a hecatomb. For my own part, I would willingly
consign to oblivion the greatest part of these holiday
inventions, to recover some of those useful discoveries
which have been swallowed up by the avidity of
time ; and would willingly see exchanged Mr. Mer-
lin's chairs for Archimedes's machines; andournewly-
invented liquid shining blacking for shoes, for the
Egyptian secret of staining marble. Every thing
you touch now-a-days is endued with a kind of me-
chanical life ; and if I venture to handle a piece o

63



42 LOOKER-ON. N54.

furniture at a friend's house, 'tis ten to one but that, in
a moment or two, there flies out a spring, by which I
receive a violent rap on the forehead and this passes
for a great convenience. It is in vain that I endeavour
to reinstate the thing in the posture in which I found
it ; it mocks all my ingenuity, and I am forced to call
in the master of the house to my assistance. The
other day, in visiting an acquaintance, I was obliged
to ring the bell to inquire how to knock at his door;
and after my admittance, the whole evening was
passed in a succession of trick and surprise, insomuch
that 1 could not have been in greater alarm if I had
been trespassing among steel traps and spring guns.
The chairs and tables, the knives and forks, the
skreens and the fire things, seemed all bewitched,
and I scarcely touched an article without sincere re-
pentance.

The diversions were of the same cast ; curious
packs of cards, puzzling fans, and magic lanterns,
made out the whole amusement of the evening ; and
I found my old friends converted into conjurors, much
against the design of nature. I reckon it indeed a
peculiar piece of good fortune, that I have been able
to find a simple unsophisticated shagreen spectacle-
case for my mother, who might puzzle herself for an
hour to find a use for those conveniences which I
have generally found annexed to it. There was a
time when our contrivances used to be made for our
wants ; but now we begin at the other end, and
must make wants for our contrivances.

Thursday night, 10 o'clock. The following pro-
clamation has just this moment been brought to me
by express from my mother's synod.

" Whereas it has been made known to our high



N 54. LOOKER-ON. 43

court of females, in council assembled, that the rage
of public amusements is grown to such a height
among our loving subjects, that the London ladies
run away to them before they are entirely dressed ;
we do hereby order, that such females be subjected
to the penalties of the vagrant act. As it is the na-
ture of fashion to familiarise us gradually to the most
frightful innovations, and to carry us step by step
into the most indecorous habitudes, we shall shortly
publish, with the stamp and seal of our authority, a
scale of dress, adjusted to the thermometer, from the
freezing point up to blood heat. We shall hereby pro-
vide, that in the sultriest weather the British ladies
never uncover below a certain point, or let the Zephyr
on any account imprint a kiss upon their bosoms ;
for we judge it not only perilous to our own sex, but
unjust towards the other, to overheat the gentlemen in
cooling ourselves. We have, moreover, taken into
our most serious consideration the disorder and disor-
ganization that has taken place in the different parts
of our dress, which has of late years occasioned
strange deficiencies and redundancies, in contradic-
tion to, or in exaggeration of, nature's benign insti-
tutions. To restore the necessary equilibrium, we
shall take very summary measures to call up all
the constituent parts of dress into their proper places,
so that every lady may appear with the form that
Nature has bestowed upon her, and not outrage her
work by coarse attempts to correct it. We cannot
but consider the sex, at present, to be in the condi-
tion of other bodies, whose equilibrium of electrical
fire being destroyed, are ready for explosion as soon
as they come into contact with a proper conductor.
Thus their bosoms are charged with negative, and
their waists with positive electricity a state as dan-
gerous as can well be imagined to the tranquillity of



44 LOOKER-ON. N 55.

their minds and safety of their persons. We do
therefore enact, hy virtue of our sovereign authority,
that all females in England, in our dominion of Wales,
and town of Berwick-iipon-Tweed, do implicitly and
reverently comport themselves in strict observance of
this our scale of dress, after the 6th day of May
next. Given at our Court, the 21st day of April,
1793."

I cannot help thinking that my mother's appre-
hensions on my account, now that I am exposed to
these surrounding temptations, have accelerated the
publication of this wise proclamation.



N 55. SATURDAY, JUNE 1.



Ta r,yi(*onxa avlocv iiaZteiri, xat rue f^tfjtti( t ota fxtv <pivyuo-iv, a. a
it Ji 4;xhcjv. Antonin. Pius.

Examine the constitution of their minds, and the nature of
their pursuits, the grounds and objects of their disgusts and
affections.

