companion as this, who can recite the names of all her
lovers, and the matches refused by her in the days when she minded
such vanities--as she is pleased to call them, tho she so much
approves the mention of them. It is to be noted, that a woman's
flatterer is generally elder than herself, her years serving to
recommend her patroness's age, and to add weight to her complaisance
in all other particulars.

We gentlemen of small fortunes are extremely necessitous in this
particular. I have indeed one who smokes with me often; but his parts
are so low, that all the incense he does me is to fill his pipe with
me, and to be out at just as many whiffs as I take. This is all the
praise or assent that he is capable of, yet there are more hours when
I would rather be in his company than that of the brightest man I
know. It would be a hard matter to give an account of this inclination
to be flattered; but if we go to the bottom of it, we shall find that
the pleasure in it is something like that of receiving money which lay
out. Every man thinks he has an estate of reputation, and is glad to
see one that will bring any of it home to him; it is no matter how
dirty a bag it is conveyed to him in, or by how clownish a messenger,
so the money is good. All that we want to be pleased with flattery, is
to believe that the man is sincere who gives it us. It is by this one
accident that absurd creatures often outrun the most skilful in this
art. Their want of ability is here an advantage, and their bluntness,
as it is the seeming effect of sincerity, is the best cover to
artifice.

It is indeed, the greatest of injuries to flatter any but the unhappy,
or such as are displeased with themselves for some infirmity. In this
latter case we have a member of our club, that, when Sir Jeffrey falls
asleep, wakens him with snoring. This makes Sir Jeffrey hold up for
some moments the longer, to see there are men younger than himself
among us, who are more lethargic than he is.

II

THE STORY-TELLER AND HIS ART[1]

I have often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a poet.
It is, I think, certain, that some men have such a peculiar cast of
mind, that they see things in another light than men of grave
dispositions. Men of a lively imagination and a mirthful temper will
represent things to their hearers in the same manner as they
themselves were affected with them; and whereas serious spirits might
perhaps have been disgusted a