they used, that I am altogether unqualified to abridge or analise it. I find, Sir, there is a jargon among people of fashion, as well as among the schoolmen they deride, and that it requires initiation into the mysteries of the one, as well as of the other, to be able to comprehend or to relish their discourse. Conversation, however, was soon put an end to by the introduction of cards, when I found a perfect equality of understanding and of importance. At length supper was announced at a very late hour, and with it entered a gentleman, who, I was informed, possessed an infinite fund of humour, and for whose appearance I had been made to look, for some time, with impatience.

The superiority of his talents for conversation seemed, indeed, to be acknowledged; for he was allowed to talk almost unceasingly, with very little interruption from any other person. After a few

glasses, he was prevailed on to sing one very innocent song; a few more emboldened him to sing another a little more free; and, just before the second bottle was called for, he took off a methodist preacher with great applause.

The ladies now retired. I had fancied that in the companies of the two former days, the want of their society had deprived us of the ease and gaiety of discourse. But here the removal of the female members of the party seemed to have a contrary effect, from what my conclusion would have warranted. I discovered a smile of satisfaction in the countenances of most of the guests when the ladies were gone. Several of them, who had not uttered a syllable before, were eloquent now, though, indeed the subject was neither abstruse nor delicate. The wit was called on for another song, and he gave us one perfectly masculine. This was followed by several jocular sto

ries, and burlesque exhibitions, most of which were in perfect unison with that tone, which the absence of the ladies had allowed the company to assume. The jests were not such as I can repeat; one fancy, however, I recollect, of which, I think, a better use may be made than its author intended. Suppose," said he, "our words left their marks on the walls, like claret spilt on a smooth table, how confounded the women would look when they next entered the room!" For my part, I have so much reverence for a woman of honour, as to hold sacred even the place she has occupied, and cannot easily bear its immediate profanation by obscenity. I therefore took the first opportunity of withdrawing, which I was the more willing to do, as I found our wit possessed, in truth, only a chime of buffoonery, which, when he had rung out, he was forced to substitute the bottle in its place, the last joke he uttered being a

reproof to our landlord for not pushing it about.

Now, Mr Mirror, I must beg of you, or some of your well-instructed correspondents, to inform me, if in all, or any of those three societies, I was really and truly in good company; as I confess I have entertained some doubts of their deserving that name. These, however, are probably the effects of ignorance, and a bookish education, in which I am very willing to be corrected from proper authority.

I am, &c.

MODESTUS.

No. 72. SATURDAY, January 15, 1780.

Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.

VIRG.

THE consideration of death has been always made use of, by the moralist and the divine, as a powerful incentive to virtue and to piety. From the uncertainty of life, they have endeavoured to sink the estimation of its pleasures, and, if they could not strip the seductions of vice of their present enjoyment, at least to load them with the fear of their end.

Voluptuaries, on the other hand, have, from a similar reflection, endeavoured to enhance the value, and persuade to the enjoyment, of temporal delights. They have advised us to pluck the roses which would otherwise soon wither of themselves, to seize the moments which we could not