Chapter 36 - Page 2

built by Solon, and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains from a town also of that name--but this is learning you have no taste for!)--I say, madam, there are many sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:

"'I hope, my good doctor, you soon will be here, And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, To open our ball the first day of the year.'

"Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of doctor? Had you called me 'learned doctor,' or 'grave doctor,' or 'noble doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of 'my spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle of winter!--a spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism indeed! and yet to increase the inconsistence, in another part of your letter you call me a beau. Now, on one side or other you must be wrong. If I am a beau, I can never think of wearing a spring-velvet in winter; and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains itself. But let me go on to your two next strange lines:

"'And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.'

"The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh; and so indeed she well may! The Latins have an expression for a contemptuous kind of laughter, 'naso contemnere adunco'; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I take advice! and from whom? You shall hear.

"First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, The company set, and the word to be Loo: All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the center. Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn At never once finding a visit from Pam. I lay down my stake, apparently cool, While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim By losing their money to venture at fame. 'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold: All play their own way, and they think me an ass,... 'What does Mrs. Bunbury?' ... 'I, Sir? I pass.' 'Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, come do,'... 'Who, I? let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' Mr. Bunbury frets, and