fellow was never yet a respectable man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else dubs you their dependant, and led captain. It gives your inferiors, just, but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is bad, (as it is called) in company, for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.

This dignity of manners, which I recommend so much to you, is not only as different from pride, as true courage is from blustering, or true wit from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride. The pretensions of the proud man, are oftener treated with sneer and contempt, than with indignation; as we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman, whe asks ridiculously too much for his goods; but we do not haggle with one who asks a just and reasonable price.

Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people's, preserve dignity.

Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as they imply, either a low turn of mind, or a low education, and low company.

Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to little objects, which neither require nor deserve a moment's thought, lower a man; who from thence is thought, (and not unjustly) incapable of great matters. Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously, marked out Cardinal Chigi for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote three years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.

A certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions, gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things.

LESSON LVIII.

The Natural History of Ants.

IN a former paper I supposed a mole-hill, inhabited by pismires or ants, to be a lively image of the earth, peopled by human creatures. This supposition will not appear too forced or strained to those who are acquainted with the natural history of these little insects; in order to which I shall present my readers with the extract of a letter upon this curious subject, as it was published by the members of the French academy, and since translated into English. I must confess I was never in my life better entertained than with this narrative, which is of undoubted credit and authority.

In a room next to mine, which had been empty for a long time, there was upon a window a box full of earth, two feet deep, and fit to keep flowers in. That kind of parterre had been long uncultivated; and therefore it was covered with old plaister, and a great deal of rubbish that fell from the top of the house, and from the walls, which, together with the earth formerly imbibed with water, made a kind of a dry and barren soil. That place lying to the south, and out of the reach of the wind and rain, besides the neighbourhood of a granary, was a most delightful spot of ground for ants; and therefore they had made three nests there, without doubt for the same reason that men build cities in fruitful and convenient places, near springs and rivers.

Having a mind to cultivate some flowers, I took a view of that place, and removed a tulip out of the garden into that box; but casting my eyes upon the ants, continually taken up with a thousand cares, very inconsiderable with respect to us, but of the greatest importance for them, they appeared to me more worthy of my curiosity than all the flowers in the world. I quickly removed the tulip to be the admirer and restorer of that little commonwealth. This was the only thing they wanted; for their policy and the order observed among them, are more perfect than the wisest republics and therefore they have nothing to fear, unless a new legislator should attempt to change the form of their government.

I made it my business to procure them all sort of conveniences. I took out of the box every thing that would be troublesome to them; and frequently visited my ants, and studied all their actions. Being used to go to bed

very late, I went to see them work in a moonshiny night ; and I did frequently get up in the night, to take a view of their labours. I always found some going up and down, and very busy; one would think that they never

sleep. Every body knows that ants come out of their holes in the day time, and expose to the sun the corn, which they keep under ground in the night. Those who have seen ant-hillocks have easily perceived those small heaps of corn about their nests. What surprised me at first was, that my ants never brought out their corn, but in the night when the moon did shine, and kept it under ground in the day time; which was contrary to what I had seen, and saw still was practised by these insects in other places. I quickly found out the reason of it there was a pigeon house not far from thence pigeons and birds would have eaten their corn if they had brought it out in the day-time. 'Tis highly probable they knew it by experience; and I frequently found pigeons and birds. in that place when I went to it in a morning. I quickly delivered them from those robbers: I frightened the birds away with some pieces of paper tied to the end of a string over the window. As for the pigeons, I drove them away several times; and when they perceived that the place was more frequented than before, they never came to it again. What is more admirable, and what I could hardly believe, if I did not know it by experience, is, that those ants knew some days after that they had nothing to fear, and began to lay out their corn in the sun. However, I perceived they were not fully convinced of being out of all danger; for they durst not bring out their provisions all at once, but by degrees, first in a small quantity, and without any great order, that they might quickly carry them away in case of any misfortune, watching, and looking every way. At last, being persuaded that they had nothing to fear, they brought out all their corn, almost every day, and in good order, and carried it in at night.

'There is a straight hole in every ant's nest, about half an inch deep; and then it goes down sloping into

a place where they have their magazine, which I take to be a different place from that where they rest and eat. For it is highly improbable that an ant, which is a very cleanly insect, and throws out of her nest all the small remains of the corn on which she feeds, as I have observed a thousand times, would fill up her magazine, and mix her corn with dirt and ordure.

'The corn, that is laid up by ants, would shoot under ground, if those insects did not take care to prevent it. They bite off all the buds before they lay it up; and therefore the corn that has lain in the nests will produce nothing. Any one may easily make this experiment, and even plainly see that there is no bud in their corn. But though the bud be bitten off, there remains another inconvenience, that corn must needs swell and rot under ground; and therefore it could be of no use for the nourishment of ants. Those insects prevent that inconvenience by their labour and industry, and contrive the matter so, that corn will keep as dry in their nests as in our granaries.

'They gather many small particles of dry earth, which they bring every day out of their holes, and place them round to heat them in the sun. Every ant brings a small particle of that earth in her pinchers, lays it by the hole, and then goes and fetches another. Thus, in less than a quarter of an hour, one may see a vast number of small particles of dry earth heaped up round the hole.-They lay their corn under ground upon that earth, and cover it with the same. They perform this work almost every day, during the heat of the sun; and though the sun went from the window about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, they did not remove their corn and their particles of earth, because the ground was very hot, till the heat was over.