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saw him catch another in the same manner. He then took alarm at some noise I made, and flew away slowly to a wood at some distance, where he settled. T. Probably his nest was there, for herons build upon the loftiest tree they can find, and sometimes in society together, like rooks. Formerly, when these birds were valued for the amusement of hawking, many gentlemen had their heronries, and a few are still remaining.

W. I think they are the largest wild birds we have.

7. They are of great length and spread of wing, but their bodies are comparatively small.

W. I then turned homewards across the meadows, where I stopped awhile to look at a large flock of starlings, which kept flying about at no great distance. I could not tell at first what to make of them; for they rose altogether from the ground as thick as a swarm of bees, and formed themselves into a kind of black cloud hovering over the field. After taking a short round they settled again, and presently rose again in the same manner. I dare say there were hundreds of them.

T. Perhaps so; for in the fenny countries their flocks are so numerous as to break down whole acres of reeds, by settling on them. This disposition of starlings to fly in close swarms, was remarked even by Homer, who compares the foe flying from one of his heroes, to a cloud of starlings retiring dismayed at the approach of the hawk.

W. After I had left the meadows, I crossed the cornfields in the way to our house, and passed close by a deep marl pit. Looking into it, I saw, on one of the sides, a cluster of what I took to be shells; and upon going down, I picked up a clod of marl, which was quite full of them; but how sea shells could get there, I can not imagine.

T. I do not wonder at your surprise, since many philosophers have been much perplexed to account for the same appearance. It is not uncommon to find great quantities of shells and relics of marine animals, even in the bowels of high mountains, very remote from the sea.

W. I got to the high field next to our house just as the sun was setting, and I stood looking at it till it was quite lost. What a glorious sight! The clouds were tinged with purple and crimson, and yellow of all shades and hues, and the clear sky varied from blue to a fine green at the horizon. But how large the sun appears just as it sets! I think it seems twice as big as when it is over head.

7. It does so; and you may probably have observed the same apparent enlargement of the moon at its rising.

W. I have; but pray what is the reason of this?

T. It is an optical deception, depending upon principles which I can not well explain to you, till you know more of that branch of science. But what a number of new ideas this afternoon's walk has afforded you? I do not wonder that you found it amusing: it has been very instructive, too. Did you see nothing of all these sights, Robert?

R. I saw some of them, but I did not take particular notice of them.
T. Why not?

R. I do not know. I did not care about them; and I made the best of my way home.

I. That would have been right, if you had been sent on a message; but as you only walked for amusement, it would have been wiser to have sought out as many sources of it as possible. But so it is-one man walks through the world with his eyes open, and another with them shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge the one acquires above the other. I have known sailors who had been in all the quarters of the world, and could tell you nothing but the signs of the tippling-houses they frequented in different ports, and the price and quality of the liquor. On the other hand, a Franklin could not cross the channel without making some observations useful to mankind. While many a vacant, thoughtless youth is whirled throughout Europe without gaining a single idea worth crossing a street for, the observing eye and inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in every ramble in town and country. Do you then, William, continue to make use of your eyes; and you, Robert, learn that eyes were given you to use.

STUDIES AND CONDUCT.

MANNERS, OR GOOD BEHAVIOR.

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MANNERS, Behavior or Good Breeding, holds an important place in every scheme of liberal culture. It has been variously defined or rather described-by Swift as the art of making those people easy with whom we converse;' by Chesterfield as the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them,' and again as that without which the scholar is a pedant, the philosopher a cynic, the soldier a brute, and every man disagreeable;' by Ralph Waldo Emerson as the silent and subtle language of the figure, movement and gesture, and the whole action of the human machine;' by Landoras a power, which takes away the weight and galling from any other power we may exercise, and the want of which always leaves room for a suspicion of folly' by Steele 'as supplying the small change for ordinary traffic, even if the coffers are filled with gold;' by Lord Chatham, as 'benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in the little daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. The habitual attention to the little wants of those we are with, by which we prevent or remove them.' It is in brief the application of the Christian Rule of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us,' in the small as well as the great matters of life.

