play, drink, and vicious amours, whereby the nobility and gentry of both fexes are entirely corrupted both in body and mind, and have loft all notions of love, honour, friendship, generofity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for fome time laughed out of doors.

This degeneracy of converfation, with the pernicious confequences thereof upon our humours and difpofitions, hath been owing, among other caufes, to the custom arifen, for fome time paft, of excluding women from any fhare in our fociety, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness in England (and it is of the fame date in France) to have been the peaceable part of king Charles the First's reign; and from what we read of those times, as well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from fome who lived in that court, the methods then used for raifing and cultivating converfation, were altogether different from ours: feveral ladies, whom we find celebrated by the poetsof that age, had affemblies at their houfes, where perfons of the

best

beft understanding, and of both fexes, met to pass the evenings in difcourfing upon whatever agreeable fubjects were occafionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the fublime platonic notions they had, or perfonated in love and friendship, I conceive their refinements were grounded upon reafon, and that a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into every thing that is fordid, vicious and low. If there were no other use in the converfation of ladies, it is fufficient that it would lay a reftraint upon those odious topicks of immodefty and indecencies, into which the rudeness of our northern genius is fo apt to fall. And, therefore, it is obfervable in those sprightly gentlemen about the town, who are fo very dextrous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour, they are filent and difconcerted, and out of their element.

There are fome people who think they fufficiently acquit themselves and entertain

their company with relating of facts of no confequence, nor at all out of the road of fuch common incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minuteft circumftances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gefture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be naturally filent or cautious, the converfation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new fubjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but leaveth room for answers and replies.

A SHORT

CHARACTER

Of His Excellency

THOMAS, Earl of WHARTON,

Lord Lieutenant of IRELAND.

With an account of fome fmaller Facts during his Government, which will not be put into the Articles of Impeachment.

Τ

London, Aug. 30, 1710,

HE kingdom of Ireland being governed by deputation from hence, its annals, fince the English establishment, are usually digested under the heads of the feveral governors: But, the affairs and events of that island, for fome years paft, have been either fo infignificant, or fo annexed to those of England, that they have not furnished matter of any great importance to hiftory. The fhare of honour, which gentlemen from thence have had by their conduct and employ

ments

ments in the army, turneth all to the article of this kingdom; the reft, which relateth to politics, or the art of government, is inconfiderable to the last degree, however it may be represented at court by those who prefide there, and would value themselves upon every step they make, towards finishing the flavery of that people, as if it were gaining a mighty point to the advantage of England.

Generally fpeaking, the times which afford moft plentiful matter for ftory, are those in which a man would leaft chufe to live; fuch as under the various events and revolutions of war, the intrigues of a ruined faction, or the violence of a prevailing one; and laftly, the arbitrary, unlawful acts of opprefling governors. In the war, Ireland hath no fhare but in fubordination to us; the fame may be faid of their factions, which, at prefent, are but imperfect tranfcripts of ours: But the third fubject for hiftory, which is arbitrary power, and oppreffion; as it is that by which the people of Ireland have, for fome time, been diftinguished from

all