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HILE the authorship of these rules or maxims of civility and decent behavior in company is not positively known, it may be inferred with reasonable certainty. They are found in the handwriting of George Washington when he was quite a youth. His age is inferred from the date 1745 on one of the pages of the copy book in which these maxims are written. The first impression on reading them is likely to be (considering their merit and his age at the period of their production) that they were copied by him from some work on etiquette as an exercise or study. While this may be the fact, my investigation of the matter does not sustain such a view. Anxious to