L. Ha.—Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere than you wise folks; all your life's an art.—Speak you real.—Look you there.—[Hauling her to the glass.] Are you not struck with a secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mien?
L. Ch.—Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it.
L. Ha.—Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale, 'tis tiresome for me to think at that rate.
L. Ch.—They that think it too soon to understand themselves will very soon find it too late.—But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley?
L. Ha.—The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think of getting me so easily.—Oh, I hate a heart I can't break when I please.—What makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle?—were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in your closet.'—The Funeral, Oct. 2nd.
“We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele's]; there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom his Tatlers had not made better by his recommendation of them.”—Cibber.
The Funeral supplies an admirable stroke of humour,—one which Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his Lectures.
The undertaker is talking to his employés about their duty.
Sable.—Ha, you!—A little more upon the dismal [forming their countenances]; this fellow has a good mortal look,—place him near the corpse: that wainscot-face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the end of the hall. So—But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look yonder,—that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful?—and the more I give you I think the gladder you are!
“From my own Apartment, Nov. 16.