manner which tells nothing, and may conceal much; but there is also a natural manner by which a man may be known.

What is conventional and immaterial in manner may be taught; but in regard to what is important, there is only one precept by which a man can profit; and that is, that so often as he shall be visited with any consciousness of error in this kind (which will not be infrequently in the case of the young and susceptible) he should search out the fault of character from which the fault of manner flows; and disregarding the superficial indication except as an indication, endeavour to dry up that source. Any want of essential good-breeding must grow out of a want of liberality and benevolence; any want of essential good taste in manner, out of some moral defect or disproportion; and when a man stands self-accused as to the out-growth, he should lay his axe to the root. The sense

of shame for faults of manner would not be so

strong a thing in men as it is, if it came out of the mere shallows of their nature, and were not capable of being directed towards some higher purpose than that of gracing their intercourse with society. At the same time, nothing will accomplish this lesser purpose more effectually than merging the trivial sensitiveness upon such matters in an earnestness of desire to be right upon them in their moral point of view; and if a man shall make habitual reference to the principle of never doing any thing in society from an ungenerous, gratuitously unkind, or ignoble feeling, he will hardly fail to obtain the ease and indifference as to every thing else which is requisite for good manners; and he will lose in his considerateness for other persons, and for principles which he feels to be worthy of consideration, the mixture of pride and disguised timidity, which is in this country the most ordinary type of inferiority of manner. There is a dignity in the desire to be right, even in the smallest questions wherein

the feelings of others are concerned, which will not fail to supersede what is egoistical and frivolous in a man's personal feelings in society.

In the case of a statesman, perhaps it will be expedient that to the manner of nature and of principle, something should be added upon occasion by histrionic art. This, however, may be a difficulty with many men; and he who endeavours to exercise the art should be very sure that he possesses it; and in such a kind as to make his natural manner the basis of his artificial; for otherwise more will be lost than gained in the attempt. In a statesman's transactions. there are many things which cannot be communicated otherwise than by manner without inconvenient commitment or controversy; and that will be the most serviceable manner which can be expressive or inexpressive at pleasure, and be used as a dark lantern to his meanings.

With regard to arts of graciousness, they are the easiest of all to a statesman; for praise and

compliment, which may seem to partake of impertinence when proceeding from an inferior, pass gracefully downwards from one whose superiority of station gives him a right to assume that his approbation or his wish to conciliate has a value. A minister is entitled to be complimentary; and what he has principally to take care of is that he do not forfeit the advantages of his privilege by abuse of it, and that his compliments shall be measured and appropriate. Prodigality of panegyric defeats its end by depreciating its value; and misapplication of it ought always to be unsatisfactory by reason of its untruth, and may, under certain circumstances, amount to a corrupt use of an important public instrument. But these are vices which belong to the coarseness of public life, and are seldom altogether escaped by ordinary statesmen.

It has been said of compliments, that men are most flattered by having the merits attributed to them which they least possess; but as

it is only by liars that such compliments can be proffered, so it is only with fools that they can find a favourable acceptation. With others, partial truth with just discrimination will be the most effective agents of flattery. There is much also in the well timing of it; and though compliments should arise naturally out of the occasion, they should not appear to be prompted by the spur of it; for then they seem hardly spontaneous. Applaud a man's speech at the moment when he sits down, and he will take your compliment as exacted by the demands of common civility; but let some space intervene, and then show him that the merits of his speech have dwelt with you when you might have been expected to have forgotten them, and he will remember your compliment for a much longer time than you have remembered his speech.

It is a grace in flattery so to let fall your compliments as that you shall seem to consider them to be a matter of indifference to him to