fays little, thinks lefs, and does nothing at all, faith but he's a man of great eftate, and values nobody. Aim. A fportfman, I fuppofe? Bon. Yes, he's a man of pleasure; he plays at whift, and fmokes his pipe eightand-forty hours together fometimes. Aim. A fine fportfman, truly!-and married, you say? Bon. Ay; and to a curious woman, Sir. -But he's my landlord, and so a man, you know, would not-Sir, my humble fervice to you. [Drinks.]-Tho' I value not a farthing what he can do to me: I pay him his rent at quarter-day; I have a good running trade; I have but one daughter, and I can give her--but no matter for that. Aim. You're very happy, Mr. Boniface: : pray, what other company have you in town? Bon. A power of fine ladies; and then we have the French officers. Aim. O, that's right, you have a good many of thofe gentlemen: pray, how do you like their company? Bon. So well, as the faying is, that I could wish we had as many more of 'em. They're full of money, and pay double for every thing they have. They know, Sir, that we paid good round taxes for the taking of 'em; and fo they are willing to reimburse us a little one of 'em lodges in my houfe. [Bell rings.]-I beg your worthip's pardon--I'll wait on you in half a minute. $23. Endeavour to pleafe, and you can fcarcely fail to please. The means of pleafing vary according to time, place, and perfon; but the general rule is the trite one. Endeavour to pleafe, and you will infallibly please to a certain degree: conftantly fhew a defire to pleafe, and you will engage people's felf-love in your intereft; a moft powerful advocate. This, as indeed almoft every thing elfe, depends on attention. Be therefore attentive to the most trifling thing that paffes where you are; have, as the vulgar phrafe is, your eyes and your ears always about you. It is a very foolifh, though a very common faying, "I "really did not mind it," or, "I was think "ing of quite another thing at that time." The proper answer to fuch ingenious excufes, and which admits of no reply, is, Why did you not mind it? you was prefent when it was faid or done. Oh! but you may fay, you was thinking of quite another thing: if fo, why was you not in quite another place proper for that important other thing, which you fay you was thinking of? But you will fay perhaps, that the company was fo filly, that it did not deferve your attention: that, I am fure, is the faying of a filly man; for a man of fenfe knows that there is no company fo filly, that fome ufe may not be made of it by attention. Let your addrefs, when you firft come into company, be modeft, but without the leaft bafhfulness or sheepishness; fteady, without impudence; and unembarraffed, as if you were in your own room. This is a difficult point to hit, and therefore deferves great attention; nothing but a long ufage in the world, and in the best company, can poffibly give it. A young man, without knowledge of the world, when he firft goes into a fathionable company, where moit are his fuperiors, is commonly either annihilated by bafhfulnefs, or, if he roufes and lashes himself up to what he only thinks a modeft affurance, he runs into impudence and abfurdity, and confequently offends inftead of pleafing. Have always, as much as you can, that gentleness of manners, which never fails to make favourable impreflions, provided it be equally free from an infipid fmile, or a pert fmirk. Carefully avoid an argumentative and difputative turn, which too many people have, and fome even value themfelves upon, in company; and, when your opinion differs from others, maintain it only with modefty, calinnefs, and gentleness; but never be eager, loud, or clamorous; and, when you find your antagonist beginning to grow warm, put an end to the difpute by fome genteel troke of humour. For, take it for granted, if the two best friends in the world difpute with eagerness upon the moft trifling fubject imaginable, they will, for the time, find a momentary alienation from each other. Difputes upon any fubject are a fort of trial of the understanding, and muft end in the mortification of one or other of the difputants. On the other hand, I am far from meaning that you fhould give an univerfal affent to all that you hear faid in company; fuch an affent would be mean, and in fome cafes criminal; but blame with indulgence, and correct with gentleness. Always look people in the face when you fpeak to them; the not doing it is thought to imply confcious guilt; befides that, you If have not command enough over re any one I have indeed known fome very ill-natured people, who were very good-humoured in company; but I never knew generally ill-humoured in company, who was not effentially ill-natured. When there is no malevolence in the heart, there