[T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: _I.e._ 1710-11. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 298.[1]

_Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores._ OVID.[2]

FROM SATURDAY MARCH 3. TO TUESDAY MARCH 6. 1710.[3]

_From my own Apartment in Channel-Row, March 5_.

Those inferior duties of life which the French call _les petites
morales,_ or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by the name of
good manners,[4] or breeding. This I look upon, in the general notion of
it, to be a sort of artificial good sense, adapted to the meanest
capacities, and introduced to make mankind easy in their commerce
with each other. Low and little understandings, without some rules of
this kind, would be perpetually wandering into a thousand indecencies and
irregularities in behaviour, and in their ordinary conversation fall into
the same boisterous familiarities that one observes amongst them, when a
debauch has quite taken away the use of their reason. In other instances,
it is odd to consider, that for want of common discretion the very end of
good breeding is wholly perverted, and civility, intended to make us
easy, is employed in laying chains and fetters upon us, in debarring us
of our wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires and
inclinations. This abuse reigns chiefly in the country, as I found to my
vexation, when I was last there, in a visit I made to a neighbour about
two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the parlour, they forced
me into the great chair that stood close by a huge fire, and kept me
there by force till I was almost stifled. Then a boy came in great hurry
to pull off my boots, which I in vain opposed, urging that I must return
soon after dinner. In the mean time the good lady whispered her eldest
daughter, and slipped a key into her hand. She returned instantly with
a beer glass half full of _aqua mirabilis_ and syrup of gillyflowers.
I took as much as I had a mind for; but Madam vowed I should drink it
off, (for she was sure it would do me good after coming out of the cold
air) and I was forced to obey, which absolutely took away my stomach.
When dinner came in, I had a mind to sit at a distance from the fire; but
they told me, it was as much as my life was worth, and set me with my
back just against it. Though my appetite was quite gone, I resolved to
force down as much as I could, and desired the leg of a pullet. "Indeed,
Mr. Bickerstaff," says the