what you propose; presuming always— what may at last be but a presumption

that the seven new cantos are, on the whole, equal to the five former. Sup. pose Hunt, or somebody else, were to publish one canto a week, upon the same size and paper, to correspond with the various former editions? but this is merely as a vision, and may be very foolish, for aught I know. I have read the defence of Cain, which is very good; who can be the author? As to myself, I shall not be deterred by any outery; your present public hate me, but they shall not interrupt the march of my mind, nor prevent me from telling those who are attempting to trample on all thought, that their thrones shall yet be rocked to their foundations. It is Madame de Stael who says, 'that all talent has a propensity to attack the strong.' I have never flattered-whether it be or be not a proof of talent.

"I have just seen the illustrious who came to visitate me here. I had not seen him these ten years. He had a black wig, and has been made a knight for writing against the queen. He wants a diplomatic situation, and seems likely to want it. He found me thinner even than in 1813; for since my late illness at Lerici, in my way here, I have subsided into my more meagre outline, and am obliged to be very abstinent, by medical advice, on account of liver and what not. But to the point, or, at least, my point, in mentioning this new chevalier. Ten years ago I lent him a thousand pounds, on condition that he would not go to the Jews; he took the money and went to the Jews. Now, as Mr.

is a purchaser of bonds, will he purchase this of me? or will any body else, at a discount?

"I have been invited by the Americans on board of their squadron bere, and received with the greatest kindness and rather too much ceremony. They have