The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant / Being a collection of select pieces from our best modern writers, calculated to eradicate vulgar prejudices and rusticity of manners, improve the understanding, rectify the will, purify the passions, direct the minds of youth to the pursuit of proper objects, and to facilitate their reading, writing, and speaking the English language with elegance and propriety

by John Hamilton Moore

6. The rueful length of my face might possibly increase the mirth of my tormentors: at least their joy seemed to rise in exact proportion with my misery. At length, however, the time of my delivery approached. Dinner ended, the ladies made their exit in pairs, and went off hand in hand whispering like the two kings of Brentford.

7. Modest men, Mr. Town, are deeply wounded when they imagine themselves the subjects of ridicule or contempt; and the pain is the greater, when it is given by those whom they admire, and from whom they are ambitious of receiving any marks of countenance and favour. Yet we must allow, that affronts are pardonable from ladies, as they are often prognostics of future kindness.

8. If a lady strikes our cheek, we can very willingly follow the precept of the gospel, and turn the other cheek to be smitten: even a blow from a fair hand conveys pleasure. But this battery of whispers is against all legal rights of war; poisoned arrows and stabs in the dark, are not more repugnant to the general laws of humanity.

9. Modern writers of comedy often introduce a pert titling into their pieces, who is very severe upon the rest of the company; but all his waggery is spoken aside.—These giglers and whisperers seem to be acting the same part in company that this arch rogue does in the play. Every word or motion produces a train of whispers; the dropping of a snuff-box, or spilling the tea, is sure to be accompanied with a titter: and, upon the entrance of any one with something particular in his person, or manner, I have seen a whole room in a buz like a bee hive.

10. This practice of whispering, if it is any where allowable, may perhaps be indulged the fair sex at church, where the conversation can only be carried on by the secret symbols of a curtsy, an ogle, or a nod. A whisper in this place is very often of great use, as it serves to convey the most secret intelligence, which a lady would be ready to burst with, if she could not find vent for it by this kind of auricular confession. A piece of scandal transpires in this manner from one pew to another, then presently whizes along the channel, from whence it crawls up to the galleries, till at last the whole church hums with it.

11. It were also to be wished, that the ladies would be pleased to confine themselves to whispering in their tete-a-tete conferences at an opera or the play-house; which would be a proper deference to the rest of the audience. In France, we are told, it is common for the parterre to join with the performers in any favorite air: but we seem to have carried this custom still further, as the company in our boxes, without concerning themselves in the least with the play, are even louder than the players.

12. The wit and humour of a Vanbrugh, or a Congreve, is frequently interrupted by a brilliant dialogue between two persons of fashion; and a love scene in the side box has often been more attended to, than that on the stage. As to their loud bursts of laughter at the theatre, they may very well be excused, when they are excited by any lively strokes in a comedy: but I have seen our ladies titter at the most distressful scenes in Romeo and Juliet, grin over the anguish of a Monimia, or Belvidera, and fairly laugh king Lear off the stage.

13. Thus the whole behaviour of these ladies is in direct contradiction to good manners. They laugh when they should cry, are loud when they should be silent, and are silent when their conversation is desirable. If a man in a select company was thus to laugh or whisper me out of countenance, I should be apt to construe it as an affront, and demand an explanation.

14. As to the ladies I would desire them to reflect how much they would suffer, if their own weapons were turned against them, and the gentlemen should attack them with the same arts of laughing and whispering. But, however free they may be from our resentment, they are still open to ill-natured suspicions. They do not consider, what strange constructions may be put on these laughs and whispers.

15. It were indeed, of little consequence, if we only imagined, that they were taking the reputation of their acquaintance to pieces, or abusing the company round; but when they indulge themselves in this behaviour, some perhaps may be led to conclude, that they are discoursing upon topics, which they are ashamed to speak of in a less private manner.