[17] "If your reply shall be about original contracts, revolutions, &c., I tell you plainly that I ain't at leisure, nor I shan't be at leisure, nor I won't be at leisure, to write you so much as one single line about such matters."—("Answer to Mr. Hoadly's Considerations," &c.)
[18] The allusion is to Oldisworth's "Timothy and Philatheus, in which the principles and projects of a late whimsical book, entitled, 'The Rights of the Christian Church,' &c. [by Dr. Tindal] are fairly stated and answered in their kinds. Written by a Layman." London, three vols. 1709.
[19] "Referring myself to be tried by God and my country, not excepting against any one person's being on the panel, but only Mr. Benjamin Hoadly, Rector of St. Peter's Poor."—("Answer," p. 22.)
[20] "Note: that proper cuts for the historical part of the paper are now almost finished, by an engraver lately arrived from Paris, and will be sold at all the toy shops in London and Westminster." (Folio.)
[No. 51. [Steele.]
From Thursday, August 4, to Saturday, August 6, 1709.
White's Chocolate-house, August 5.
The History of Orlando the Fair.[21] Chap. II.
Fortune being now propitious to the gay Orlando, he dressed, he spoke, he moved, as a man might be supposed to do in a nation of pigmies, and had an equal value for our approbation or dislike. It is usual for those who profess a contempt of the world, to fly from it and live in obscurity; but Orlando, with a greater magnanimity, contemned it, and appeared in it to tell them so. If therefore his exalted mien met with an unwelcome reception, he was sure always to double the cause which gave the distaste. You see our beauties affect a negligence in the ornament of their hair, and adjusting their head-dresses, as conscious that they adorn whatever they wear. Orlando had not only this humour in common with other beauties, but also had a neglect whether things became him or not, in a world he contemned. For this reason, a noble particularity appeared in all his economy, furniture, and equipage. And to convince the present little race, how unequal all their measures were to an antediluvian, as he called himself, in respect of the insects which now appear for men, he sometimes rode in an open tumbril,[22] of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs, and the grandeur, of his personage, to the greater advantage: at other seasons, all his appointments had a magnificence, as if it were formed by the genius of Trimalchio[23] of old, which showed itself in doing ordinary things with an air of pomp and grandeur.[24] Orlando therefore called for tea by beat of drum; his valet got ready to shave him by a trumpet "To horse"; and water was brought for his teeth when the sound was changed to "Boots and saddle."