On Learning and the Arts. 443 
tuted language, and of all the idle waste of words. 
Observe the learned man! He may possibly be 
polite ; he may be courteous in his address, in 
his speech, in all his manners; but he has not 
learnt this from his books; he has acquired it 
from an habitual commerce with the dressed and 
fashionable world. Such a union of attainments 
is however a rare spectacle; for, learning abstracted 
from other circumstances has a contrary tendency, 
and the world is so persuaded of this, that it 
expresses something like astonishment, if in the 
acknowledged scholar or philosopher ,it find 
the polite man, The love of retirement and 
even of solitude, as conducive to the pursuits 
of learned men; the little attraction which they 
feel for the lighter amusements of life, the straws 
in their estimation which float upon its surface; 
the little attention which they have bestowed in - 
order to acquit themselves with propriety and 
grace; the disgust which is excited in them by 
the trifling conversation and important nothings 
of men of the world, render what is called good 
company as unfit for a_ philosopher asa philoso- 
pher is for good company. Whata figure does 
he often exhibit in a gay and brilliant circle, 
with his solemn air, his stiffened attitudes, his 
unmanaged limbs, his absorbed mind, his inat- 
tentions, his constrained recollections, his studied 
expressions, his deep and sensatious discourse! 