I have been now three days in the capital ; and every
hour's experience confirms me in the conviction, that
I was not born to make any considerable figure within
the bills of mortality. It is not that my coat is so
outofthefashion, though I confess that even there I am
not in all the severity of the mode ; but there is a certain
incorrigible indocility in the turn of my mind, which



K 55. LOOKER-ON. 45

makes it slow in adopting what has nothing to recom-
mend it but change, and dull in comprehending the
value of inconvenience, and the wisdom of incum-
brance. I carry about with me a formal cast of
thinking, which fastens upon a set of principles, that
refuse to be disciplined by the world, or modified by
its customs. My pleasures too are still of a more un-
accommodating nature, and will not be tutored into
that line of enjoyment which fashion has prescribed
to its votaries. Being thus, in a manner, abandoned
to my own counsels, I am determined upon making
the best of my bargain ; and as I observe that it is
among the secret maxims of every man's bosom, when
he finds himself in an error, to invent a system to
countenance and support it, rather than confess his
fallibility ; and that, when a philosopher is wrong,
his way is not to seek to correct himself, but to prove
himself right : so it shall be my business to fortify
myself in my singularities of opinion, by building up
a system around them.

Preparatory to a business of such magnitude, it
will be necessary to remove all interruptions and im-
pediments that may rise in my way from former
systems, and to make, as other great philosophers do,
a general clearance, to all of whom the old proverb
may be very properly applied, " That new brooms
sweep clean." I give notice, therefore, that I have
it in contemplation to astonish the world with a new
list of vulgar errors, or pseudodoxia epidemica ; a
short specimen of which I shall here subjoin.

A fine coat makes, proves, or discovers the gentleman

A red coat, the soldier ;

A tight pair of breeches, a fellow of ease ;

A snuff-box, a connoisseur ;

An eye-glass, a short-sighted man;



46



LOOKER-ON.



No 55.



A cabinet of rarities,
A gallery of portraits,
A large library,
A good table,
A phaeton and four,
A pudding-sleeve,
A doctor's degree,
A seat in parliament,
A stare in public,

A bluntness of manner,
A short memory,
The want of judgement,
A gold-headed cane,
A knack at versifying,
A good preacher,
An open purse,
Volubility,
Taciturnity,
Infidelity,
Discontentedness,
Facility,

A couple of duels,
A couple of bottles,
A couple of mistresses,
A declaimer against man-
kind,
A humble speaker,
A good joker,
A great soaker,
A horse-laugher,
A man of sentiment,



a naturalist ;

a man of family ;

a good scholar ;

a man of hospitality ;

a man of fortune ;

a minister of God's word;

a dignified clergyman ;

a statesman ;

a man of great acquaint-
ance ;

an openness of mind ;

deep erudition ;

a man of genius ;

a critic of the drama ;

a good poet ;

a good sermon-maker ;

a man of charity ;

a man of eloquence ;

a contemplative man ;

a philosopher ;

a patriot ;

a good-natured man ;

a man of honour ;

a man of a strong head ;

a man of gallantry ;

a better man than his
neighbours ;

a modest man ;

a good companion ;

a jolly fellow ;

a pleasant fellow ;

a man of virtue.



All these opinions, and a thousand more, equally
established, I shall endeavour to remove, before I
jf ome forward with my new system, to which I ara



W55. LOOKER-OJT. 47

resolved, in imitation of other great philosophers, to
make every thing a victim that opposes it, if, to clear
the way for it, I am forced to pull down the very pil-
lars of fashionable orthodoxy, and blaspheme the
sanctity of dulness at its very shrine. I cannot an-
swer for the extraordinary lengths to which my sys-
tematizing fury may transport me: possibly it may
lead me on to maintain that, to be a thorough gen-
tleman, one must be a christian, at least in practice,
and that our appearance in the next world is of more
consequence than our figure in this. For such here-
sies as these, I can expect no toleration m the hier-
archy of fashion ; yet am I resolved to buckle to my
tenets till the last extremity, though the inquisition
of the beau monde, in the plenitude of its cruelty,
should condemn me to be " married, and settled in
the country."

One of the most cheerful hopes with which my
mind amused itself, in forming the plan of this visit
to the metropolis, was that of finding, in this great
field of human character, a truly polite man, and such
a one as my fancy had often pictured to itself, in my
moon-light walks through the chesnut groves of my
neighbour Blunt. I despair, however, in the course
of the short time I have yet to dedicate to the search,
of finding my man; I shall therefore describe this
creature of my fancy, as accurately as I remember
it, that if, perchance, he should be met any where by
any of my readers, or if haply he should be among
my readers, he may know that, in an obscure town in
Northamptonshire, there lives an odd little old man,
whose pulse would beat like a drum, and whose bosom
would glow with delight, to behold, ere he sinks into
the tomb of his ancestors, the original of that copy
with which his dreams have presented him.

