Names of Modesty, and a Desire of Information, it affords little
Pleasure to the rest of the Company who are not troubled with the same
Doubts; besides which, he who asks a Question would do well to
consider that he lies wholly at the Mercy of another before he
receives an Answer.

Nothing is more silly than the Pleasure some People take in what they
call _speaking their Minds_. A Man of this Make will say a rude thing
for the meer Pleasure of saying it, when an opposite Behaviour, full
as Innocent, might have preserved his Friend, or made his Fortune.

It is not impossible for a Man to form to himself as exquisite a
Pleasure in complying with the Humour and Sentiments of others, as of
bringing others over to his own; since 'tis the certain Sign of a
Superior Genius, that can take and become whatever Dress it pleases.

I shall only add, that besides what I have here said, there is
something which can never be learnt but in the Company of the Polite.
The Virtues of Men are catching as well as their Vices, and your own
Observations added to these, will soon discover what it is that
commands Attention in one Man and makes you tired and displeased with
the Discourse of another.

_Steele._

A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK, ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OF
THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS

This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that
neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it
was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain
does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that
withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but
the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on
the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty
wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of
fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; at
length, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is
either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a
fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surely
mortal man is a broomstick! nature sent him into the world strong and
lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the
proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of
intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered
trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a pe