As translated by Cowley, Horace is made to say—
"Hence, ye profane, I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small!"
The small vulgar
There will be no attempt made in this paper to deal with the great vulgar, but some attempt will be made in it to deal with the small, being the category to which, it may be assumed, belongs the average vulgar girl.
It is of course impossible within the limits of a short essay to indicate more than a few of the leading characteristics of this girl. She it is who not only wants to monopolise the conversation, but who wants to confine it to one subject. She should remember the quaint counsel, "The honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion, and again to moderate, and pass to something else." Moreover in conversation she too often follows the rule laid down by a French author for those about to write love-letters:
"Begin without knowing what you are going to say, and end without knowing what you have said."
If at the end of a conversation she sometimes knew what she had said, the vulgar girl, who is not necessarily a callous girl, would feel very unhappy.
Her tendency to talk indiscreetly has doubtless its origin in the precipitancy which causes her to break in upon the speech of others. There is a lesson which she might learn from a certain polite echo. This echo may be heard opposite to Mugdock Castle in Scotland. It will repeat any sentence of six syllables in the exact tone in which it is uttered—waiting till the sentence is finished.
Another result of the lack of deliberation which characterises the vulgar girl is seen in the fact that the latest book, the latest play, the latest picture, is to her Thingimy by Thingimbob. That nomenclature is somewhat vague, and is moreover out of date, but it still commends itself to the vulgar girl, as does the soubriquet The Bard for Shakespeare.