Fourthly, blasphemy, and irreverent mention of religion. I will not here debate what compliment a man pays to his own understanding by the profession of infidelity; it is sufficient to my purpose that he runs the risque of giving the cruelest offence to persons of a different temper; for, if a loyalist would be greatly affronted by hearing any indecencies offered to the person of a temporal prince, how much more bitterly must a man who sincerely believes in such a being as the Almighty, feel any irreverence or insult shewn to His name, His honour, or His institution? And, notwithstanding the impious character of the present age, and especially of many among those whose more immediate business it is to lead men, as well by example as precept, into the ways of piety, there are still sufficient numbers left who pay so honest and sincere a reverence to religion, as may give us a reasonable expectation of finding one at least of this stamp in every large company.
A fifth particular to be avoided is indecency. We are not only to forbear the repeating of such words as would give an immediate affront to a lady of reputation, but the raising of any loose ideas tending to the offence of that modesty which, if a young woman hath not something more than the affectation of, she is not worthy the regard even of a man of pleasure, provided he hath any delicacy in his constitution. How inconsistent with good-breeding it is to give pain and confusion to such, is sufficiently apparent; all double-entendres and obscene jests are therefore carefully to be avoided before them. But suppose no ladies present, nothing can be meaner, lower, and less productive of rational mirth, than this loose conversation. For my own part, I cannot conceive how the idea of jest or pleasantry came ever to be annexed to one of our highest and most serious pleasures. Nor can I help observing, to the discredit of such merriment, that it is commonly the last resource of impotent wit, the weak strainings of the lowest, silliest, and dullest fellows in the world.
Sixthly, you are to avoid knowingly mentioning anything which may revive in any person the remembrance of some past accident, or raise an uneasy reflection on a present misfortune or corporal blemish. To maintain this rule nicely, perhaps, requires great delicacy; but it is absolutely necessary to a well-bred man. I have observed numberless breaches of it; many, I believe, proceeding from negligence and inadvertency; yet I am afraid some may be too justly imputed to a malicious desire of triumphing in our own superior happiness and perfections; now, when it proceeds from this motive it is not easy to imagine anything more criminal.
Under this head I shall caution my well-bred reader against a common fault, much of the same nature; which is, mentioning any particular quality as absolutely essential to either man or woman, and exploding all those who want it. This renders every one uneasy who is in the least self-conscious of the defect. I have heard a boor of fashion declare in the presence of women remarkably plain, that beauty was the chief perfection of that sex, and an essential without which no woman was worth regarding; a certain method of putting all those in the room, who are but suspicious of their defect that way, out of countenance.
I shall mention one fault more, which is, not paying a proper regard to the present temper of the company, or the occasion of their meeting, in introducing a topic of conversation, by which as great an absurdity is sometimes committed, as it would be to sing a dirge at a wedding, or an epithalamium at a funeral.
Thus I have, I think, enumerated most of the principal errors which we are apt to fall into in conversation; and though, perhaps, some particulars worthy of remark may have escaped me, yet an attention to what I have here said may enable the reader to discover them. At least I am persuaded that, if the rules I have now laid down were strictly observed, our conversation would be more perfect, and the pleasure resulting from it purer and more unsullied, than at present it is.
But I must not dismiss this subject without some animadversions on a particular species of pleasantry, which, though I am far from being desirous of banishing from conversation, requires, most certainly, some reins to govern, and some rule to direct it. The reader may perhaps guess I mean raillery; to which I may apply the fable of the lap-dog and the ass; for, while in some hands it diverts and delights us with its dexterity and gentleness, in others, it paws, daubs, offends, and hurts.
The end of conversation being the happiness of mankind, and the chief means to procure their delight and pleasure, it follows, I think, that nothing can conduce to this end which tends to make a man uneasy and dissatisfied with himself, or which exposes him to the scorn and contempt of others. I here except that kind of raillery, therefore, which is concerned in tossing men out of their chairs, tumbling them into water, or any of those handicraft jokes which are exercised on those notable persons commonly known by the name of buffoons; who are contented to feed their belly at the price of their br—ch, and to carry off the wine and the p—ss of a great man together. This I pass by, as well as all remarks on the genius of the great men themselves, who are (to fetch a phrase from school, a phrase not improperly mentioned on this occasion) great dabs at this kind of facetiousness.
But, leaving all such persons to expose human nature among themselves, I shall recommend to my well-bred man, who aims at raillery, the excellent character given of Horace by Persius:—
Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum praecordia ludit,
Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso.