'I have been humbly of opinion for many years that the keeping of the Ten Commandments was a matter not altogether unworthy of our consideration and practice; and though I am of the same sentiments still, yet I dare hardly publish them, knowing that if I am against the world, the world will be against me. I must not affront modern politeness and the common mode.
'Who would have the boldness to mention the first commandment to Matilda, when he has seen her curt'sying to herself in the glass, and kissing her lap-dog, and worshipping these two divine creatures from morning till night? Nor is Matilda without other deities; she has several sets of china, a diamond necklace, and a grey monkey; and, in spite of her parents and her reason, she is guilty of will-worship to Dick Noodle. But this last is no wonder at all, for Dick wears fine brocade waistcoats and the best Mechlin, and no man of the age picks his teeth with greater elegance.
'And would it not be equally bold and barbarous to enslave a beau or a bully with the tyranny of the third commandment? when it's well known that these worthy gentlemen and brothers in understanding and courage must either be dumb or damning themselves; and, therefore, to stop their swearing would be to stop their breath, and gag them to all eternity. Beau Wittol courts Arabella with great success, and it is not doubted he will carry her, though he was never heard to make any other speech or compliment to her than that of "Demme, madam!" after which he squeezes her hand, takes snuff, and grins in her face with wonderful wit and gaiety. Arabella smiles, and owns with her eyes her admiration of these accomplishments of a fine gentleman.'
Of Flattery.
'Flattery is the art of selling wind for a round sum of ready money. A sycophant blows up the mind of his unhappy patient into a tympany, and then, like other physicians, receives a fee for his poison. It is his business to instruct men to mistake themselves at a great expense; to shut their eyes, and then pay for being blind. Thus the end of excelling in any art or profession is to have that excellence known and admired.
'Sing-song Nero, an ancestor of Mr. Tom d'Urfey, would, probably, never have banished the sceptre and adopted the fiddle, but that he found it much easier for his talents to scrape than to govern. In this reign, he that had a musical ear, or could twist a catgut, was made a man; and the fiddlers ruled the Roman empire by the singular merit of condescending to be viler thrummers than the emperor himself. He who at that time could but wonder greatly, and gape artfully at his Majesty's royal skill in crowding, might be governor of a province, or Lord High Treasurer, or what else he pleased.
'This imperial piper used to go the circuit, and call the provinces together, to be refreshed with a tune upon the fiddle, and if they had the policy to smother a laugh, and raise an outrageous clap, their taxes were paid, and they had whatever they asked; and so miserably was this monarch and madman bewitched by himself and his sycophants with the character of a victorious fiddler, that when he was abandoned by God and man, and, as an enemy to mankind, sentenced to be whipped to death, he did not grieve so much for the loss of his empire as the loss of his fiddle. When he had no mortal left to flatter him, he flattered himself, and his last words were, "Qualis Artifex pereo!—What a brave scraper is lost in me!" And then he buried a knife in his inside, and made his death the best action of his life!'
Of Retirement.