'These are your men of nice honour, that love fighting for the sake of blows, and are never well but when they are wounded; they are severe interpreters of looks, are affronted at every face that don't please them, and like true cocks of the game, have a quarrel with all mankind at first sight. They are passionate admirers of scarred faces, and dote on a wooden leg. They receive a challenge like a "billet-doux," and a home-thrust as a favour. Their common adversary is the constable, and their usual lodging "the counter." Broken heads are a diversion, and an arm in a scarf is a high satisfaction. They are frugal in their expenses with the tailor, for they have their doublets pinked on their backs; but they are as good as an annuity to the surgeon, though they need him not to let them blood.'
Extracts from the Character of a Beau.
'A beau is one that has more learning in his heels than his head, which is better covered than filled. His tailor and his barber are his cabinet council, to whom he is more beholden for what he is than to his Maker. He is one that has travelled to see fashions, and brought over with him the newest cut suits and the prettiest fancied ribands for sword-knots. He should be a philosopher, for he studies nothing but himself, yet every one knows him better that thinks him not worth knowing. His looks and gestures are his constant lesson, and his glass is the oracle that resolves all his mighty doubts and scruples. He examines and refreshes his complexion by it, and is more dejected at a pimple than if it were a cancer. When his eyes are set to a languishing air, his motions all prepared according to art, his wig and his coat abundantly powdered, his gloves essenced, and his handkerchief perfumed, and all the rest of his bravery adjusted rightly, the greatest part of the day, as well as the business of it at home, is over; 'tis time to launch, and down he comes, scented like a perfumer's shop, and looks like a vessel with all her rigging under sail without ballast.' ... 'He first visits the chocolate-house, where he admires himself in the glass, and starts a learned argument on the newest fashions. From hence he adjourns to the play-house, where he is to be met again in the side box, from whence he makes his court to all the ladies in general with his eyes, and is particular only with the orange wench. After a while he engages some neighbouring vizor, and altogether they run over all the boxes, take to pieces every face, examine every feature, pass their censure upon every one, and so on to their dress; but, in conclusion, sees nobody complete, but himself, in the whole house. After this he looks down with contempt upon the pit, and rallies all the slovenly fellows and awkward "beaux," as he calls them, of the other end of the town; is mightily offended at their ill-scented snuff, and, in spite of all his "pulvilio" and essences, is overcome with the stink of their Cordovant gloves. To close all, Madam in the mask must give him an account of the scandal of the town, which she does in the history of abundance of intrigues, real or feigned, at all of which he laughs aloud and often, not to show his satisfaction, but his teeth. His next stage is Locket's, where his vanity, not his stomach, is to be gratified with something that is little and dear. Quails and ortolans are the meanest of his diet, and a spoonful of green peas at Christmas is worth more to him than the inheritance of the field where they grow in summer. His amours are all profound secrets, yet he makes a confidence of them to every man he meets with. Thus the show goes forward, until he is beaten for trespasses he was never guilty of, and shall be damned for sins he never committed. At last, with his credit as low as his fortune, he retires sullenly to his cloister, the King's Bench or the Fleet, and passes the rest of his days in privacy and contemplation. Here, if you please, we will give him one visit more, and see the last act of the farce; and you shall find him (whose sobriety was before a vice, as being only the pander to his other pleasures, and who feared a lighted pipe as much as if it had been a great gun levelled at him) with his nose flaming, and his breath stinking of spirits worse than a Dutch tarpaulin's, and smoking out of a short pipe, that for some months has been kept hot as constantly as a glass-house, and so I leave him to his meditation.'
Extracts from the Character of a 'Poetaster.'
After commencing his education in a shop or counting-house, the poetaster sets up as a manufacturer of verse.
'He talks much of Jack Dryden, and Will Wycherley, and the rest of that set, and protests he can't help having some respect for them, because they have so much for him and his writings; otherwise he could prove them to be mere sots and blockheads that understand little of poetry in comparison with himself. He is the oracle of those who want wit, and the plague of those that have it, for he haunts their lodgings, and is more terrible to them than their duns. His pocket is an inexhaustible magazine of rhyme and nonsense, and his tongue, like a repeating clock with chimes, is ready upon every touch to sound them. Men avoid him for the same reason they avoid the pillory, the security of their ears, of which he is as merciless a prosecutor. He is the bane to society, a friend to the stationers, the plague of the press, and the ruin of his bookseller. He is more profitable to the grocers and tobacconists than the paper manufacturer; for his works, which talk so much of fire and flame, commonly expire in their shops in vapour and smoke.'