Good sense, a sincere desire to please, quick observation and analysis of the subtle influences which go out from the presence, speech and movements of a well-bred person, and the frequenting the society of men and women, to whom good manners is an unconscious habit-are the best school and teachers of this branch of social training.

We propose to bring together suggestions which have received the stamp of success, for the cultivation of this social virtue and grace of character-not the chief end of man here below, but the Corinthian capital of the solid fabric of a consummate education.

JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D.

THE following suggestions constitute "The treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding," which was published soon after the Dean's death, and are substantially the same as printed in No. 20 of the Tatler, issued March 6, 1710-11. They have been very much praised as "containing the substance of all the doctrine on this subject."

GOOD MANNERS.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom

we converse.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.

As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into common good manners.

One principal point of this art is, to suit our behavior to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or drink is a breach of manners; but a tradesman or a farmer must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome.

Pride, ill-nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill-manners: without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or of what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.

I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will not direct us what to say or do in company, if we are not misled by pride or ill-nature.

Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal foundation of good manners; but because the former is a gift which very few among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules upon common behavior best suited to their general customs or fancies, as a kind of artificial good sense, to supply the defects of reason. Without which the gentlemanly part of dunces would be perpetually at cuffs, as they seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked, there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one

of these three motives. Upon which account, I should be exceedingly sorry to find the legislature make any new laws against the practice of duelling; because the methods are easy and many for a wise man to avoid a quarrel with honor, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own, where the law has not been able to find an expedient.

As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practice them, and insupportable to everybody else: insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the overcivility of these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversation of peasants or mechanics.

The impertinencies of this ceremonial behavior are nowhere better seen than at those tables where the ladies preside, who value themselves upon account of their good-breeding; where a man must reckon upon passing an hour without doing any one thing he has a mind to; unless he will be so hardy as to break through all the settled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves best, and how much he shall eat; and if the master of the house happens to be of the same disposition, he proceeds in the same tyrannical manner to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time you are under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for your entertainment. And although a good deal of this humor is pretty well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much of it still remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentleman assured me, that having been kept four days against his will at a friend's house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots, locking up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature, he could not remember, from the moment he came into the house to the moment he left it, any one thing wherein his inclination was not directly contradicted; as if the whole family had entered into a combination to torment him.

But, beside all this, it would be endless to recount the many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have observed among these unfortunate proselytes to ceremony. I have seen a duchess fairly knocked down, by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birthday at court, a great lady was rendered utterly disconsolate by a dish

of sauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some point of ceremony with the person who sat next to her. Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, whose politics and manners were much of a size, brought a son with him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court. The boy and his father, whatever they put on their plates, they first offered round in order, to every person in com pany; so that we could not get a minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two plates happened to encounter, and with so much violence, that, being china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained half the company with wet sweetmeats and cream. There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and sciences; and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to. And if that kind of knowledge be a trifle in itself, the pedantry is the greater. For which reason I look upon fiddlers, dancing-masters, heralds, masters of the ceremony, &c., to be greater pedants than Lipsius, or the elder Sealiger. With this kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least) inclusive, downward to the gentleman porter: who are, generally speaking, the most insignificant race of people that this island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good manners; which is the only trade they profess. For, being wholly illiterate, and conversing chiefly with each other, they reduce the whole system of breeding within the forms and circles of their several offices: and, as they are below the notice of ministers, they live and die in court under all revolutions, with great obsequiousness to those who are in any degree of credit or favor, and with rudeness and insolence to everybody else. Whence I have long concluded, that good manners are not a plant of the court growth: for if they were, those people, who have understandings directly of a level for such acquirements, who have served such long apprenticeships to nothing else, would certainly have picked them up. For, as to the great officers, who attend the prince's person or councils, or preside in his family, they are a transient body, who have no better a title to good manners than their neighbors, nor will probably have recourse to gentlemen ushers for instruction. So that I know little to be learned at court upon this head, except in the material circumstance of dress; wherein the authority of the maids of honor must indeed be allowed to be almost equal to that of a favorite

actress.

I make a difference between good manners and good breeding;

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