o Manners
in the Country.

There has happened another Revolution in the Point of Good Breeding,
which relates to the Conversation among Men of Mode, and which I cannot
but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first
Distinctions of a well-bred Man, to express every thing that had the
most remote Appearance of being obscene, in modest Terms and distant
Phrases; whilst the Clown, who had no such Delicacy of Conception and
Expression, clothed his _Ideas_ in those plain homely Terms that are the
most obvious and natural. This kind of Good Manners was perhaps carried
to an Excess, so as to make Conversation too stiff, formal and precise:
for which Reason (as Hypocrisy in one Age is generally succeeded by
Atheism in another) Conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the
first Extream; so that at present several of our Men of the Town, and
particularly those who have been polished in _France_, make use of the
most coarse uncivilized Words in our Language, and utter themselves
often in such a manner as a Clown would blush to hear.

This infamous Piece of Good Breeding, which reigns among the Coxcombs of
the Town, has not yet made its way into the Country; and as it is
impossible for such an irrational way of Conversation to last long among
a People that make any Profession of Religion, or Show of Modesty, if
the Country Gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the
Lurch. Their Good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be
thought a Parcel of lewd Clowns, while they fancy themselves talking
together like Men of Wit and Pleasure.

As the two Points of Good Breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon,
regard Behaviour and Conversation, there is a third which turns upon
Dress. In this too the Country are very much behind-hand. The Rural
Beaus are not yet got out of the Fashion that took place at the time of
the Revolution, but ride about the Country in red Coats and laced Hats,
while the Women in many Parts are still trying to outvie one another in
the Height of their Head-dresses.

But a Friend of mine, who is now upon the Western Circuit, having
promised to give me an Account of the several Modes and Fashions that
prevail in the different Parts of the Nation through which he passes, I
shall defer the enlarging upon this last Topick till I have received a
Letter from him, which I expect every Post.

L.

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No. 1