as he does his favourite dogs, by allowing them to dirty his parlour, and feed at his table; and, like the master of many a pack, he is despised by all his neighbours who have understanding, and hated by all those who want it.

Nothing is more difficult than the art of a patron; the power of patronifing is but one ingredient in its composition. A patron must be able to read mankind, and, to conciliate their affections; he must be so deferving of praise as to be independent of it; yet receive it as if he had no claim, and give it value where it is just, by resisting adulation. He must have that dignity of demeanour which may keep his place in the circle; yet that gentleness which may not overpower the most timid, or overawe the meanest. If he patronife the arts, he must know and feel them; yet he must speak to the learned as a learner, and often fubmit the correctness of his taste to the errors of genius. With so many qualifications requifite for a patron, it is not wonderful that fo few should arife; or that the bunglers whom we fee attempt the part, should so frequently make enemies by offices of friendhip, ship, and purchase a lampoon at the price of a panegyric.

There is a fort of female patronage, of which I cannot forbear taking notice, though it be fomewhat out of place here. It is confidered as of little importance, though, I am apt to believe, its consequences are sometimes of a very ferious nature. In some great houses, My Lady, as well as My-Lord, has a train of followers, who contend for that honour which her intimacy is held to confer, and emulate those manners which her rank and fashion are supposed to fanctify. Let the humanity of such a patroness lead her to beware, left her patronage be fatal to her favourites. If the glare of grandeur, or the luxuries of wealth, deprive them of the relish of fober enjoyments; if the ease of fashionable behaviour seduce them from the fimplicity of purer manners, they will have dearly purchased the friendship which they court, or the notice which they envy. Let such noble perfons confider, that to the young ladies they are pleased to call their friends, those fober pleafures, those untainted manners, are to be the fupport of celibacy, the dower of marriage, the comfort and happiness of a future

life. It were cruel, indeed, if, by any infringement of those manners, any contempt for those pleafures, (too easily copied by their inferiors), they should render the little tranfient diftinctions which they bestow in kindness, a fource of lasting misery to those who receive them.

To the behaviour of the rich, the above - observations may apply; wealth, in a commercial country like ours, conferring, in a great measure, the dignity of title or of birth. There are, however, some particular errors, into which the poffeffors of fuddenly-acquired fortunes are apt to fall, that defeat the ends at which they aim, that disgust where they meant to dazzle, and only create envy where they wished to excite admiration. When Lucullus, at a dinner to which he has invited half a dozen of his old acquaintance, shows his fide-board loaded with plate, and brings in seven or eight laced servants to wait at table, I do not reckon the dinner given, but fold. I am expected to pay my reckoning as much as in a tavern; only here I am to give my admiration, and there my money; and it is certain, that many men, and fome very nar

row ones too, will fooner part with the last VOL. III. than

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than with the former. I have sometimes seen a high-fpirited poor man at Lucullus's table, affronted by the production of Burgundy, and refuse Champaigne, because it had the borachio of our landlord's fourscore thousand pounds on't, This was honest, and Lucullus had not much title to complain; but he knows not how often his Burgundy and Champaigne are drunk by fellows, who tell all the world, next day, of their former dinners with him at a shilling ordinary, with fixpennyworth of punch, by way of regale, upon holidays.

There is an obligation to complacency, I had almoft faid humility, of manners, which the acquifition of wealth or station lays on every man, though it has often, especially on weak minds, a directly-oppofite effect. A certain degree of inattention, or even rudeness, which, from an equal, we may easily pardon, from a fuperior, becomes a serious injury. When my school-companion, Marcus, was a plain fellow like myself, I could have waited him half an hour after the time of appointment, and laughed at his want of an apology when we met. But now that he is become a

great

great man, I count the minutes of my attendance with impatience; and, when he swaggers up to his elbow-chair without an acknowledgement, I hate him for that arrogance which I think he affumes, and almost hate myfelf for bearing it as I do. The truth is, Marcus was born in the rank, but without the sensibilities of a gentleman; a want, which no office in the state, no patent of dignity, can ever supply. If the term were rightly understood, I might confine my admonitions on the subject of this paper to three words, "a gentleman." The feelings of this character, which, in point of manners, is the most respectable of any, will be as immediately hurt by the idea of giving uneasiness by his own behaviour, as of fuffering uneasiness from the behaviour of another.

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