He is a person of asettled and composed carriage^.



48 LOOKER-ON. N 55.

and his walk is easy, natural, and graceful ; he does
not move as if he thought he was admired, or were
solicitous about it; as if he were conscious of shame,
or were afraid of ridicule; he approaches you with
an unstudied, unconstrained, and simple demeanour ;
he has no jerk or toss with his head, nor any set smile
on his face, nor any gesture that savours of the danc-
ing school, or the mirror; he stands steady while he
is speaking to you, looks you in the face, and talks
not as if he wished others to listen rather than your-
self, stealing perpetual glances at the company or the
bystanders. What he means for you, he directs
to you, and has nothing tortuous or oblique in the
turn of his observations; he is still less inclined to
be problematical and mysterious: he never tells you
half a secret, to make you more curious about the
rest, and to raise his consequence in your eyes : 4 when
he converses, it is not as if he were pumping out from
a reservoir, but drawing from a fountain: he lets a
good thing perish in his mind, rather than protrude it
unseasonably : his humour is the relaxation, and not
the stretch of his understanding ; and of a character
more to amuse than to dazzle thus he never tor-
ments himself, to produce mirth, and can bear his
own silence rather than talk without ideas. He is
frugal in compliment, and flatters more in actions
than in words; in which case he may lose the credit
of a fine speech with the company; but the specific
value of his compliment rises proportionably in the
eyes of the object for whom it was meant. He has
erudition, but he can afford to let it sleep at times;
it is not his only resource ; and if his other resources
occasionally fail him, he can redeem himself at a fu-
ture opportunity. There is between his gestures and
his observations a correspondence and consent, that
communicate to his manners a certain harmony and
7



N* 55. LOOKER-ON. 49

equilibrium, and gives a secret charm to all he says
and does. He never employs more force than is ne-
cessary to its object, or makes a parade of grace and
agility when a simple thing is to be done. His prin-
ciples, like his manners, are modest, but firm ; and he
carries his pliancy to no fundamental articles of reli-
gion and morality, but speaks of the virtuous and the
vicious as they are, if he speaks of them at all.
He hears with patience what you have to say, and
his answers prove he has been attending to you.
He never speaks of his education before an ordinary
.man; of his riches, when in company with the dis-
tressed; or vaunts his happiness, in the presence of
such as are ill at ease; still less does he disparage
.himself unreasonably, for the sake of extorting his
.eulogy from you. His assiduities are delicate and
interesting, his tones natural, and his smiles and his
tears unbought, uncopied, and unsuborned. He has
-ipirit and mettle enough, but it is not forthcoming
on light occasions; and, rather than disturb a com-
pany, he leaves a paltry victory m the hands of his
antagonist. In a word, he is



as gentle



As zephyrs blowing beneath the violet,
Not wagging its sweet head; and yet as rough,
His generous blood inflam'd, as the rud'st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And makes him stoop to th* vale.

I was just proceeding to brighten this character
yet more, by drawing its contrast, when there came
into my mind two sketches by M. La Bruyere, which
are so much to my purpose, that I shall present to
my readers that part of each of them, which has fixed
itself in my memory. " N'esperez plus de candeur,
de franchise, d'equite, de bons offices, de bienveil-

VOL. xliii. f



SO LOOKER-ON. N 55.

