to be moody.
True, true; replied he. I will be all silence and observation. But I hope you will not now be for retiring.
It would be too particular, thought I, if I am: Yet I should have been glad to do so.
The baronet paid his respects to every one in a very set and formal manner; nor distinguished me.
Silly, as vain! thought I: Handsome fop! to imagine thy displeasure of consequence to me!
Mr. Greville, said Sir Hargrave, the town I understand is going to lose you.
The town, Sir Hargrave, cannot be said to have found me.
How can a man of your gallantry and fortune find himself employment in the country, in the winter, I wonder?—

Very easily, when he has used himself to it, Hargrave, and has seen abroad in greater perfecti••, than you can have them here, the kind of diversions you all run after with so keen an appetite.
In greater perfection! I question that, Mr. Greville: And I have been abroad; tho' too early, I own, to make critical observations.
You may question it, Sir Hargrave; but I don't.
Have we not from Italy the most famous singers, Mr. Greville, and from thence and from France, for our money, the most famous dancers in the world?
No, Sir. They set too great a value in Italy, let me tell you, upon their finest voices, and upon their finest composers too, to let them turn strollers.
Strollers do you call them? Ha, ha, ha, hah!—Princely strollers, as we reward them!—and as to composers, have we not Handel?
There you say something, Sir Hargrave. But you have but one Handel in England. They have several in Italy.
Is it possible? said every one.
Let me die, said the baronet, with a forced laugh, if I am not ready to think that Mr. Greville has run into the fault of people of less genius than himself. He has got such a taste for foreign diversions, that he cannot think tolerably of those of his own country, be they ever so excellent.
Handel, Sir Hargrave, is not an Englishman. But I must say, that of every person present, I least expected from Sir Hargrave Pollexfen this observation.
[He then returned the baronet's laugh, and not without an air of mingled anger and contempt.]
Nor I this taste for foreign performances and compositions from Mr. Greville; for