'Our honest cobbler is thoroughly convinced, as his forefathers were for many centuries, that one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen; and in that persuasion he would by no means decline the trial. Now, though in my own private opinion, deduced from physical principles, I am apt to believe that one Englishman could beat no more than two Frenchmen of equal size with himself, I should, however, be unwilling to undeceive him of that useful and sanguine error, which certainly made his countrymen triumph in the fields of Poictiers and Crecy.'
No. 122. The 'World.'—May 1, 1755.
'As I was musing one morning, in a most disconsolate mood, with my leg in my landlady's lap, while she darned one of my stockings, it came into my head to collect from various books, together with my own experience and observations, plain and wholesome rules on the subject of diet, and then publish them in a neat pocket volume; for I was always well inclined to do good to the world, however ungratefully it used me. I doubt, Mr. FitzAdam, you will hardly forbear smiling to hear a man who was almost starved talk gravely of compiling observations on diet. The moment I finished my volume I ran to an eminent bookseller near the Mansion House; he was just set down to dinner.... As soon as the cloth was taken away I produced my manuscript, and the bookseller put on his spectacles; but to my no small mortification, after glancing an eye over the title-page, he looked steadfastly upon me for near a minute in a kind of amazement I could not account for, and then broke out in the following manner:—"My dear sir, you are come to the very worst place in the world for the sale of such a performance as this—to think of expecting the Court of Aldermen's permission to preach upon the subject of lean and fallow abstinence between the Royal Exchange and Temple Bar!"'
No. 130. The 'World.'—June 26, 1755.
Extracts from a letter written by 'Priscilla Cross-stitch,' for herself and sisters, on the subject of the indelicacy of nankin breeches, as indulged in by Patrick, their footman:—
'We give him no livery, but allow him a handsome sum yearly for clothes; and, to say the truth, till within the last week he has dressed with great propriety and decency, when all at once, to our great confusion and distress, he has the assurance to appear at the sideboard in a pair of filthy nankin breeches, and those made to fit so extremely tight, that a less curious observer might have mistaken them for no breeches at all. The shame and confusion so visible in all our faces one would think would suggest to him the odiousness of his dress; but the fellow appears to have thrown off every appearance of decency, for at tea-table before company, as well as at meals, we are forced to endure him in this abominable nankin, our modesty conflicting with nature, to efface the idea it conveys.'
The ladies cannot well discharge a good servant for this indiscretion; their delicacy will not allow them to mention the dreadful word, nor venture on allusions to the objectionable part of the apparel; nor will they venture to entrust the task to their maids, as it might draw them into puzzling explanations. The publication of Priscilla's letter, with a warning to Patrick, and a general decree against suggestive drapery, declaring it a capital offence, is intended to relieve the ladies of their confusion.
No. 135. The 'World.'—July 31, 1755.