lance, de generosite, de fermete, dans un homme qui
Vest depuis long- temps delivre a la cour, et qui se-
cretement veut sa fortune. Le reconnoissez-vous a
son visage, a ses entretiens? II ne nomme plus
chaque chose par son nom : il n'y a pour lui de fri-
pons, de fourbes, de sots, et d'impertinences. Pen-
sant mal de tout le monde, il n en dit de personne;
ne voulant de bien qua lui seul, il veut persuader
qu'il en veut a tous, arm que tous lui en fassent, o
que nul du moins lui soit contraire. Non content de
n'etre pas sincere, il ne souffre pas que personne le
soit; la verite blesse son oreille. Tyran de la so-
ciete, et martyr de son ambition, il a une triste circon-
spection dans sa conduite et dans ses discours, une
raillerie innocente, mais froide et contrainte, un ris
force, des caresses contrefaites, une conversation in-
terrompue, et des distractions frequentes. II a une
profusion, le dirai-je? des torrens des louangespour
ce qu'a fait ou ce qu'a dit un homme place, et qui est
en faveur ; et pour toute autre, une secheresse de pul-
monique. II a des formules de complimens different
pour l'entree et pour la sortie a l'egard de ceux qu il
visite, ou dont il est visite; et il n'y a personne de
ceux qui se paient de mines et de facons de parler,
qui ne sort d'avec lui fort satisfait. II vise egalement
a se faire des patrons et des creatures. II est medi-
ateur, confident, entremetteur; il veut gouverner;
il a une faveur de novice pour toutes les petites pra-
tiques de cour; il sait ou il faut se placer pour etre
vu; il sait vous embrasser, prendre part a votre joie;
vous faire coup sur coup des questions compressees
sur votre sante, sur vos affaires; et, pendant que vous
lui repondez, il perd le fil de sa curiosite, vous inter-
rompt, cntame un autre sujet; ou s'il survient quel-
qu'un a qu'il doive un discours tout different, il fait,
en achevant de vous congratuler, lui faire un compli-



X55. LOOKER-OX. 51

ment de condoleance; il pleure d'un ceil, et il rit de
I'autre. Se formant quelquefois sur les ministres, ou
sur le favori, il parle en public des choses frivoles,
du vent, de la gelee; il se tait au contraire, et fait
le mysterieux, sur ce qu'il sait de plus important, et
plus volontiers encore sur ce qu'il ne sait point.

" J'entends Theodocte de l'anti-chambre : il grossit
sa voix a mesure qu'il s'approche; le voila entre; il
rit, il crie, il eclate : on bouche ses oreilles, et c'est
un tonnerre: il n'est pas moins redoutable par les
choses qu'il dit que par le ton dont il parle: il ne
s'appaise, et il ne revient de ce grand fracas, que pour
bredouiller des vanites et des sottises ; il a si peu
d'egard au terns, aux personnes, aux bienseances, que
chacun a son fait sans qu'il ait eu intention de lui
donner ; il n'est pas encore assis qu'il a a son insu des-
oblige toute l'assemblee. A-t-on servi, il se met le
premier a table, et dans la premiere place. II mange,
il boit, il conte, il plaisante, il interrompt tout a la
fois. II n'a nul discernement des personnes, ni du
maitre, ni des convies: il abuse de la folle defe-
rence qu'on a pour lui. Est-ce lui, est-ce Eutedeme,
qui donne le repas? II rappelle a soi toute l'autorite
de la table ; et il y a un moindre inconvenient a la
lui laisser entiere, qu'a la lui disputer. Le vin et les
viandes n'ajoutent rien a son caractere: si Ton joue,
il gagne au jeu; il veut railler celui qui perd, et il
Voffense; les rieurs sont pour lui. II n'y a sorte de
fatuites qu'on ne lui passe. Je cede enfin, et je dis-
parois, incapable de souffrir plus long-tems Theodocte
et ceux qui le souffrent."

These two last characters I have happily found dur-
ing my short residence here, and within a stone's throw
of my lodgings. To my discerning readers I leave the
task of matching the first. In the mean time I will en-
deavour to amuse them with the relation of an odd kind
2



52 LOOKER-ON. N 55,

of dream, which I fell into last night, after having con-
sumed most part of the day in rambling over the dif-
ferent squares in the neighbourhood of Oxford-street.
My thoughts had been diverted, amidst the whirl of
opulence and splendour which surrounded me, with
reflections on the topsy-turvy dispositions of civilised
life, where the law of inheritance and succession
places us frequently in situations so wide of those for
which nature has formed us. I could not get these
thoughts out of my head, when I laid it upon my pil-
low ; they pursued me in a dream, and brought the
following scene before my eyes. Methoughf, I stood
by the road side, on the margin of a pellucid stream,
of which some one at my elbow told me the follow-
ing tradition. Persecution had once borrowed the
Furies of Proserpine, to lash Truth out of the world.
The poor maid, whose custom it was to go about half
naked, was cruelly driven by these implacable Bil-
lingsgates. She was pursued from city to city, and
from town to town, till, at the moment when she was
beginning to faint with fatigue and the loss of blood,
she came to the brink of this little rivulet, into which
she forthwith plunged, and was preserved, by the pre-
siding deity, from the further vengeance of her tor-
menters. In recompence for this happy rescue, the
stream was endued with the property of reflecting
each person that passed by, in the true character and
office for which nature had designed him, had nature
been suffered to take her course.

