minuct to admiration, and accompanies the airs in the Beggar's opera on his flute in their original tafte: He is also a playhouse critic of no mean pretenfions, for he remembers Mrs. Woffington, and Quin and Mrs. Cibber; and when the players come to town, Billy is greatly looked up to, and has been known to lead a clap, where nobody but himself could find a reason for clapping at all. When his vanity is in the cue, Billy Bachelor can talk to you of his amours, and upon occafion ftretch the truth to fave his credit; particularly in accounting for a certain old lameness in his knee-pan, which fome, who are in the fecret, know was got by being kicked out of a coffee-house, but which to the world at large he afferts was incurred by leaping out of a window to fave a lady's reputation, and escape the fury of an enraged husband.

Dr. Pyeball is a dignitary of the church, and a mighty proficient in the belles lettres: He tells you Voltaire was a man of some fancy and had a knack of writing, but he bids you beware of his principles, and doubts if he had any more christianity than Pontius Pilate: He has wrote an epigram against a certain contemporary historian, which cuts him up at a stroke. By a happy jargon of profeffional phrafes with a kind

of

of Socratic mode of arguing, he has fo bamboozled the dons of the cathedral as to have effected a total revolution in their church mufic, making Purcell, Crofts and Handel give place to a quaint, quirkish ftile, little lefs capricious than if the organist was to play cotillons and the dean and chapter dance to them. The doctor is a mighty admirer of those ingenious publications, which are intitled The flowers of the feveral authors they are felected from; this short cut to Parnaffus not only faves him a great deal of round-about riding, but fupplies him with many an apt couplet for off-hand quotations, in which he is very expert and has befides a clever knack of weaving them into his pulpit effays (for I will not call them fermons) in much the fame way as Tiddy-Doll ftuck plumbs on his fhort pigs and his long pigs and his pigs with a curley tail. By a proper fprinkling of thefe fpiritual nofegays, and the recommendation of a soft infinuating address, doctor Pyeball is univerfally cried up as a very pretty genteel preacher, one who understands the politeness of the pulpit and does not furfeit well-bred people with more religion than they have ftomachs for. Amiable Mifs Pen Tabby is one of his warmest admirers, and declares Doctor Pyeball in his

gown

gown and caflock is quite the man of fashion: The ill-natured world will have it fhe has contemplated him in other fituations with equal approbation.

Elegant Mrs. Dainty is another ornament of this charming coterie: She is feparated from her husband, but the eye of malice never spied a fpeck upon her virtue; his manners were infupportable; fhe, good lady, never gave him the leaft provocation, for fhe was always fick and moftly confined to her chamber in nurfing a delicate conftitution: Noifes racked her head; company fhook her nerves all to pieces; in the country she could not live, for country doctors and apothecaries knew nothing of her cafe; in London fhe could not fleep, unless the whole ftreet was littered with ftraw. Her husband was a man of no refinement; all the fine feelings of the human heart were heathen Greek to him; he loved his friend, had no quarrel with his bottle, and, coming from his club one night a little. flustered, his horrid dalliances threw Mrs. Dainty into ftrong hysterics, and the covenanted truce being now broken, fhe kept no further terms with him and they separated. It was a step of abfolute neceffity, for the declares her life could no otherwife have been faved; his boifterous familiarities

familiarities would have been her death. She now leads an uncontaminated life, fupporting a feeble frame by medicine, fipping her tea with her dear quiet friends every evening, chatting over the little news of the day, fighing charitably when she hears any evil of her kind neighbours, turning off her femme-de-chambre once a week or thereabouts, fondling her lap-dog, who is a dear sweet pretty creature and fo fenfible, and taking the air now and then on a pillion behind faithful John, who is fo careful of her, and fo handy, and at the fame time one of the ftouteft, handfomeft, beft-limbed lads in all England.

Sir Hugo Fitz-Hugo is a decayed baronet of a family so very antient, that they have long fince worn out the eftate that fupported them: Sir Hugo knows his own dignity none the lefs, and keeps a little fnivelling boy, who can scarce move under the load of worsted lace, that is plaistered down the edges and feams of his livery: He leaves a vifiting card at your door, ftuck as full of emblems as an American paper dollar. Sir Hugo abominates a tradefman; his olfactory nerves are tortured with the fcent of a grocer, or a butcher, quite across the way, and as for a tallow-chandler he can wind him to the very

end

end of the street; thefe are people, whofe vifits he cannot endure; their very bills turn his ftomach upside down. Sir Hugo inveighs against modern manners as feverely as Cato would against French cookery; he notes down omiffions in punctilio as a merchant does bills for protesting; and in cold weather Sir Hugo is of fome ufe, for he fuffers no man to turn his back to the fire and fcreen it from the company who fit round: He holds it for a folecism in good-breeding for any man to touch a lady's hand without his glove: This as a general maxim Mifs Pen Tabby agrees to, but doubts whether there are not some cases when it may be waved: He anathematizes the heresy of a man's fitting at the head of a lady's contends that the honours of the u the unalienable rights of the family: In fhort, Sir Hugo Fit pride about him than he know and yet cannot find in hi atom of it upon honesty merits no other prai

fingle all his

family; at his

cxtinct.