A COMPLETE

COLLECTION

OF GENTEEL AND INGENIOUS

CONVERSATION,

ACCORDING TO THE MOST

POLITE MODE AND METHOD,

NOW USED

AT COURT, AND IN THE BEST COMPANIES

OF ENGLAND.

IN THREE DIALOGUES.

BY SIMON WAGSTAFF, ESQ.

A COMPLETE COLLECTION, &c.

IN the admirable ironical introduction to this lively jeu d'esprit, its purpose is sufficiently explained. It was the intention of Swift to turn into ridicule that sort of cant in conversation, which depends upon introducing and repeating, with an affectation of originality and vivacity, a set of quaint phrases, brought together by the mere exertion of memory; a particular string of which is, by the courtesy of the fashionable world, permitted to pass current as wit and lively repartee. The affected solemnity with which Lord Orrery treats this lively and curious satire as among the minutissima of Swift's performances, and one which he would scarcely have published but for the decay of his understanding, leads us to suspect that his lordship had either traced some resemblance to his own conversation in that of my Lord Smart or my Lord Sparkish, or at least that he considered the bon-ton society as sacred by their privileges from the lash of satire. Dr. Hawkesworth, with more justice, considers the Essay on Polite Conversation as a counterpart to the Tritical Essay on the Faculties of the Mind, intended to explode from society the absurd and indiscriminate use of cant phrases and catch-words, and to bring it back to the combination and expression of natural sentiment. It is impossible to peruse the treatise without being astonished at the marvellous command which it exhibits of the very tropes it is meant to ridicule; and it must, I fear, be admitted, that, if antiquated allusions were retrenched, Tom Neverout and Miss Notable would sustain their parts very respectably in the fashionable society of the present day.

The Dean himself, in his letters, describes it as a trial to reduce the whole politeness, wit, humour, and style of England into a short system, for the use of all persons of quality, and particularly the Maids of Honour.

INTRODUCTION.

S

my

life has been chiefly spent in consulting the honour and welfare of my country for more than forty years past, not without answerable success, if the world and my friends have not flattered me; so there is no point wherein I have so much laboured, as that of improving and polishing all parts of conversation between persons of quality, whether they meet by accident or invitation, at meals, tea, or visits, mornings, noon, or evenings.

I have passed perhaps more time than any other man of my age and country in visits and assemblies, where the polite persons of both sexes distinguish themselves; and could not without much grief observe how frequently both gentlemen and ladies are at a loss for questions, answers, replies, and rejoinders. However, my concern was much abated when I found that these defects were not occasioned by any want of materials, but because those materials were not in every hand: for instance, one lady can give an answer better than ask a question : one gentleman is happy at a reply; another excels in a rejoinder: one can revive a languishing conversation by a sudden surprising sentence; another is more dexterous in seconding; a third can fill up

1

the gap with laughing, or commending what has been said: thus fresh hints may be started, and the ball of the discourse kept up.

But, alas! this is too seldom the case, even in the most select companies. How often do we see at court, at public visiting days, at great men's levees, and other places of general meeting, that the conversation falls and drops to nothing, like a fire without supply of fuel! This is what we all ought to lament; and against this dangerous evil I take upon me to affirm, that I have in the following papers provided an infallible remedy.

It was in the year 1695, and the sixth of his late majesty King William the Third, of ever-glorious and immortal memory, who rescued three kingdoms from Popery and slavery,* when, being about the age of six-and-thirty, my judgment mature, of good reputation in the world, and well acquainted with the best families in town, I determined to spend five mornings, to dine four times, pass three afternoons, and six evenings, every week, in the houses of the most polite families, of which I would confine myself to fifty; only changing as the masters or ladies died, or left the town, or grew out of vogue, or sunk in their fortunes, or (which to me was of the highest moment) became disaffected to the government; which practice I have followed ever since to this very day; except when I happened to be sick, or in the spleen upon cloudy weather, and except when I entertained four of each sex at my own lodgings once in a month, by way of retaliation.

I always kept a large table-book in my pocket ; and as soon as I left the company I immediately

* There seems to be a sneer intended. Swift had been so long a Tory, that he now perhaps approached in principle to a Jacobite.