on Pope for some criticism upon this which he
attributed to him, and Pope wrote in the prologue to his Satires,

_Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on my quill,
And write whate'er he please,--except my Will._

At last, in May, 1737, Eustace Budgell filled his pockets with stones,
hired a boat, and drowned himself by jumping from it as it passed under
London Bridge. There was left on his writing-table at home a slip of
paper upon which he had written,

'What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong.']

[Footnote 2: The Dialogue 'Of Dancing' between Lucian and Crato is here
quoted from a translation then just published in four volumes,

'of the Works of Lucian, translated from the Greek by several Eminent
Hands, 1711.'

The dialogue is in Vol. III, pp. 402--432, translated 'by Mr. Savage of
the Middle Temple.']

[Footnote 3: 'Moll Peatley' was a popular and vigorous dance, dating, at
least, from 1622.]

[Footnote 4: In his scheme of a College and School, published in 1661,
as 'a Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy,' among
the ideas for training boys in the school is this, that

'in foul weather it would not be amiss for them to learn to Dance,
that is, to learn just so much (for all beyond is superfluous, if not
worse) as may give them a graceful comportment of their bodies.']

* * * * *

No. 68. Friday, May 18, 1711. Addison.

'Nos duo turba sumus ...'

Ovid.

One would think that the larger the Company is, in which we are engaged,
the greater Variety of Thoughts and Subjects would be started in
Discourse; but instead of this, we find that Conversation is never so
much straightened and confined as in numerous Assemblies. When a
Multitude meet together upon any Subject of Discourse, their Debates are
taken up chiefly with Forms and general Positions; nay, if we come into
a more contracted Assembly of Men and Women, the Talk generally runs
upon the Weather, Fashions, News, and the like publick Topicks. In
Proportion as Conversation gets into Clubs and Knots of Friends, it
descends into Particulars, and grows more free and communicative: But
the most open, instructive, and unreserved Discourse, is that which
passes between two Persons who are familiar and intimate Friends. On
these Occasions, a Man gives a Loose to every Passion and every Thought
that is upp