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Thirdly. A departure from the manners, language and 

 cuftoms of the age and country, or even of our own peculiar 

 clafs in life, profcffion or province. The rude and vulgar every 

 where are difpofcd to laugh at the peculiar habits and cuftoms 

 of foreigners ; and even the polite and liberal, who have learned 

 from an extenfive commerce with the world the precept of 

 Horace, nil admirari, could fcarce reftrain their mirth were they 

 to fee a modern Englifhman dreft in the ruff of Qiieen Eliza- 

 beth's day, and hear him talk in the dialed of Spenfer, with 

 his antiquated words, eftfoons, yclept and whilome. Every nation 

 has that degree of predilection for its own cuftoms and manners, 

 that it fuppofes a departure or variance from them to be an 

 inftance of inferiority, and to fhow a want of refinement or of 

 underftanding. The difference of garb is found to have a ftriking 

 cfFed on the human mind ; even in the fame country and 

 nation, the refped which individuals pay to each other is, in 

 feme degree, regulated by an attention to drefs ; the mutual 

 contempt and antipathy which fometiraes fubfift between nation 

 and nation arc very much fupported and kept alive by the dif'- 

 ferencc of habiliment. Under this bead we may clafs the tra- 

 velled coxcomb and fop, who affeds to renounce the garb, lan- 

 guage and manners of his own country ; and fcenes of low 

 humour, that turn on national peculiarities and prejudices ; or 

 profeffional modes of thinking or fpeaking, as the charadcrs oi 

 Frenchmen, Teagues, failors, lawyers, fo frequent in comedy ; 

 and on this principle it is that the fimple reprcfentation of humble 

 life fometimes excites mirth. 



Fourthly. 



