On GOOD MANNERS and GOOD BREEDING *.

GOOD manners is the art of making those people eafy with whom we converse.

Whoever makes the fewest perfons uneafy, is the best bred in the company.

As the beft law is founded upon reafon, fo are the best manners. And as fome lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law; fo likewife many teachers have introduced abfurd things into common good manners.

One principal point of this art is, to fuit our behaviour to the three feveral degrees of men; our fuperiors, our equals, and thofe below us.

For instance, to prefs either of the two former to eat or drink, is a breach of manners; but a farmer or a tradefman must be thus treated, or elfe it will be difficult to perfuade them that they are wel

come.

Pride, ill nature, and want of fenfe, are the three great fources of ill manners: without fome 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 affign an incident wherein reafon will not direct us what we are to fay or do in company, if we are not mifled by pride or ill nature.

Therefore I infift, that good fenfe is the principal foundation of good manners. But because the former is a gift which very few among mankind

This effay is annexed to J. R's Obfervations upon Lord Orrery's remarks on Swift's life and writings; and was never inferted in any former edition of the Dean's works.

are

are poffeffed of, therefore all the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing fome rules for common behaviour, beft fuited to their geneneral customs, or fancies, as a kind of artificial good fenfe to fupply the defects of reason. Without which the gentlemenly part of dunces would be perpetually at cuffs, as they feldom 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 thofe three motives. Upon which account I should be exceedingly forry to find the legiflature make any new laws against the practice of duelling; becaufe the methods are, eafy nd many, for a wife man to avoid a quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in fuffering bullies, fharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own, where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.

As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of thofe who have weak understandings; fo they have been corrupted by the perfons for whofe ufe they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needlefs and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them, and infupportable to every body elfe; infomuch that wife men are often more uneafy at the over-civility of thefe refiners, than they could poffibly be in the converfation of peasants or mechanics.

The impertinences of this ceremonial behaviour are no where better feen than at thofe tables where ladies prefide, who value themselves upon account of their good-breeding; where a man muft reckon upon paffing an hour without doing one thing he has a mind to do, unless he will be fo hardy to break through all the fettled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves beft, and how much he

fhall eat; and if the mafter of the houfe happens, to be of the fame difpofition, he proceeds in the fame tyrannical manner to prescribe in the drinking part at the fame time, you are under the neceffity of answering a thousand apologies for your entertainment. And although a good deal of this humour is pretty well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much of it ftill remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentleman affured me, that having been kept four days, against his will, at a friend's houfe, with all the circumftances 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 con.. tradicted; as if the whole family had entered into a combination to torment him.

But befides all this, it would be endless to recount the many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have obferved among thefe unfortunate profelytes to ceremony. I have seen a duchefs fairly knocked down by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb, running to fave her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birth day, at court, a great lady was utterly defperate by a difh of fauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-drefs, and brocade, while fhe gave a fudden turn to her elbow upon fome point of ceremony with the perfon who fat next her. Monf. Buys, the Dutch envoy, whole politics and manners were much of a fize, brought a fon 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 perfon in the company; fo that we could not get a minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At laft, their two plates happened to encounter, and with fo much violence, that, being VOL. IX. Y

china

china, they broke in twenty pieces, and ftained half the company with wet fweetmeats and cream.

There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and fciences, and fometimes in trades Pedantry is properly the over-rating any kind of knowledge we pretend to And if that kind of knowledge be a trifle in itfelf, the pedantry is the greater. For which reafon, I look upon fiddlers, dancing-mafters, heralds, mafters of the ceremonies, &c. to be greater pedants than Lipfius, or the elder Scaliger. With these kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully stocked: I mean from the gentlemen-ufher at leaft inclufive, downward to the gentleman-porter; who are, generally fpeaking, the moft infignificant race of people that this island can afford, and with the fmalleft tincture of good manners, which is the only trade they profefs. For being wholly illiterate, and converting chiefly with each other, they reduce the whole fyltem of breeding within the forms and circles of their feveral offices: and as they are below the notice of minifters, they live and die in court under all revolutions, with great obfequioufness to those who are in any degree of favour or credit, and with rudenefs or infolence to every body else. From whence I have long concluded, that good manners are not a plant of the court-growth: for if they were, those people who have understanding, directly of a level for fuch acquirements, and who have ferved fuch long apprenticeships to nothing elfe, would certainly have picked them up. For as to the great officers who attend the prince's perfon or councils, or prefide in his family, they are a tranfient body, who have no better a title to good manners than their neighbours, nor will probably have recourse to gentlemen-ufhers for inftruction So that I

know little to be learned at court upon this head, except in the material circumstances of drefs; wherein the authority of the maids of honour must

indeed be allowed to be almost equal to that of a favourite actress.

I remember a paffage my Lord Bolingbroke told me, that going to receive Prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in order to conduct him immediately to the Queen; the Prince faid, he was much concerned that he could not fee her Majefty that night; for Monf. Hoftman (who was then by) had affured his Highness, that he could not be admitted into her prefence with a tied-up periwig; that his equipage was not arrived, and that he had endeavoured in vain to borrow a long one among all his valets and pages. My Lord turned the matter to a jeft and brought the Prince to her Majesty: for which he was highly ceufured by the whole tribe of gentleman-ufhers; among whom Monf. Hoftman, an old dull refident of the Emperor's, had picked up this material point of ceremony; and, which, I believe, was the beft leffon he had learned in five and twenty years refidence.

I make a difference between good manners and good breeding; although, in order to vary my ex preffion, I am fometimes forced to confound them. By the first, I only understand the art of remembering and applying certain fettled forms of general behaviour. But good-breeding is of a much larger extent: for besides an uncommon degree of literature, fufficient to qualify a gentleman for reading a play or a political pamphlet, it takes in a great compafs of knowledge; no lefs than that of dancing, fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy.. riding the great horfe, and fpeaking French; not to mention fome other fecondary or fubaltern accomplishments, which are more eafily acquired: fo that the difference between good breeding and good manners lies in this; that the former cannot be attained to by the best understandings, without ftudy and labour whereas a tolerable degree of reafon

:

Y 2

will