I was now desired to contemplate in the stream the
images of those who passed, and observe well the me-
tamorphoses it represented. At that moment there
appeared, in a chair, an elderly lady, in her way to
t. James's: there was as much of her, clothes and
all, as the chair could well contain. As soon as she
was opposite the faithful pool, the transformation was



N> 55. LOOKEH-ON. 55

surprising. Her vehicle was converted into an ordi-
nary wheelbarrow; and the same person that I had,
but a moment before, beheld enveloped in flounce
and brocade, fell to crying potatoes with the lustiest
scream, and the most hearty good-will imaginable.
I had scarcely taken leave of my old dowager pota-
toe-woman, before I beheld, at a distance, a couple
of noble peers approach in a phaeton and four. As
soon, however, as they arrived at the spot, the water
reflected back the image of a cart carrying two cri-
minals to the place of execution, and the blue ri-
band round one of their necks took the likeness of a
halter. A very spruce gentleman in black now came
forward, with a cane and tassel in his hand, and a
glittering something on his finger. This gentleman,
I was told, was an evening lecturer, and a very popu-
lar preacher. It was singular enough to see so ve-
nerable a personage, as soon as he came to this ora-
cular water, equipped with a bag and brush, and cry-
ing forth, " Sweep! Sweep!" with the most natural
tones conceivable. A nobleman's carriage now came
rolling by, when what was my astonishment, to see
his lordship get out of his vehicle, and, after handing
the coachman into it, mount the box himself! I
could not observe his lordship's skill in driving for
the noise made in my ears by a passing nabob, who
was stunning me with the cry of " Black your shoes,
your honour!" My attention was now diverted by
a long funeral procession: the hearse underwent but
small alteration, as no dead man is out of character,
but the plumes all fell upon the ground, and were
trampled under foot ; in the succeeding carriages
there was one roar of laughter; the chief mourners
were changed into merry-andrews, while the mutes
fell to singing with a very hearty good-will.
j3



Si LOOKER-ON. N 55.

I turned my eyes from this disgusting spectacle,
and beheld, at some distance, two gentlemen arm in
arm, who, I was informed, had long passed for mo-
dels of disinterested friendship. They had hardly,
however, come up with me, before, as it appeared in
the stream, one of them drew out a pistol from his
bosom, and would certainly have shot the other
through the head, if he had not taken to his heels
the moment his arm was disengaged. A couple that
had been united some years, as a bystander informed
me, succeeded these bosom friends. I thought I
blushed, after my fashion, that is, as much as my
adust complexion would allow me, to see them
change their lower garments in the watery mirror,
and the lady walk off, en cavalier, with her husband's
breeches. A surgeon happening most opportunely
to meet a carcase-butcher just at the critical spot,
appeared to give him up his box of instruments, and
march away with his tray on his shoulder. A very
fine man, in a red coat, was now coming up, with a
truly martial stare ; in a moment, however, his regi*
mentals were covered with a smock frock, and hi*
cane changed into a carter's whip, and in this equip-
ment he plodded away like another Cincinnatus re-
tiring to the plough.

At this instant, as I looked into the stream, a per-
son seemed to be picking my pocket as he passed : I
turned hastily round, and was told that the gentle-
man that was walking by, was a methodist preacher*
A stately person that now advanced, was, as I was
in formed, a famous poet at watering-places, and ce-
lebrated for his elegies on ladies' larks, and linnets,
and lap-dogs, and ladies themselves : as he approach-
ed, the whole inside of a book, which he held under
his arm, seemed to be dispersed a thousand ways, like



N 55. LOOKER-ON. 55

the leaves of the Sybillae, and nothing but the covers
were left him, while the man himself was reflected by
the stream in the character of an undertaker.

Methought, after this, a most solemn scene rose be-
fore my eyes. A succession of theOLivE-BitANCHEs,
for ten generations back, passed beside the stream ;
and, what was truly surprising, it reflected them all
just as they were, in their native simplicity, not a li-
neament of their faces altered, not a shred of their
garments transposed. I thought my great-grand-
father, whom I knew by the tobacco-stopper in his
hand, cast a discontented look at the modish appear-
ance of my buckles, which I had purchased since
my arrival in town ; which circumstance so terribly
disconcerted me, that I was on the point of throwing
myself into the stream, if I had not waked at that in-
stant, and changed my mind in consequence.



56 LOOKER-ON. N 3 56.



N 56. SATURDAY, JUNE 8.



Like a maiden shy and fearful,

Hidden now by turns, and seen,

Frownest now, and now art cheerful,