is always a cheerfulness and ease in the countenance and manners. By good-humour and cheerfulness, I am far from meaning noify mirth and loud peals of laughter, which are the diftinguishing characteristics of the vulgar and of the ill-bred, whofe mirth is a kind of storm. Obferve it, the vulgar often laugh, but never fmile; whereas, well-bred people often fmile, but feldom laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter; it pleafes only the mind, and never diftorts the countenance: a glaring abfurdity, a blunder, a filly accident, and thofe things that are generally called comical, may excite a laugh, though never a loud nor a long one, among well-bred people. Sudden paffion is called fhort-lived madnefs; it is a madness indeed, but the fits of it return fo often in choleric people, that it may well be called a continual madness. Should you happen to be of this unfortunate difpofition, make it your conftant study to fubdue, or, at leaf, to check it; when you find your choler rifing, refolv neither to speak to, nor anfwer the perfo who excites it; but ftay till you find i Endeavour to be cool and fteady upon al fubfiding, and then speak deliberatelyj occafions; the advantages of fuch a steady calmnefs are innumerable, and would be too tedious to relate. It may be acquired by care and reflection; if it could not, that would be given us to very little purpose: reafon which diftinguishes men from brutes ever heard of a Quaker in a paffion. In as a proof of this, I never faw, and scarcely truth, there is in that fect a decorum and decency, and an amiable fimplicity, that I know in no other. Chesterfield. $24. A Dialogue between M. APICIUS and DARTENEUF. Darteneuf. Alas! poor Apicius.-I pity and my country. How many good dishes thee much, for not having lived in my age have I eat in England, that were unknown at Rome in thy days! How many good dishes have I eat in Rome, Apicius. Keep your pity for yourself.➡ the knowledge of which has been loft in thefe latter degenerate days! the fat paps phenicopters, and the tripotanum, which of a fow, the livers of fcari, the brains of confifted of three forts of fish for which you and the murænus. have no names, the lupus marinus, the myxo, been our lamprey. We have excellent ones Darteneuf. I thought the muræna had in the Severn. water fish, and kept in ponds into which Apicius. No:-the muræna was a faltthe fea was admitted. lampreys are better. Did you ever eat any Darteneuf. Why then I dare fay our of them potted or ftewed? country then was too barbarous for me to forry: for if you never Apicius. Pardon me, Sir, your Sand- they were good for nothing there:- You Darteneuf. They could not be freth: fhould have come to Sandwich to eat them: it is a fhame for you that you did not.— An epicure talk of danger when he is in fearch of a dainty! did not Leander fwim NARRATIVES, DIALOGUES, &c. over the Hellefpont to get to his mistress? Apicius. Nay-I am fure you cannot to land. Darteneuf. There was fome fenfe in that: but why did you not alfo make a voyage to Sandwich? Had you tafted those oysters in their perfection, you would never have come back: you would have eat till you burst. Apicius. I wish I had:-It would have been better than poisoning myself, as I did, becaufe, when I came to make up my accounts, I found I had not much above the poor fum of fourfcore thousand pounds left, which would not afford me a table to keep me from starving. Darteneuf. A fum of fourscore thoufand pounds not keep you from starving! would I had had it! I fhould not have spent it in twenty years, though I had kept the beft table in London, fuppofing I had made no other expence. Apicius. Alas, poor man! this fhews that you English have no idea of the luxury that reigned in our tables. Before I died, I had spent in my kitchen 807,2917. 13 s. 4 d. Darteneuf. I do not believe a word of it: there is an error in the account. Apicius. Why, the establishment of Lucullus for his fuppers in the Apollo, I mean for every fupper he eat in the room which he called by that name, was 5000 drachms, which is in your money 1614!. 11 s. 8 d. Darteneuf. Would I had fupped with him there! But is there no blunder in thefe calculations? Apicius. Ask your learned men that.-I count as they tell me.-But perhaps you may think that thefe feafts were only made by great men, like Lucullus, who had plundered all Afia to help him in his houfekeeping. What will you fay when I tell you, that the player fopus had one dish that coft him 6000 feftertia, that is, 4843. 