ger of
my neck, by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the
dirt, when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up
more than an hour to recover him again.

It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit
proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of
complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it. I cannot so easily
excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no
other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts of
it. Ned Fashion has been bred all his life about Court, and understands
to a tittle all the punctilios of a drawing-room. He visits most of the
fine women near St. James's, and upon all occasions says the civilest and
softest things to them of any man breathing. To Mr. Isaac[5] he owes an
easy slide in his bow, and a graceful manner of coming into a room. But
in some other cases he is very far from being a well-bred person: He
laughs at men of far superior understanding to his own, for not being as
well dressed as himself, despises all his acquaintance that are not
quality, and in public places has on that account often avoided taking
notice of some of the best speakers in the House of Commons. He rails
strenuously at both Universities before the members of either, and never
is heard to swear an oath, or break in upon morality or religion, but in
the company of divines. On the other hand, a man of right sense has all
the essentials of good breeding, though he may be wanting in the forms of
it. Horatio has spent most of his time at Oxford. He has a great deal of
learning, an agreeable wit, and as much modesty as serves to adorn
without concealing his other good qualities. In that retired way of
living, he seems to have formed a notion of human nature, as he has found
it described in the writings of the greatest men, not as he is like to
meet with it in the common course of life. Hence it is, that he gives no
offence, that he converses with great deference, candour, and humanity.
His bow, I must confess, is somewhat awkward; but then he has an
extensive, universal, and unaffected knowledge, which makes some amends
for it. He would make no extraordinary figure at a ball; but I can
assure the ladies in his behalf, and for their own consolation, that he
has writ better verses on the sex than any man now living, and is
preparing such a poem for the press as will transmit their praises and
his