MISCELLANY.
When viewing the race of men upon the large scale, in my spleen, I have divided them into two classes—the deceivers, and the deceived. Indeed so rooted an opinion have I imbibed of the ductility of my fellow-mortals, that I never seriously believed, nor vindicated, what are so proudly styled, the honour and dignity of human nature. Read this, ye unwary, and draw some useful mementos with me. Leave no part of your body undipped in Styx, and be invulnerable.
See then that Politician, wrapped up in the garb of patriotism, mount the rostrum, tickle the stupid multitude into conviction that he is the people’s, the mechanic’s, the poor man’s friend; that he, indignant of his country’s wrongs, alone feels them and asserts her rights. Take off that garb, look through the window of his breast, and see collected, at the apex of his heart, sighs and flutterings after titles, honours, places. Next turn to the bland Physician, who, with nerve of steel himself, feels along the palpitating artery of my Lady Vapour’s, counts its throbs, prescribes a cordial, and receives a guinea for making madam a dupe. Look after that military beau that struts through the Mall. A cockade, a sword, and two epaulets, dazzle the crowd, impose on boys and girls, men and maidens to imagine, that not danger, nor the devil himself could appal such a hero. Carry him to the field of honour, and find him white-liver’d as a hen.
How easily my Lawyer, entrenched with forms and books, gulls clients of their cash, is too stale to repeat. For once in your life, be persuaded, that if you come within the circle of his writs, pleas, bars, demurrers, rejoinders, &c. you will be handsomely stripped, even to your pin-feathers.
I am all gentleness to the sex: were it not that one smile of a Coquette makes me a slave, a flirt of a well-manœuvred fan puts all my resolution asleep, I would not tread on consecrated ground. While I am sensible, that she is playing me on the line, till some other gudgeon come in view, when I shall be shaken off the hook; that I should fancy nought but love in her eyes, on her cheeks but the down of the peach, her hair all auburn and natural, her lips two rose leafs dipped in dew, symmetry in her form, taste in her dress, wit in her repartees, with sincerity in her bosom, is, strange as it is, inconsistent, inconclusive, and unwarrantable. The theatre, is all a cheat. The kings, queens, lords and ladies on the stage, we find, on our streets, are the veriest pieces of mortality. After so much mockery of our senses, not only divinity is fled; something less than mortality remains.
I am the first to confess that Fancy cheats me at her will; not more at the age when I blew the washer-woman’s soap suds through a pipe into beautiful balloons, than at the period at which I am arrived, building palaces on earth, and castles in air. I have roamed, in Imagination’s car, from the seat of Paradise in former, to the present degenerate days: I have searched all, of all ages and countries; and, in abundance have found, as many simple, deluded, pliable, gazing, cheated, weak-sighted mortals, as myself. But as virtue is better than vice, so is delusion, than wretchedness. ’Tis only in regions superior, the soul finds rest, perfection, and happiness.
PROTEUS.