Suspectans tabulam quandam pictam, ubi inerat pictura hæc, Jovem
Quo pacto Danaæ misisse aiunt quondam in gremium imbrem aureum
Egomet quoque id spectare cœpi, &c.
In short, no good Manners can be acquir’d on the English Stage, by seeing an Actor going a Tiptoe, in Derision of mincing Dames; sometimes speaking full-mouth’d, to mock the Country Clowns; and sometimes upon the Tip of the Tongue, to scoff the Citizen? that thus, by the Imitation of all ridiculous Gestures, or Speeches, in all Kinds of Vocations, they may provoke Laughter. When Stages were first set up in Rome, it was accounted infamous to frequent them; and in England, Players, both Men and Women, are reckon’d so scandalous, that tho’ they stile themselves his Majesty’s Servants, yet the Statute Law terms them Vagabonds: “Indeed they are so infamously wicked, that one who never saw them in this Life, may nevertheless at the Resurrection, know their Bodies and Souls are Fellows; insomuch that as the Play-House in Drury-Lane has been burnt once already, it would be a Mercy rather than a Judgment, if God vouchsafed to smite them once again.”
The Audience in the Upper-Gallery is generally compos’d of Lawyers Clerks, Valets de Chambre, Exchange-Girls, Chamber-Maids, and Skip-kennels, who at the last Act are let in gratis, in Favour to their Masters being Benefactors to the Devil’s Servants. The Middle-Gallery is taken up by the midling Sort of People, as Citizens, their Wives, and Daughters, and other Jilts, who make it their Business to let out their Commodities in Fee-tail, to the first Cully she picks up, after Play is over, for a small Treat, and twelve Pence dry. The Boxes are fill’d with Lords and Ladies, who give Money to see their Follies expos’d by Fellows as wicked as themselves. And the Pit, which lively represents the Pit of Hell, is cramm’d with those insignificant Animals called Beaux, whose Character nothing but Wonder and Shame can compose; for a modern Beaux (you must know) is a pretty neat, phantastical Outside of a Man; a well digested Bundle of costly Vanities; and you may call him a Volume of methodical Errata’s bound in a gilt Cover. He’s a curiously wrought Cabinet full of Shells and other Trumpery, which were much better quite empty, than so emptily full. He’s a Man’s Skin full of Prophaness, a Paradise full of Weeds; a Heaven cramm’d full of Devils, or Satan’s Bed-Chamber, hung with Arras of God’s own making. He can be thought no better than a Promethean Man; at best but a Lump of animated Dirt kneaded into Humane Shape; and if he has any such Thing as a Soul, it seems to be patch’d up with more Vices than are Patches in a poor Spaniard’s Cloak. His general Employment is to scorn all Business, but the Study of the Modes and Vices of the Times; and you may look upon him as upon the painted Sign of a man hung up in the Air, only to be toss’d to and fro with every Wind of Temptation and Vanity. As for his Apparel, he endeavours to that all should appear new about him, except his Vices and Religion; he’s too much in Love with these to change them; besides, the latter of them he cannot change, because he never had any. When you look upon his Cloaths, you will be apt to say, he wears his Heaven upon his Back; and truly (’tis much to be fear’d) you see as much of it there, as He ever shall. He is trick’d up in such Gauderies, as if he was resolv’d to make his Body a Lure for the Devil; and with this Bravery would make a Bait should tempt the Tempter to fall in Love with him. By this Variety of Fashions he goes nigh to cheat his Creditors; who for this Reason, dare never swear him to be the same Man they formerly had to deal withal. His Draper may very well be afraid to lose him in a Labyrinth of his own Cloth, which fits, or hangs (shall I say?) for the most part so loosely about him, as if it were ever ready to fly away, for Fear of a Bailiff.
His Language and Discourse are altogether suitable to his Garb and Habit, all affected and apish, but indeed, far more vile, sinful, and abominable. When he talks, why then his Time-observing Hand and Foot do so point, accent, and adorn all his phantastick Flourishes, that his Words are often as much lost in his Actions, as his Sense in his Words: Withal using foolish Expressions, as stab my Vitals, run me through the Diaphragma, pasitively (not positively) it is so and so; speaking as effeminately, and Molly-like, as the Ischnotes, who say, as you may see in Lilly’s Grammar, Nync for Nunc, Tync for Tunc. By Degrees he steps from Idleness and Emptiness, Foolery and Drollery, to Scurrility and Obloquy; so that if his black Breath could blow out, or eclipse those Lights that shine brightest, we should not have one Star left in Virtue’s Heaven; and those Lights which were once sent into the World, to guide him timely and truly out of it into a better, he first endeavours to extinguish, that so he may, without Check or Shame, wander thro’ all the Works of Darkness into Hell. Alas! he sees no such Loveliness in the Things above, as may oblige him to the submissive Courtship of saying his Prayers below; and yet is so confident to enjoy Heaven at last; as if he thought God would be beholden to him for accepting his Blessings; or (as some foolish Lovers take Occasion to double their Addresses from the Unkindness of a coy Mistress) God would the more earnestly importune him to be sav’d, the more disdainfully he looks upon Salvation. If ever he appears at Church, it is but to meditate upon the Ladies, as they sit in their Sunday’s Beauties; and then he returns from the House of God, as most who go thither with no better Intentions, nay ten Times more an Athiest than he went.
The Theatre in the Hay-Market is his sole Delight, where half a Guinea is given for an Italian Song, sung in a new Opera by some foreign Eunuch, or Jilt, with such Quivering, that the Words are lost and confounded with more affected Noise than Harmony. Or else he passes his Time away (as above hinted) at the Play-Houses in Drury-Lane, or Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, to ogle an impudent Actress, or some female Dancer, who crane’s her Neck with such various Motions, that one would think she was going to break it without the Assistance of a Hangman. Or if he is not at these Places of Pollution and Wickedness, the Tavern he then makes his Exchange; where he endeavours to drink himself so far into a Beast, as if it was his Design to become thereby incapable of Damnation, except he be forc’d to sleep out the last Night’s Intemperance; and thinks himself a Champion, when he can kick two down Stairs at once, the Drawer and his Bottle; and sound the Alarm to the Skirmish, in a loud Peal of new-fashion’d Curses. After all is done there, he walks the Streets as light in his Head, as his Purse; and much oftner salutes the Pavement than the Passengers. The Beau hates no Name so much as that of a Christian, he is afraid it would make him melancholy: He travels over the wide World of Sin, till he hath as little Money as Religion, and no more Credit than Money; whereby he is usually at last constrain’d either to lie hid, and so become his own Prisoner, or to pawn his Body to the Marshal of the King’s Bench Prison in Southwark, or the Warden of the Fleet, for his Chamber; or else, to become a Citizen of the World, and so at last is every where at Home, because he is indeed at Home no where. In fine, I never saw an affected Beau have any Bravery; which makes me think they are related to a certain Attorney, who once resenting my sending an affronting Letter to his Sweetheart, had not the Courage to draw his Tilter, when I ex tempore spoke to him the following Lines:
Know, Sir, that I was really bred and born
To lash the Vices of the Age; and sworn
To lampoon Beaux, and Jilts; and to condemn