tuous counsellors, than to contemplate a virtuous sovereign delegating his authority to unprincipled and licentious servants.

The king who declares his resolution of countenancing the virtuous only amongst his subjects, speaks the language of an honest man: if he makes good his declaration, he performs the functions of one, and earns the blessings of a righteous king; a life of glory in this world, and an immortality of happiness in the world to come.

No. LV.

Non erat his locus.

THERE is a certain delicacy in some men's nature which, though not absolutely to be termed a moral attribute, is nevertheless so grateful to society at large, and so recommendatory of those who possess it, that even the best and worthiest characters cannot be truly pleasing without it. I know not how to describe it better than by saying it consists in a happy discernment of " times and seasons."

Though this engaging talent cannot positively be called a virtue, yet it seems to be the result of many virtuous and refined endowments of the mind which produces it; for when we see any man so tenderly considerate of our feelings, as to put aside his own for our accommodation and repose, and to consult opportunities with a respectful attention to our ease and leisure, it is natural to us to think fa

vourably of such a disposition, and although much of his discernment may be the effect of a good judgment and proper knowledge of the world, yet there must be a great proportion of sensibility, candour, diffidence, and natural modesty in the composition of a faculty so conciliating and so graceful. A man may have many good qualities, and yet if he is unacquainted with the world, he will rarely be found to understand those apt and happy moments of which I am now speaking; for it is a knowledge not to be gained without a nice and accurate observation of mankind, and even when that observation has given it, men, who are wanting in the natural good qualities above described, may indeed avail themselves of such occasions to serve a purpose their own, but without a good heart no man will apply his experience to general practice.

of

But as it is not upon theories that I wish to employ these papers, I shall now devote the remainder of my attention to such rules and observations as occur to me upon the subject of the times and sea

sons.

Men, who in the fashionable phrase live out of the world, have a certain awkwardness about them, which is for ever putting them out of their place in society, whenever they are occasionally drawn into it. If it is their studies which have sequestered them from the world, they contract an air of pedantry, which can hardly be endured in any mixed company without exposing the object of it to ridicule; for the very essence of this contracted habit consists in an utter ignorance of times and seasons. Most of that class of men who are occupied in the education of youth, and not a few of the young men themselves who are educated by them, are of this description. We meet with many of Jack Lizard's cast in the Spectator, who will learnedly maintain

there is no heat in fire. There is a disputatious precision in these people, which lets nothing pass in free conversation, that is not mathematically true; they will confute a jest by syllogism, canvass a merry tale by cross examination and dates, work every common calculation by X the unknown quantity, and in the festive sallies of imagination convict the witty speaker of false grammar, and nonsuit all the merriment of the table.

The man of form and ceremony, who has shaped his manners to the model of what is commonly called The Old Court, is another grand defaulter against times and seasons. His entrances and exits are to be performed with a stated regularity; he measures his devoirs with an exactitude that bespeaks him a correct interpreter of The Red Book; pays his compliments with a minuteness that leaves no one of your family unnamed, inquires after the health of your child who is dead, and desires to be kindly remembered to your wife, from whom you are divorced. Nature formed him in straight lines, habit has stiffened him into an unrelenting rigidity, and no familiarity can bend him out of the upright. The uneducated squire of rustic manners forms a contrast to this character, but he is altogether as great an intruder upon times and seasons, and his total want of form operates to the annoyance of society as effectually as the other's excess. There cannot be in human nature a more terrible thing than vulgar familiarity; a low bred fellow, who affects to put himself at his ease amongst his superiors and be pleasant company to them, is a nuisance to society; there is nothing so ill understood by the world in general as familiarity: if it was not for the terror, which men have of the very troublesome consequences of condescension to their inferiors, there would not be a hundreth part of that pride and hold

ing back amongst the higher ranks, of which the low are so apt to complain. How few men do we meet with who, when the heart is open and the channel free, know how to keep their course within the buoys and marks that true good manners have set up for all men to steer by! Jokes out of season, unpleasant truths touched upon incautiously, plump questions (as they are called) put without any preface or refinement, manual caresses compounded of hugs, and slaps, and squeezes, more resembling the gambols of a bear than the actions of a gentleman, are sure to follow upon the overflowing ebullitions of a vulgar familiarity broke loose from all restraints. It is a painful necessity men of sensibility are under, when they find themselves compelled to draw back from the eager advances of an honest heart, only because the shock of its good humour is too violent to be endured; it is very wounding to a social nature to check festivity in any degree, but there is nothing sinks the spirits so effectually as boisterous mirth, nobody so apt to overact his character as a jolly fellow, and, stunned with the vociferation of his own tongue, to forget that every other man is silent and suffering. In short, it is a very difficult thing to be properly happy and well pleased with the company we are in; and none but men of good education, great discernment, and nice feelings know how to be familiar. These rural gentry are great dealers in long stories of their own uninteresting achievements; they require of you to attend to the narrative of their paltry squabbles and bickerings with their neighbours; they are extremely eloquent upon the laws against poachers, upon turnpike roads and new enclosures, and all these topics they will thrust in by the neck and shoulders to the exclusion of all others.

Plain speaking, if we consider it simply as a

mark of truth and honesty, is doubtless a very meritorious quality, but experience teaches that it is too frequently under bad management, and obtruded on society out of time and season in such a manner as to be highly inconvenient and offensive. People are not always in a fit humour to be told of their faults, and these plain speaking friends sometimes perform their office so clumsily that we are inclined to suspect they are more interested to bring us to present shame than future reformation. It is a common observation with them, when things turn out amiss, to put us in mind how they dissuaded us from such and such an undertaking, that they foresaw what would happen, and that the event is neither more nor less than they expected and predicted. These retorts, cast in our teeth in the very moment of vexation, are what few tempers, when galled with disappointment, can patiently put up with; they may possibly be the result of zeal and sincerity, but they are so void of contrivance, and there is so little delicacy in the timing of them, that it is a very rare case indeed, when they happen to be well understood and kindly taken. The same want of sensibility towards human infirmities, that will not spare us in the moments of vexation, will make no allowances for the mind's debility in the hours of grief and sorrow. If a friend of this sort surprises us in the weakness of the soul, when death perhaps has robbed us of some beloved object, it is not to contribute a tear, but to read us a lecture, that he comes; when the heart is agonized, the temper is irritable, and as a moralizer of this sort is almost sure to find his admonitions take the contrary effect from what he intended, he is apt to mistake an occasional impatience in us for a natural one, and leaves us with the impression that we are men who are ill prepared against the common vicissitudes of life, and