THE TRUE CHARACTER OF A Town BEAU.  By T. O. Gent. 
A Town Beau is a Bundle of Vanity, composed of Ignorance and Pride, Folly and Debauchery; a silly hussing Thing, three parts Fop, and the rest Hector; a kind of walking Mercer's Shop, that shows one Stuff to day, and another to morrow, and is valuable just according to the Price of his Suit, and the Merits of his Tailor; a Spawn of Gentility, that inherits the Vices of his Ancestors, and is like to entail nothing but Infamy and Diseases on Posterity: His first Care is his Dress, and next his Body, and in the fitting these two together, consists his Soul and all its Faculties; his Trade is making of Love, yet he knows no difference between that and Lust; and tell him of a Virgin at Sixteen, he shall swear then Miracles are not ceased: He is so bitter an Enemy to Marriage, that one would suspect him born out of lawful Wedlock, for he never hears Matrimony named, but he sweats and starts as bad as at the Salute of a Sergeant; but for the most delicious Recreation of Whoring, he protests a Gentleman cannot live without it; and vows Mahomet was a brave Bully, and deserves to be worshipped, because he had the wit to make his Paradise a Seraglio, and the Joys of it to consist in plump Wenches, etc. The Devil has taught him Chemistry, whereby he can extract Baudry out of the most modest Language; so that he makes Cato speak it, and turns Admonitions into Obscenity. His Mind is a Room hung round with Arctine's Pictures, and the Contemplation of them is all his Devotion; every thing with him is an Incentive to Lust, and every Woman, Devil enough to tempt him; Covent-Garden Silk Gowns, and Wapping Wastcoateers are equally his Game; for he watches Wenches, just as Tumblers do Rabbits, and plays with Women, as he does at Cards, not caring what Suit he turns up Trump.  
All his Talk is Rhodomontado and Bounce, calling a Nobleman Jack as familiarly as his Footboy, and seldom naming a Lord, without adding, My Cousin; whatever he does, he cries 'tis like a Gentleman, and indeed 'tis only like it, as a Broker's Ware is to a Mercer's, or Long-Lane compared to Cheapside; for he's a Wit of an Under Region, that does but Zany the True, Brave and Noble, grossly imitating on the Low Rope, what t'other does neatly on the Higher: He confers Titles of Honour on all his shabby Companions, to create himself the greater Esteem with his Landlady (who adores him as a more accomplished Knight, than she ever met with in Parism●s, or Amadis of Gaul:) And when he is going to take a Run with a common Crack in the Park, s●●e us he has an Assignation from a Lady of extraordinary Quality. His Hangers on call him Man of Blood, and by his own Report, he's as stout as a Turkeycock, yet he never was in any Service but building Sconces, nor Duel, but with his own Footboy or a Drawer; for he is so prudent, as not to exercise his Courage against any that dare turn again; and has got more Bastards, than ever he made Fatherless Children; yet perhaps at first he will be saucy, and bluster like the four Winds in Painting; but if you begin to be as high as he, straight the Buckle breaks, and then he swears,— I Gad, Sir, I ever honoured you, but you are a passionate Gentleman, and will not understand a Jest.  
Think not, because I repeat so oft, he swears, that I tautologize in his Character, 'tis only to make the Picture more like the Life, for all his Discourses are buttered with Oaths, which he uses (Euphenice gratia.) He seems a Kinsman to the Man in the Moon, for every Month he's in a new Mode, and instead of true Gallantry (which once dwelled in the Breasts of Englishmen) he is made up of Compliments, Cringes, Knots, Fancies, Perfumes, and a thousand French apish Tricks, which render him only fit to be set on a Farmer's Hovel to scare away Crows: He placeth his very Essence in his Outside, and his only Prayers, are, that his Father may go to the Devil expeditiously, and the Estate hold out to keep himself and his Miss in a good Equipage. He thinks it the rankest Heresy in the World, to believe any Man can be Wise or Noble, that is in plain ; and therefore looks down with Contempt on every body, who does not wear as fine and as fashionable  as himself.  
To trace him ab Origine, his Breeding was under the Wing of a too indulgent Mother, who took a world of pains to make him a Fool, and attained her End at the Age of Discretion: at School he learned only how to rob Orchards, and the Generosity of Bribing other Boys to make his Exercise, and stayed at the University just long enough to commence Drunkard, and get by heart the Name of his College to vapour with; from thence he posted to one of the Inns of Court, but in four years' time never read six Lines in 〈◊〉, for he loved a Flacket better than a Moot Case, and was more in his Mercer's Books, than in C●●s or 〈…〉; for Learning he says is Pedantry, unbecoming a Gentleman, and Law, a thing fit only for Gown men that have no way of raising a Fortune, but by setting, two 〈◊〉 Gentlemen) John a Nokes and John a Styles together by the Ears; and thinks the seven wise Men of Greece mere Ignoramus's to one that understands the Humours of the Town; 'tis but wearing fashionable , talking loud, and laughing at all one does not understand, and the Business is done.  
His whole Library consists of Books of Compliments, Drollery, half a dozen Plays, and a Bundle of bawdy Songs in Manuscript; yet he's a shrewd Linguist: Impudence he calls the Boon Assurance, and Unmannerliness the Genteel Negligence. He talks nothing but Intrigues, Gusts, Garnitures, Repartees, Banter, and such modish Fustian, which he hedges in on all Occasions, or indeed without any, and if you bar but forty Words, you strike him dumb. He admires the Eloquence of Son of a Whore, when 'tis pronounced with a good Grace, and therefore applies it to every thing; so that if his Pipe be faulty, or his Purge gripe too much, 'tis a Son of a Whore Pipe, a Spawn of a Bitch's Purge: For new minted Phrases, he has much enriched our Language; 'twas he first brought, I beg your Diversion, into fashion, and may have a Patent for the sole Use (as first Inventor) of that noble Compliment: Let me be damned, and my Body made a Grid-iron to broil my Soul on to Eternity, if I do not, Madam, love you confoundedly.  
