Aman. My life has been very far from that, my Lord, it has been a very quiet one.
Lord Fop. Why that's the Fatigue I speak of, Madam: For 'tis impossible to be quiet, without thinking: Now thinking is to me the greatest Fatigue in the World.
Aman. Does not your Lordship love reading then?
Lord Fop. Oh, passionately, Madam——But I never think of what I read.
Ber. Why, can your Lordship read without thinking?
Lord Fop. O Lard——Can your Ladyship pray without Devotion——Madam?
Aman. Well, I must own I think Books the best Entertainment in the World.
Lord Fop. I am so much of your Ladyship's Mind, Madam, that I have a private Gallery, where I walk sometimes, is furnished with nothing but Books and Looking-glasses. Madam, I have gilded them, and rang'd 'em, so prettily, before Gad, it is the most entertaining thing in the World to walk and look upon 'em.
Aman. Nay, I love a neat Library too; but 'tis, I think, the inside of a Book shou'd recommend it most to us.
Lord Fop. That, I must confess, I am not altogether so fand of. Far to my mind the Inside of a Book, is to entertain one's self with the forc'd Product of another Man's Brain. Naw I think a Man of Quality and Breeding may be much diverted with the natural Sprauts of his own. But to say the truth, Madam, let a Man love reading never so well, when once he comes to know this Tawn, he finds so many better ways of passing away the Four-and-twenty Hours, that 'twere ten thousand Pities he shou'd consume his time in that. Far example, Madam, my Life; my Life, Madam, is a perpetual Stream of Pleasure, that glides thro' such a Variety of Entertainments, I believe the wisest of our Ancestors never had the least Conception of any of 'em.