A SQUIRE OF DAMES
Deals with his mistress as the devil does with a witch, is content to be her servant for a time, that she may be his slave for ever. He is esquire to a knight-errant, donzel to the damsels, and gentleman usher daily waiter on the ladies, that rubs out his time in making legs and love to them. He is a gamester who throws at all ladies that are set him, but is always out, and never wins but when he throws at the candlestick, that is, for nothing; a general lover, that addresses unto all but never gains any, as universals produce nothing. He never appears so gallant a man as when he is in the head of a body of ladies and leads them up with admirable skill and conduct. He is a eunuch-bashaw, that has charge of the women and governs all their public affairs, because he is not able to do them any considerable private services. One of his prime qualifications is to convey their persons in and out of coaches, as tenderly as a cook sets his custards in an oven and draws them out again, without the least discomposure or offence to their inward or outward woman; that is, their persons and dresses. The greatest care he uses in his conversation with ladies is to order his peruke methodically, and keep off his hat with equal respect both to it and their ladyships, that neither may have cause to take any just offence, but continue him in their good graces. When he squires a lady he takes her by the handle of her person, the elbow, and steers it with all possible caution, lest his own foot should, upon a tack, for want of due circumspection, unhappily fall foul on the long train she carries at her stern. This makes him walk upon his toes and tread as lightly as if he were leading her a dance. He never tries any experiment solitary with her, but always in consort, and then he acts the woman's part and she the man's, talks loud and laughs, while he sits demurely silent, and simpers or bows, and cries, "Anon, Madam, excellently good!" &c. &c. He is a kind of hermaphrodite, for his body is of one sex and his mind of another, which makes him take no delight in the conversation or actions of men, because they do so by his, but apply himself to women, to whom the sympathy and likeness of his own temper and wit naturally inclines him, where he finds an agreeable reception for want of a better; for they, like our Indian planters, value their wealth by the number of their slaves. All his business in the morning is to dress himself, and in the afternoon to show his workmanship to the ladies, who after serious consideration approve or disallow of his judgment and abilities accordingly, and he as freely delivers his opinion of theirs. The glass is the only author he studies, by which his actions and gestures are all put on like his clothes, and by that he practices how to deliver what he has prepared to say to the dames, after he has laid a train to bring it in.