10s. English. Darteneuf. What will I fay! why, that I pity poor Cibber and Booth; and that, if I had known this when I was alive, I fhould 723 have hanged myself for vexation that I did not live in those days. You do not know what eating is. You never could know it. Nothing less than Apicius. Well you might, well you might. the wealth of the Roman empire is fufficient to enable a man to keep a good table. Our players were richer by far than your princes. the bleffed reign of Caligula, or of VitelDarteneuf. Oh that I had but lived in mitted to the honour of dining with their lius, or of Heliogabalus, and had been adflaves! am miferable that I died before their good princes. But what affects me moft is the fopus. I cannot bear to think of his was that which fo greatly enhanced the from a lady of my acquaintance, and all not much lish wild rabbits? I have been told that you had no turkies. The mutton in Italy is very ill-flavoured; and as for your boars roafled whole, I defpife them; they were only fit to be ferved up to the mob at a corporation feaft, or election dinner. A fmall barbecued hog is worth a hundred of them; and a good collar of Shrewsbury brawn is a much better difh.. Apicius. If you had fome kinds of meat that we wanted, yet our cookery muft have been gready fuperior to yours. Our cooks were to excellent, that they could give to hog's flesh the tatte of all other meats. Darteneuf. I fhould not have liked their d-d imitations. You might as eafily have impofed on a good connoiffeur the copy of a fine picture for the original. Our cooks, on the contrary, give to all other meats a rich flavour of bacon, without deftroying that which makes the diftinction of one from another. I have not the least doubt that our effence of hams is a much better fauce than any that ever was used by the ancients. We have a hundred ragouts, the compofition of which exceeds all defcription. Had yours been as good, you could not have lolled, as you did, upon couches, while you were eating; they would have made you fit up and attend to your business. Then you had a cuftom of hearing things read to you while you were at fupper. This fhews you were not fo well entertained as we are with our meat. For my own part, when I was at table, I could mind nothing else: I neither heard, faw, nor fpoke: I only fmelt and tafted. But the worst of all is, that you had no wine fit to be named with good claret or Burgundy, or Champagne, or old hock, or Tokay. You boafted much of your Falernum; but I have tafted the Lachrymæ Chrifti, and other wines that grow upon the fame coaft, not one of which would I drink above a glafs or two of if you would give me the kingdom of Naples. You boiled your wines, and mixed water with them, which fhews that in themselves they were not fit to drink. Apicius. I am afraid you beat us in wines, not to mention your cyder, perry, and beer, of all which I have heard great fame from fome English with whom I have talked; and their report has been confirmed by the teftimony of their neighbours who have travelled into England. Wonderful things have been alfo faid to me of a liquor called punch. Darteneuf. Aye-to have died without tafting that is unhappy indeed! There is rum-punch and arrack-punch; it is hard to fay which is beft: but Jupiter would have given his nectar for either of them, upon my word and honour. Apicius. The thought of it puts me into a fever with thirst. From whence do you get your arrack and your rum? Darteneuf. Why, from the Eaft and Weft Indies, which you knew nothing of. That is enough to decide the difpute. Your trade to the Eaft Indies was very far fhort of what we carry on, and the Weft Indies were not discovered. What a new world of good things for eating and drinking has Columbus opened to us Think of that, and despair. Apicius. I cannot indeed but lament my ill fate, that America was not found before I was born. It tortures me when I hear of chocolate, pine-apples, and twenty other fine meats or fine fruits produced there, which I have never tafted. What an advantage it is to you, that all your fweetmeats, tarts, cakes, and other delicacies of that nature, are sweetened with fugar inftead of honey, which we were obliged to make use of for want of that plant! but what grieves me moft is, that I never eat a turtle; they tell me that it is abfolutely the best of all foods. Darteneuf. Yes, I have heard the Americans fay fo:-but I never eat any; for, in my time, they were not brought over to England. Apicius. Never eat any turtle! how didft thou dare to accuse me of not going to Sandwich to eat oysters, and didit nct thy felf take a trip to America to riot on turtles? but know, wretched man, that I am informed they are now as plentiful in England as fturgeon. There are turtle-boats that go regularly to London and Briftol from the Weft Indies. I have juft feen a fat alderman, who died in London laft week of a furfeit he got at a turtle feast in that city. Darteneuf. What does he fay? Does he