rite amusement of little low minds,
is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most
illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray, neither practice it yourself, nor
applaud it in others. Besides that the person mimicked is insulted; and,
as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.

I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your conversation to the
people you are conversing with: for I suppose you would not, without this
caution, have talked upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a
minister of state, a bishop, a philosopher, a captain, and a woman. A man
of the world must, like the chameleon, be able to take every different
hue; which is by no means a criminal or abject, but a necessary
complaisance; for it relates only to manners and not to morals.

One word only as to swearing, and that, I hope and believe, is more than
is necessary. You may sometimes hear some people in good company
interlard their discourse with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they
think, but you must observe, too, that those who do so are never those
who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the denomination of
good company. They are always subalterns, or people of low education; for
that practice, besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is as
silly and as illiberal as it is wicked.

Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly
things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the
creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen
to smile; but never heard to laugh.

But to conclude this long letter; all the above-mentioned rules, however
carefully you may observe them, will lose half their effect, if
unaccompanied by the Graces. Whatever you say, if you say it with a
supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a silly,
disconcerted grin, will be ill received. If, into the bargain, YOU MUTTER
IT, OR UTTER IT INDISTINCTLY AND UNGRACEFULLY, it will be still worse
received. If your air and address are vulgar, awkward, and gauche, you
may be esteemed indeed, if you have great intrinsic merit; but you will
never, please; and without pleasing you will rise but heavily. Venus,
among the ancients, was synonymous with the Graces, who were always
supposed to accompany her; and Horace tells us that even Youth and
Mercury, the god of Arts and Eloquence, would not do without her:

'Parum comis sine to Juventas