spoil company, but on the contrary, by being good hearers, encourage good speakers." But I have another difficulty (answered I) and that I doubt a very solid one, which is, that I drink nothing but water." "So much the worse for you," (replied my friend, who by the by, loves his bottle most academically); 66 you will pay for the claret you do not drink. We use no compulsion; every one drinks as little as he pleases "Which I presume (interrupted I) is as much as he can." "That is just as it happens," said he; "sometimes, it is true, we make pretty good sittings; but for my own part, I chuse to go home always before eleven: for, take my word for it, it is the sitting up late, and not the drink, that destroys the constitution." As I found that my friend would have taken a refusal ill, I told him that for this once I would certainly attend him to the club, but desired him to give me previously the outlines of the characters of the sitting members, that I might know how to behave myself properly. "Your precaution (said he) is a prudent one, and I will make you so well acquainted with them beforehand, that you shall not seem a stranger when among them. You must know then that our club consists of at least forty members when complete. Of these, many are now in the country; and besides, we have some vacancies which cannot be filled up until next winter. Palsies and apoplexies have of late, I don't know why, been pretty rife among us, and carried off a good many. It is not above a week ago, that poor Tom Toastwell fell on a sudden under the table, as we thought only a little in drink, but he was carried home, and never spoke more. Those whom you will probably meet with to-day are, first of all, lord Feeble, a nobleman of admirable sense, a true fine gentleman, and, for a man of quality, a pretty classic. He has lived rather fast formerly, and impaired his constitution by sitting up late, and

drinking your thin sharp wines. He is still what you call nervous, which makes him a little low-spirited and reserved at first; but he grows very affable and cheerful as soon as he has warmed his stomach with about a bottle of good claret.

"Sir Tunbelly Guzzle is a very worthy north country baronet of a good estate, and one who was beforehand in the world, till being twice chosen knight of the shire, and having in consequence got a pretty employment at court, he run out considerably. He has left off house-keeping, and is now upon a retrieving scheme. He is the heartiest, honestest fellow living; and though he is a man of very few words, I can assure you he does not want sense. He had an university education, and has a good notion of the classics. The poor man is confined half a year at least with the gout, and has besides an inveterate scurvy, which I cannot account for: no man can live more regularly; he eats nothing but plain meat, and very little of that he drinks no thin wines, and never sits up late; for he has his full dose by cleven.

"Colonel Culverin is a brave old experienced officer, though but a lieutenant-colonel of foot. Between you and me, he has had great injustice done him, and is now commanded by many who were not born when he came first into the army. He has served in Ireland, Minorca, and Gibraltar; and would have been in all the late battles in Flanders, had the regiment been ordered there. It is a pleasure to hear him talk of war. He is the best natured man alive, but a little too jealous of his honour, and too-apt to be in a passion; but that is soon over, and then he is sorry for it. I fear he is dropsical, which I impute to his drinking your champaigns and burgundies. He got that ill habit abroad.

"Sir George Plyant is well born, has a genteel fortune, keeps the very best company, and is to be sure

one of the best-bred men alive: he is so good-natured, that he seems to have no will of his own. He will drink as little or as much as you please, and no matter of what. He has been a mighty man with the ladies formerly, and loves the crack of the whip still. He is our news-monger; for being a gentleman of the privy-chamber, he goes to court every day, and consequently knows pretty well what is going forward there. Poor gentleman! I fear we shall not keep him long; for he seems far gone in a consumption, though the doctors say it is only a nervous atrophy.

"Will Sitfast is the best-natured fellow living, and an excellent companion, though he seldom speaks; but he is no flincher, and fits every man's hand out at the club. He is a very good scholar and can write very pretty Latin verses. I doubt he is in a declining way; for a paralytical stroke has lately twitched up one side of his mouth so, that he is now obliged to take his wine diagonally. However, he keeps up his spirits bravely, and never shams his glass.

"Dr. Carbuncle is an honest, jolly, merry parson, well affected to the government, and much of a gentleman. He is the life of our club, instead of being the least restraint upon it. He is an admirable scholar, and I really believe has all Horace by heart; I know he has him always in his pocket. His red face, inflamed nose, and swelled legs, make him generally thought a hard drinker by those who do not know him; but I must do him the justice to say, that I never saw him disguised with liquor in my life. It is true, he is a very large man, and can hold a great deal, which makes the colonel call him, pleasantly enough, a vessel of election.

"The last and least (concluded my friend) is your humble servant, such as I am; and if you please we will go walk in the park until dinner time." I agreed,

and we set out together. But here the reader will perhaps expect that I should let him walk on a little, while I give his character. We were of the same year of St. John's college in Cambridge: he was, a younger brother of a good family, was bred to the church, and had just got a fellowship in the college, when his elder brother dying, he succeeded to an easy fortune, and resolved to make himself easy with it, that is, to do nothing. As he had resided long in college, he had contracted all the habits, prejudices, the laziness, the soaking, the pride, and the pedantry of a cloister, which after a certain time are never to be rubbed off. He considered the critical knowledge of the Greek and Latin words, as the utmost effort of the human understanding, and a glass of good wine in good company, as the highest pitch of human felicity. Accordingly he passes his mornings in reading the classics, most of which he has long had by heart, and his evenings in drinking his glass of good wine, which by frequent filling, amounts at least to two, and often to three bottles a day. I must not omit mentioning that my friend is tormented with the stone, which misfortune he imputes to his having once drank water for a month, by the prescription of the late Dr. Cheyne, and by no means to at least two quarts of claret a day, for these last thirty years. To return to my friend: "I am very much mistaken," said he, as we were walking in the park, " if you do not thank me for procuring this day's entertainment: for a set of worthier gentlemen to be sure never lived." "I make no doubt of it," said I, "and am therefore the more concerned when I reflect that this club of worthy gentlemen might, by your own account, be not improperly called an hospital of incurables, as there is not one among them who does not labour under some chronical and mortal distemper." "I see what you would be at," answered my friend, "you would.

insinuate that it is all owing to wine: but let me assure you, Mr. Fitz- Adam, that wine especially claret, if neat and good, can hurt no man." I did not reply to this aphorism of my friend's, which I knew would draw on too long a discussion, especially as we were just going into the club-room, where I took it for granted that it was one of the great constitutional principles. The account of this modern Symposion shall be the subject of my next paper.

No. XCI. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26.

MY friend presented me to the company, in what he thought the most obliging manner; but which, I confess, put me a little out of countenance. "Give me leave, gentlemen," said he, "to present to you my old friend Mr. Fitz-Adam, the ingenious author of THE WORLD." The word author instantly excited the attention of the whole company, and drew all their eyes upon me: for people who are not apt to write themselves, have a strange curiosity to see a live author. The gentlemen received me in common, with those gestures that intimate welcome; and I, on my part, respectfully muttered some of those nothings, which stand instead of the something one should say, and perhaps do full as well.

The weather being hot, the gentlemen were refreshing themselves before dinner, with what they called a cool tankard; in which they successively drank to me. When it came to my turn, I thought I could not decently decline drinking the gentlemen's healths, which I did aggregately: but how was I sur