tell you that turtle is better than venifon? Apicius. He fays there was a haunch of venifon untouched, while every mouth was employed on the turtle; that he ate till he fell aflcep in his chair; and, that the food was fo wholesome he should not have died, if he had not unluckily caught cold in his fleep, which ftopped his perfpiration, and hurt his digeftion. Darteneuf. Alas! how imperfect is hu man man felicity! I lived in an age when the pleasure of eating was thought to be carried to its highest perfection in England and France; and yet a turtle feaft is a novelty to me! Would it be impoffible, do you think, to obtain leave from Pluto of going back for one day, just to taste of that food? I would promite to kill myfelf by the quantity I would eat before the next morning. Apicius. You have forgot, Sir, that you have no body that which you had has been rotten a great while ago; and you can never return to the earth with another, unless Pythagoras carries you thither to animate that of a hog. But comfort yourself, that, as you have ate dainties which I never tafted, fo the next generation will eat fome unknown to the prefent. New difcoveries will be made, and new delicacies brought from other parts of the world. We mult both be philofophers. We must be thankful for the good things we have had, and not grudge others better, if they fall to their fhare. Confider that, after all, we could but have eat as much as our ftomachs would hold, and that we did every day of our lives.-But fee, who comes hither? I think it is Mercury. Mercury. Gentlemen, I must tell you that I have ftood near you invisible, and heard your difcourfe; a privilege which we deities ufe when we pleafe. Attend therefore to a discovery which I fhall make to you, relating to the fubject upon which you were talking. I know two men, one of whom lived in ancient, and the other in modern times, that had more pleafure in eating than either of you ever had in your lives. Apicius. One of thefe, I prefume, was a Sybarite, and the other a French gentleman fettled in the West Indies. Mercury. No; one was a Spartan foldier, and the other an English farmer.-I fee you both look aftonished; but what I tell you is truth. The foldier never ate his black broth till the exercifes, to which by their difcipline the Spartan troops were obliged, had got him fuch an appetite, that he could have gnawed a bone like a dog. The farmer was out at the tail of his plough, or fome other wholefome labour, from morning till night; and when he came home his wife dreffed him a piece of good beef, or a fine barn-door fowl and a pudding, for his dinner, which he ate much more ravenously, and confequently with a great deal more relish and pleasure, than you did your tripotanum or your ham-pye. Your ftomachs were always fo overcharged, that I queftion if ever you felt real hunger, or eat one meal in twenty years without forcing your appetites, which makes all things infipid. I tell you therefore again, that the foldier and the farmer had much more of the joy of eating than you. Darteneuf. This is more mortifying than not to have fhared a turtle feaft. I fear indeed we have been in quite a wrong fyftem, and never had any true notions of pleafure. Apicius. It is a fad thing not to know what good living is before one is dead. I with, Mercury, you had taught me your art of cookery in my life-time, or held your tongue about it here. Dialogues of the Dead. $25. Scene between IAGO and CASSIO, in which CASSIO regrets his Folly in getting drunk. Iago. What are you hurt, Lieute nant ? Caf. Paft all furgery. lago. Marry, Heav'n forbid ! Caf. Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh I have loft my reputation! I have loft the immortal part of myself, and what remains is beftial. My reputation! Iago, my reputation lago. As I am an honeft man, I thought you had received fome bodily wound: there is more fenfe in that, than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and moft falfe impofition: oft got without merit, and loft without deferving. What, man!-there are ways to recover the general again. Sue to him, and he's your's. Caf. I will rather fue to be defpis'd. -Drunk! and fquabble! fwagger! fwear! and difcourfe fuftian with one's own fhadow! Oh thou invincible fpirit of wine! if thou haft no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil. Iago. What was he that you follow'd with your fword? what had he done to you? Caf. I know not. Iago. Is't poffible? Caf. I remember a mafs of things, but nothing diftinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. Oh, that men fhould put an enemy in their mouths to fteal away their brains! that we should with joy, pleafance, revel, and applaufe, transform ourselves into beafts! 3 A 3 Lago. |