Birmingham; that his buckles were procured by means of a friend at Paris, and are the exact pattern of those worn by the Compte d' Artois; that the loop of his hat was of his own contrivance, and has set the fashion to half-a-dozen of the finest fellows in town; when he descants on all these particulars, with that smile of self-complacency which sits for ever on his cheek, he is as much a pedant as his quondam tutor, who recites verses from Pindar, tells stories out of Herodotus, and talks for an hour on the energy of the Greek particles.

But Mr. Daisey is struck dumb by the approach of his brother Sir Thomas, whose pedantry goes a pitch higher, and pours out all the intelligence of France and Italy, whence the young Baronet is just returned, after a tour of fifteen months over all the kingdoms of the continent. Talk of music, he cuts you short with the history of the first singer at Naples; of painting, he runs you down with the description of the gallery at Florence; of architecture, he overwhelms you with the dimensions of St. Peter's, or the great church at Antwerp; or, if you leave the province of art altogether, and introduce the name of a river or hill, he instantly deluges you with the Rhine, or makes you dizzy with the height of Etna or Mont Blanc.

Miss will have no difficulty of owning her great aunt to be a pedant, when she talks all the time of dinner on the composition of the pudding, or the seasoning of the mince-pies; or enters into a disquisition on the figure of the damask table-cloth, with a word or two on the thrift of making one's own linen; but the young lady will he surprized when I inform her that her own history of last Thursday's assembly, with the episode of Lady Di.'s feather, and the digression to the qualities of Mr.

Frizzle the hair-dresser, was also a piece of downright pedantry.

Mrs. Caudle is guilty of the same weakness, when she recounts the numberless witticisms of her daughter Emmy, describes the droll figure her little Bill made yesterday at trying on his first pair of breeches, and informs us that Bobby has got seven teeth, and is just cutting an eighth, though he will be but nine months old next Wednesday at six o'clock in the evening. Nor is her pedantry less disgusting, when she proceeds to enumerate the virtues and good qualities of her husband; though this last species is so uncommon, that it may, perhaps, be admitted into conversation for the sake of variety.

Muckworm is the meanest of pedants, when he tells you of the scarcity of money at present, and that he is amazed how people can afford to live as they do; that, for his part, though he has a tolerable fortune, he finds it exceedingly difficult to command cash for his occasions; that trade is so dead, and debts so ill paid at present, that he was obliged to sell some shares of bank stock to make up the price of his last purchase; and had actually countermanded a service of plate, else he should have been obliged to strike several names out of the list of his weekly pensioners; and that this apology was sustained t'other day by the noble company (giving you a list of three or four peers, and their families) who did him the honour to eat a bit of mutton with him. All this, however, is true. As is also another anecdote, which Muckworm forgot to mention; his first cousin dined that day with the servants, who took compassion on the lad, after he had been turned down stairs, with a refusal of twenty pounds to set him up in the trade of a shoemaker.

There is pedantry in every disquisition, however

masterly it may be, that stops the general conversation of the company. When Silius delivers that sort of lecture he is apt to get into, though it is supported by the most extensive information and the clearest discernment, it is still pedantry; and, while I admire the talents of Silius, I cannot help being uneasy at his exhibition of them. In the course of this dissertation, the farther a man proceeds, the more he seems to acquire strength and inclination for the progress. Last night, after supper, Silius began upon Protestantism, proceeeded to the Irish massacre, went through the Revolution, drew the character of King William, repeated anecdotes of Schomberg, and ended at a quarter past twelve, by delineating the course of the Boyne, in half a bumper of port, upon my best table; which river, happening to overflow its banks, did infinite damage to my cousin Sophy's white satin petticoat.

In short, every thing, in this sense of the word, is Pedantry, which tends to destroy that equality of conversation which is necessary to the perfect ease and good humour of the company. Every one would be struck with the impoliteness of that person's behaviour, who should help himself to a whole plate of pease or strawberries which some friend had sent him for a rarity in the beginning of the season. Now, Conversation is one of those good things of which our guests or companions are equally entitled to a share, as of any other constituent part of the entertainment; and it is as essential a want of politeness to engross the one, as to monopolise the other.

Besides, it unfortunately happens, that we are very inadequate judges of the value of our own discourse, or the rate at which the dispositions of our company will incline them to hold it. The reflections we make, and the stories we tell, are to be judged of by others, who may hold a very different

talked much of the folly of sending a boy to Eton or Westminster, to waste the most precious years of his life in acquiring languages of little or no real use in the world and begged leave to suggest a plan, which, he said, had been attended with the greatest success in a variety of instances that had fallen within his own particular knowledge.

"His scheme was to send my sons for two or three years to a private school in the neighbourhood of London, where they might get rid of their provincial dialect, which, he observed, would be alone sufficient to disappoint all hopes of their future advancement. He proposed to send them afterwards to an academy at Paris to acquire the French language, with every other accomplishment necessary to fit them for the world. When your eldest son,' added he, 'is thus qualified, it will be easy for me to get him appointed secretary to an embassy; and if he shall then possess those abilities of which he has now every appearance, I make no doubt I shall be able to procure him a seat in parliament; and there will be no office in the state to which he may not aspire. As to your second son, give him the same education you give his brother; and, when he is of a proper age, get him a commission in the army, and push him on in that line as fast as possible.'

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Though I saw some objections to this scheme, yet, I must confess, the flattering prospect of ambition it opened, had a considerable effect upon my mind; and, as my wife, who had been taught to receive the opinions of her kinsman with the utmost deference, warmly seconded his proposal, I at length, though not without reluctance, gave my assent to it. When the day of departure came, I accompanied my boys part of the way; and, at taking leave of them, felt a pang I then endeavoured to conceal, and which I need not now attempt to describe.

"I had the satisfaction to receive, from time to time, the most pleasing accounts of their progress, and after they went to Paris, I was still more and more flattered with what I heard of their improve

ment.

"At length the wished for period of their return approached: I heard of their arrival in Britain, and that, by a certain day, we might expect to see them at home. We were all impatience: my daughter, in particular, did nothing but count the hours and minutes, and hardly shut her eyes the night preceding the day on which her brothers were expected: her mother and I, though we showed it less, felt, I believe, equal anxiety.

"When the day came, my girl, who had been constantly on the look-out, ran to tell me she saw a post-chaise driving to the gate. We hurried down. to receive the boys. But, judge of my astonishment, when I saw two pale, emaciated figures get out of the carriage, in their dress and looks resembling monkies rather than human creatures. What was still worse, their manners were more displeasing than their appearance. When my daughter ran up, with tears of joy in her eyes, to embrace her brother, he held her from him, and burst into an immoderate fit of laughter at something in her dress that appeared to him ridiculous. He was joined in the laugh by his younger brother, who was pleased, however, to say, that the girl was not ill-looking, and, when taught to put on her clothes, and to use a little rouge, would be tolerable.

"Mortified as I was at this impertinence, the partiality of a parent led me to impute it, in a great measure, to the levity of youth; and I still flattered myself that matters were not so bad as they appeared to be. In these hopes I sat down to dinner. But there the behaviour of the young gentlemen did not,