ing extremely engaging; there is a mixture of benevolence,
affection, and unction in it; it is frequently really sincere, but is
almost always thought so, and consequently pleasing. Will you call this
trouble? It will not be half an hour's trouble to you in a week's time.
But suppose it be, pray tell me, why did you give yourself the trouble of
learning to dance so well as you do? It is neither a religious, moral, or
civil duty. You must own, that you did it then singly to please, and you
were, in the right on't. Why do you wear fine clothes, and curl your
hair? Both are troublesome; lank locks, and plain flimsy rags are much
easier. This then you also do in order to please, and you do very right.
But then, for God's sake, reason and act consequentially; and endeavor to
please in other things too, still more essential; and without which the
trouble you have taken in those is wholly thrown away. You show your
dancing, perhaps six times a year, at most; but you show your countenance
and your common motions every day, and all day. Which then, I appeal to
yourself, ought you to think of the most, and care to render easy,
graceful, and engaging? Douceur of countenance and gesture can alone make
them so. You are by no means ill-natured; and would you then most
unjustly be reckoned so? Yet your common countenance intimates, and would
make anybody who did not know you, believe it. 'A propos' of this, I must
tell you what was said the other day to a fine lady whom you know, who is
very good-natured in truth, but whose common countenance implies
ill-nature, even to brutality. It was Miss H----n, Lady M--y's niece,
whom you have seen both at Blackheath and at Lady Hervey's. Lady M--y was
saying to me that you had a very engaging countenance when you had a mind
to it, but that you had not always that mind; upon which Miss H----n
said, that she liked your countenance best, when it was as glum as her
own. Why then, replied Lady M--y, you two should marry; for while you
both wear your worst countenances, nobody else will venture upon either
of you; and they call her now Mrs. Stanhope. To complete this 'douceur'
of countenance and motions, which I so earnestly recommend to you, you
should carry it also to your expressions and manner of thinking, 'mettez
y toujours de l'affectueux de l'onction'; take the gentle, the favorable,
the indulgent side of most questions. I own that the manly and sublime
John Trott, your countryman, seldom does; b