account of similar accoutrements, might be otherwise subject to misapplication.

"Upon this there arose a distinction betwixt freeman and freeman. All who had served in those religious wars continued the use of their first devices, but all devices were not illustrated by the same pretensions to military glory.

"However, these campaigns were discontinued: fresh families sprung up; who, without any pretence to mark themselves with such devices as these holy combatants, were yet as desirous of respect, of estimation, of distinction. It would be tedious enough to trace the steps by which money establishes even absurdity. A court of heraldry sprung up, to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armour; and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.

"Yet custom is not at once overthrown; and he is even now deemed a gentleman who has arms recorded in the Herald's office, and at the same time follows none, except a liberal employment.

"Allowing this distinction, it is obvious to all who consider, that a churlish, morose, illiterate clown; a lazy, beggarly, sharping vagabond; a stupid, lubberly, inactive sot, or pick-pocket, nay, even a highwayman, may be nevertheless a gentleman as by law established; in short, that the definition may, together with others, include also the filth, the scum, and the dregs of the creation.

"But do we not appear to disallow this account, when we say, such or such an action was not done in a gentleman-like manner,'' such usage

was not the behaviour of a gentleman,' and so forth? We seem thus to insinuate, that the appellation of gentleman regards morals as well as family; and that integrity, politeness, generosity, and affability, have the truest claim to a distinction of this kind. Whence then shall we suppose was derived this contradiction? Shall we say that the plebeians, having the virtues on their side, by degrees removed this appellation from the basis of family to that of merit, which they esteemed, and not unjustly, to be the true and proper pedestal ? This the gentry will scarce allow. Shall we then insist that every thing great and godlike was heretofore the achievement of the gentry? But this, perhaps, will not obtain the approbation of the

commoners.

"To reconcile the difference, let us suppose the denomination may belong equally to two sorts of men: the one, what may be styled a gentleman de jure, viz. a man of generosity, politeness, learning, taste, genius, or affability; in short, accomplished in all that is splendid, or endeared to us by all that is amiable, on the one side; and on the other, a gentleman de facto, or what, to English readers, I would term a gentleman as by law established.

"As to the latter appellation, what is really essential, or, as logicians would say,' quarto modo proprium,' is a real, or at least a specious claim to the inheritance of certain coat-armour from a second or more distant ancestor; and this unstained by any mechanical or illiberal employment.

"We may discover, on this state of the case, that however material a difference this distinction sup

poses, yet it is not wholly impracticable for a gentleman de jure to render himself in some sort a gentleman de facto. A certain sum of money, deposited in the hands of my good friends Norroy or Rougedragon, will convey to him a coat of arms descending from as many ancestors as he pleases. On the other hand, the gentleman de facto may become a gentleman also de jure, by the acquisition of certain virtues, which are rarely all of them unattainable. The latter, I must acknowledge, is the more difficult task; at least, we may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature, and (in the best sense of the word) constitute a gentleman."

IX. A CHARACTER.

He was a youth so amply furnished with every excellence of mind, that he seemed alike capable of acquiring or disregarding the goods of fortune. He had indeed all the learning and erudition that can be derived from universities, without the pedantry and ill manners which are too often their attendants. What few or none acquire by the most intense assiduity, he possessed by nature; I mean, that elegance of taste, which disposed him to admire beauty under its great variety of appearances. It passed not unobserved by him, either in the cut of a sleeve, or the integrity of a moral action. The proportion of a statue, the convenience of an edifice, the movement in a dance, and the complexion of a cheek or flower, afforded him sensations of beauty; that

beauty which inferior geniuses are taught coldly to distinguish, or to discern rather than feel. He could trace the excellences both of the courtier and the student, who are mutually ridiculous in the eyes of each other. He had nothing in his character that could obscure so great accomplishments, beside the want, the total want, of a desire to exhibit them through this it came to pass, that what would have raised another to the heights of reputation, was oftentimes in him passed over unregarded for, in respect to ordinary observers, it is requisite to lay some stress yourself on what you intend should be remarked by others; and this never was his way. His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world, or rather the external forms and manners of it. His ordinary conversation was, perhaps, rather too pregnant with sentiment, the usual fault of rigid students; and this he would in some degree have regulated better, did not the universality of his genius, together with the method of his education, so largely contribute to this amiable defect. This kind of awkwardness (since his modesty will allow it no better name) may be compared to the stiffness of a fine piece of brocade, whose turgescency indeed constitutes, and is inseparable from, its value. He gave delight by a happy boldness in the extirpation of common prejudices, which he could as readily penetrate, as he could humorously ridicule and he had such entire possession of the hearts, as well as understandings, of his friends, that he could soon make the most surprising paradoxes believed and well accepted. His image, like that of a sovereign, could give an addi

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tional value to the most precious ore; and we no sooner believed our eyes that it was he who spake it, than we as readily believed whatever he had to say. In this he differed from W*** r, that he had the talents of rendering the greatest virtues unenvied; whereas the latter shone more remarkably in making his very faults agreeable: I mean in regard to those few he had to exercise his skill.

N. B. This was written, in an extempore manner, on my friend's wall at Oxford, with a black lead pencil, 1735, and intended for his character.

X. ON RESERVE.-A FRAGMENT.

TAKING an evening's walk with a friend in the country, among many grave remarks, he was making the following observation. "There is not," says he," any one quality so inconsistent with respect, as what is commonly called familiarity. You do not find one in fifty whose regard is proof against it. At the same time, it is hardly possible to insist upon such a deference as will render you ridiculous, if it be supported by common sense. Thus much, at least, is evident; that your demands will be so successful, as to procure a greater share than if you had made no such demand. I may frankly own to you, Leander, that I frequently derived uneasiness, from a familiarity with such persons as despised every thing they could obtain with ease. Were it not better, therefore, to be somewhat frugal of our affability; at least, to allot it only to the few persons of discernment who can make the proper distinction betwixt real dignity and pretended? to negleet those