Till noon he lies a-bed, to digest his over-night's Debauch, and then having dressed himself, and paid half an hours Adoration to his own sweet Image in the Looking-glass, he trails along the Streets, observing who observes him, to the French Ordinary, where he swills his Paunch with good Cheer and Wine, and tells at Dinner how his Physic worked last Night, and swears never any Clap plagued him half so much as that he has now upon him; cursing his Doctor for a quacking Bastard, that understands a Gentleman's Disease no more than a Farrier: After this, the Coach is called to hurry him to the Playhouse, where he advances into the middle of the Pit, struts about a while to render his good Parts conspicuous, pulls out his Comb, careens his Wig, hums the Orange-Wench, to give her her own Rates for her China Fruit, and immediately sacrifices the fairest of them to the Shrine of the next Vizor-Mask; then gravely sits down and falls half asleep, unless some petulant Wench, hard by, keeps him awake with treading on his Toe, or a wanton Compliment; yet all on a sudden, to show his Judgement, and prove himself at once a Wit and a Critic, he starts up, and with a tragical Face, damns the Play, though he has not heard (at least understood) two Lines of it: However, when 'tis done, he picks up a Miss, and pinching her Fingers, in a soft Tone, and with Looks most abominably languishing, he whispers, Damn me, Madam, if you were but sensible, and all that— of the Passion I have for you, and the Flames which your irresistible Charms have kindled in my Breast, you'd be merciful, and honour me with your Angelical Company, to take a Draught of Love's Posset at the next Tavern. But if he finds her honest, and cannot prevail, than he cries aloud, Damn ye for a Puritannical Whore: What make, you in the Pit here? the Twelve-penny Gallery, with Camblet Cloaks and Footboys is good enough for you; and so raises his Siege, and leaves her.  
Wither he goes next, I dare not follow him, for 'tis certainly a Bawdy-House; by what Name or Title soever it may be dignified or distinguished: Here he meets a Squadron of his Fellow Beaus, and having heightened their Spirits with Jollity and Wine, they are fit for any thing but Civility; and when they vouchsafe to ramble homewards, about One or Two a Clock in the Morning, they set up the dreadful S●. Sa. more dangerous to meet than an Indian Running a Muck. In these heroic Humours, hath many a Watchman had his Horns battered about his Ears, and the trembling Constable been put besides the Gravity of his Interrogatories, and forced to measure his Length upon the Ground: The first Man they meet, they swear to kill, and set all the Women on their Heads, and so they proceed till the Rattling of broken glass Windows, the Shricks of distressed Damsels, and the Thunder of their own Oaths and Execrations fills all the Neighbourhood with Horror, and makes them verily conclude, that the Devil and all his Lifeguard are going a Processioning.  
Next Morning, his Tailor, his Mercer, his Haberdasher, and his Sempstress, stand like a Guard of Swissers about his Chamber-Door, waiting his Uprising; to avoid the Galling of whose small Shot, he instantly dispatches a Light Horseman to call Mr. Glyster-pipe his Apothecary, who encountering this desperate Band of Creditors only with two or three Glasses, as though that day he had purged, drives them all to their Holes like so many Foxes; for the Name of Physic is the only Amulet against a , and a sufficient Quietus est to any beleaguered Gentleman.  
Thus the Iliads of our Beau's Accomplishments may be crammed up in a Nutshell. His three Cardinal Virtues being only Swearing, Wenching and Drinking, and if other men's Lives may be compared to a Play, his is certainly but a Farce, which is acted only on three Scenes, the Ordinary, the Playhouse and the Tavern. His Religion (for now and then he will be prattling of that too) is pretended Hobbian, and he swears the Leviathan may supply all the Leaves of Solomon, yet he never saw it in his Life, and for aught he knows, it may be a Treatise about Catching of Sprats, or new Regulating the Green-Land Fishing Trade: However, the Rattle of it at Coffeehouses, has taught him to laugh at Spirits, and maintain that there are no Angels but those in Petticoats, and therefore he defies Heaven, worse than Maximine: Imagines Hell, only a Hothouse to flux in for a Clap, and calls the Devil the Parson's Bugbear, and sometimes the civil old Gentleman in Black. He denies there is any essential Difference betwixt Good and Evil, deems Conscience a thing only fit for Children, and ascribes all Honesty to Simplicity, and an Unpracticableness in the Ways and Methods of the Town.  
By these Extravagancies does he signalise himself above common Mortals, and count all other Dunghill-spirited Fops, that are not as madly wild and wicked as himself. Thus is Civility, Virtue and Religion hooted out of the World, and Folly and Atheism exalted and promoted: For this is the Bell-wether of Gallantry, whom our younger Fry of Gentlemen admire for a Hero. And by these Arts does a Man now adays come to be counted a Person well bred, and fit for a generous Conversation, though in truth, 'tis only his Estate that guides his Vanity, and his Purse that can compound for his Follies; for of himself he is a painted Butterfly, a Baboon usurping Humane Shape; or to use his own silly nasty Phrase, Mine A—se all over. And so I leave him behind me, till I meet him next time, either in the King's- Bench-Walks, or an Hospital.   

London, Printed, and Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, 1692.