Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

N° 2.

FRIDAY, MARCH 2.

-Aft alii fex

Et plures uno conclamant ore

Juv. Sat. vii. ver. 167.

Six more at least join their consenting voice.

T HE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient defcent, a Baronet, his name Sir ROGER DE COVERLY. His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir ROGER. He is a gentleman that is very fingular in his behaviour, but his fingularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However this humour creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with fourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho-Square. It is faid, he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir ROGER was what you call a Fine Gentleman, had often fupped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-ufed by the above-mentioned widow, he was very ferious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dreffed afterwards. terwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the fame cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times fince he first wore it. It is faid Sir ROGER grew humble in his defires after he had forgot this cruel beauty, infomuch that, it is reported, he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gipfies: But this is looked upon by his friends rather as matter of rallery than truth. He is now in his fifty-fixth year, chearfu!, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his fervants look fatisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company: When he comes into a house he calls the fervants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a vifit. I must not omit, that Sir ROGER is a justice of the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-feffion with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the game-act.

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us, is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner-Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chofen his place of refidence rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage-articles, leafes, and tenures, in the neighbourhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the paffions themselves, when

he

he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arife from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one cafe in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both difinterested and agreeable: As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critick, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New-Inn, croffes through Ruffel-Court, and takes a turn at Will's until the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rofe. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an ambition to please him.

The perfon of next confideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London. A perfon of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually fome fly way of jefting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the fea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lafting acquisitions than valour, and that

that floth has ruined more nations than the fword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is,' A penny faved is a 'penny got.' A general trader of good sense is pleafanter company than a general scholar; and Sir ANDREW having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perfpicuity of his discourse gives the fame pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though, at the same time, I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.

Next to Sir ANDREW in the club-room fits Captain SENTRY, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very aukward at putting their talents within the obfervation of fuch as should take notice of them. He was fome years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements, and at several fieges; but having a finall estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir ROGER, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not fomething of a courtier, as well as a foldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profeffion where merit is placed in so confpicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modefty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a four expreffion, but frankly confess that he left the world because he was not fit for it. A ftrict honesty and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the fame end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will however, in his way of talk, excuse generals, for not difpofing according to mens defert, or inquiring into it: For, fays he, that great man who

has

has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: Therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modefty, and affist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper affurance in his own vindication. He fays it is a civil cowardice to be backward in afferting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be flow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The fame frankness runs through all his converfation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the atmost degree below him; nor ever too obfequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our fociety may not appear a fet of humourifts, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleafures of the age, we have among us the gallant WILL HONEYCOMB, a gentleman who according to his years should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his perfon, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impreffion, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His perfon is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that fort of difcourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one fpeaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by fuch a fort of petticoat, and whose vanity, to thew her foot, made that part of

the

« VorigeDoorgaan »