times prove sources of comfort and consolation. Much as I regretted the severe illness that prevented my being present at Cecilia's intended marriage, I now rejoice that I was spared the pain of participating in a scene of disappointment and distress which I could have done nothing to alleviate. I have already written to congratulate my sister, as well as yourself and Sir Matthew, on the detection and defeat of the base contrivance for the destruction of her happiness; and I now take the liberty of addressing you, in the hope that I may contribute to prevent her peace of mind, and the welfare of our family, from being again placed in jeopardy. That a second adventurer and impostor should make her the object of his nefarious designs I do not anticipate; but as her pliant and easy disposition will probably induce her to defer to your judgment and choice, should other claimants solicit her hand, I venture to make a few references to the past, not in the way of reproach-far from it-but from a deep anxiety to obviate any future mistakes on a subject so momentous.

66

My insurmountable objections to the pretended Sir Dennis I took the liberty of stating to you fully and freely, as soon as I understood that he had become a suitor to Cecilia. Antiquated as such notions may sound, I had conceived that a real gentleman, in addition to that restraining fear of God which constitutes the best bravery of a Christian, should be a patriot and a philanthropist; that he should be gentle, generous, and high-principled; courteous to the weaker sex, benevolent and gracious to his inferiors, polished and urbane to all. Not only did the sham Sir Dennis appear to me deficient in these good qualities, but I found him infected with many of their opposite vices. Forgetful of his Creator, and indifferent to his country, dissipation, frivolity, and the indulgence of an intense selfishness seemed to be the sole objects of his existence. Towards females his manners evinced an impertinent boorishness that would have disgraced a peasant; among friends and equals his conversation, utterly unintellectual, consisted of the most vapid common-places of the day, delivered

in an affected, drawling accent. Of the vulgarians and the lower orders, as he presumptuously termed the great mass of his fellowcountrymen, he never spoke except with an unmeasured insolence and contempt, while he would cringe to any leader of the Exclusives, especially if titled or high-born, with the most abject servility. To have been engaged in a duel; to have taken in a friend, either by a gambling-bet or in the sale of a horse; to have defrauded an honest tradesman by the nonpayment of his bill; or to have figured in an intrigue, seemed, in the estimation of this profligate pretender, to be distinctions rather than disgraces.

"In answer to these accusations, which I repeatedly urged against him, I was told that they amounted at most to peccadilloes, from which no modern young man of rank and fortune was expected to be free; and that he was in every respect a perfect gentleman and a man of fashion; in proof of which asseverations I was referred to his dress, his manners, and his language!

"That the manners and the character which are conceived to constitute a gentleman, will vary at different æras, I am well aware. In the grave, stately, and magnificent courtiers of the Elizabethan period, vying with each other for the honourable notice of their learned queen by excellence in arts as well as arms, I can recognise the chivalry of the drawingroom. The dissipated companions of the royal Charles, heartless and unprincipled as they were, distinguished themselves by wit, vivacity, and the possession of literary taste or talents. They who, at a later period, affected the formal and ceremonious politeness of the French court, were dignified by a graceful decorum and a punctilious sense of honour. But the modern dandy, at once exclusive and vulgar, ignorant and vain, servile and arrogant, clownish and conceited; not less selfish, sensual, and immoral, than his predecessors, and unredeemed by any of their better qualities, what claims can he advance to the proud appellation of a gentleman ? His clothes are cut upon a fashionable model; he is conversant with a certain

conventional slang; he can assume in his manners that lounging insolent nonchalance which fops and fools have determined to be the mode! For proof how soon and how successfully these externals of vulgar gentility may be aped by the vulgar, I refer to the valet of the real Sir Dennis Lifford.

"I have gone into this analysis of a man of fashion, at much greater length than I intended, in the hope that you will not suffer any of that worthless tribe to entail misery upon our dear Cecilia, by becoming successful candidates for her hand. Bestow her, I beseech you, on a real gentleman, estimating his claims not by his exterior but his intrinsic merits; weighing the essentials and disregarding the accessories; valuing him for himself and not for the fashionable or unfashionable coterie to which he may belong; preferring, in short, the humblest man whom God has stamped noble, to the proudest peer, if his rank and title be his only nobility.

"Once more I entreat you to pardon the freedom of this appeal, in consideration of my

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