CONVERSATION. 



33 



Arthur, Sir Tristram, and Arch- 

 bishop Turpin: not because they 

 thought him a fabulous writer, but 

 because they took them all for true 

 and authentic historians ; to so little 

 purpose was it in that age for a man 

 to be at the pains of writing truth. 



AN ANTIQUARY. 



He is a man strangely thrifty of 

 time past, and an enemy indeed to 

 his maw, whence he fetches out 

 many things when they are now 

 all rotten and stinking. He is one 

 that hath that unnatural disease 

 to be enamoured of old age and 



: wrinkles, and loves all things (as 

 I Dutchmen do cheese) the better for 

 i being mouldy and worm-eaten. He 

 I is of our religion, because we say it 

 is most ancient ; and yet a broken 

 statue would almost make him an 

 : idolater. A great admirer he is of 

 the rust of old monuments, and 

 reads only those characters, where 

 time hath eaten out the letters. 

 He will go with you forty miles to 

 see a saint's well or a ruined abbey ; 

 ! and there be but a cross or stone 

 | footstool in the way, he'll be con- 

 sidering it so long, till he forget his 

 I journey. (Bishop Earle.) 



CONVERSATION. 



PESCARTES, LA FONTAINE, MARMON- 

 TEL, CORNEILLE, BUTLER, ADDISON, 

 ROUSSEAU, MILTON, ETC. 



Descartes, the famous mathema- 

 tician and philosopher; La Fontaine, 

 celebrated for his witty fables ; and 

 Buffon, the great naturalist, were 

 all singularly deficient in the powers 

 of conversation. Marmontel, the 

 novelist, was so dull in society that, 

 his friend said of him, after an in- 

 terview, " I must go and read his 

 tales to recompense myself for the 

 weariness of hearing him." As to 

 Corneille, the greatest dramatist of 

 France, he was completely lost in 

 society so absent and embarrassed 

 that he wrote of himself a witty 

 couplet, importing that he was never 

 intelligible but through the mouth 

 of another. Wit on paper seems to 

 be something widely different from 

 that play of words in conversation, 

 which, while it sparkles, dies; for 

 Charles II., the wittiest monarch 

 that ever sat on the English thmnr. 

 NY:; . so charmed with the humour of 



Hudibras, that he caused himself to 

 be introduced, in the character of & 

 private gentleman, to Butler, its 

 author. The witty king found the 

 author a very dull companion, and 

 was of opinion, with many others, 

 that so stupid a fellow could never 

 have written so clever a book. Ad- 

 dison, whose classic elegance has 

 long been considered the model of 

 style, was shy and absent in society, 

 preserving, even before a single 

 stranger, stiff and dignified silence. 

 . . . in conversation Dante was ta- 

 citurn or satirical. Gray and Alfieri 

 seldom talked or smiled. Rousseau 

 was remarkably trite in conversa- 

 tion ; not a word of fancy or elo- 

 quence warmed him. Milton was 

 unsocial, and even irritable, when 

 much pressed by talk of others. 

 Dryden has very honestly told us, 

 " My conversation is dull and slow, 

 my humour is saturnine and re- 

 served ; in short, I am not one of 

 those who endeavour to break jest 

 in company, or make repartees." 

 (Salad for the Solitary.) 



