<:'■ ■ <' *o "<zi'< ~+ 
 
 
 
 
 kq MlSs 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 
 
 «xg 
 
 ^SJ> 
 
 v^_ v_<^^^L: 
 
 <«cl<: « 
 
 <<l< 
 
 c c<<i 
 
 K^ 
 
 -iCC 
 
 s "«r c <_« 
 
 cgc:«gc3c 
 
 OBCr: ■.<:' ife c 
 
 
 ^c: 
 
 3 C ClOi 
 
 CS^'^Cjc^ 
 
 3«*(E 
 
 cci^c 
 
 
 £v C CL..CI 
 
 •^£-1 
 
 CC <3ti£ 
 
 cc<C<C" 
 
 ^MC? 
 
 <^ <TO 
 
 Ks*c<zr 
 
 ^^< 
 
 c <rc< 
 
 
 •CjS 
 
 <c czcjc 
 
 5*C<r<* 
 
 a^E^i" 
 
 c CO 
 
 ^<^ET^I 
 
 fcc< 
 
 5 <T<s 
 
 <jsz:^z 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 fe<^#g- 
 
 
 X ^-^^S&Sifc.JS^J!^ 
 
 -V 
 
 ^QS^CS 
 
 citL<< 
 
 
 ~ ■<- 
 
 acac~«< 
 

 rccoc «^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <r<^ <S 
 
 x: ccj : c 
 
 c<r~<xL 
 
 
THE 
 
 TARANTULA; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 DANCE OF FOOLS. 
 
 & Satirical &Uor&. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF THE « RISING SUN," &c. 
 
 V0L - r - ^&«j~2^^ 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. F. HUGHES, NO. 5, WIGMORE 
 STREETj AND NO. \5 } PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 I8O9. 
 

INVOCATION TO THE CRITICS. 
 
 Critics, or Sat 'rists, ne'er did I arraign 
 
 Your right to vapour over authors slain $ 
 
 Ne'er did I say, it was a cursed shame 
 
 His pages to bespatter, and his fame. 
 
 Guardians of muses, and their hallow' d seat r 
 
 From profanation of unhallowed feet, 
 
 Who keep off vain pretenders with a sharp eyet r 
 
 And would not, for a sop, tell any d d lie : 
 
 I seek not on Parnassus' top to leap, 
 Nor climb, with wary steps, the craggy steep y 
 Pray, let me quietly wander in the vale 
 Beneath, nor blow on me your boist'rous gale. 
 Leave me in peace (what every author wishes) "Y 
 To fill my shrivell'd chops with loaves and fishes — v 
 I ask not much, nor choice am in my dishes. J 
 Do not inflame the gentle reader's spirit, 
 And rouse him up to damn my want of merit. 
 The wise think for themselves 5 but they are few y 
 Fools, to seem wise, will always side with you. 
 Ah ! do not teach them with disdain to chill 
 The tuneful labours of my grey-goose quill.. 
 VOL. I, B 
 
Let me not die, like the presaging swan, 
 
 Chaunting my fun'ral dirge ; nor like that man 
 
 Knight, sir J— n C~rr, whose pretty Scottish tour, 
 
 My Pocket Book has buried ever more : 
 
 No— let me live, and frisk in Tempe's plains, 
 
 Collecting little matters for my pains. 
 
 Do iet the fair sex quietly read my ditty, 
 
 i^nd vow they like it— 'tis so very pretty ! 
 
 Then will you have my thanks, and I — my end 5 
 
 But, ere my work you to the devil send, 
 
 Consider, Sirs, and with the thing be smitten — 
 
 How finely Shakespeare has on mercy written. 
 
 That attribute of Gods— (I humbly speak it) 
 
 Can ne'er disgrace the brow of mighty critic 5 — 
 
 How 'twill my gizzard vex to see the paper, 
 
 On which my wit's expended, light a taper 3 
 
 Or else be us'd for — perish the foul thought ! 
 
 What's that you whisper, Sirs?— "Wemay le bought!" 
 
 I know it well, ye greasy-fisted knaves, 
 
 Ye night-mares of poor authors, — your vile slaves ! 
 
 I'll give nor dinner, wine, nor glass of gin — 
 
 Like Tantalus's be each Critic's chin ! 
 
 Butstay, I'll give— " What, what, Sir? we're not nice. 
 
 Guineas, perhaps?" — No, harpies- -good advice! 
 
 Let gold no longer guide your critic rules, 
 
 Nor prey, like rogues, on carcasses of fools. 
 
THE 
 
 TARANTULA* 
 
 Grumblerius. — Your father, my young 
 Sir, might as well have sent you to me to 
 introduce you into Bethlehem Hospital, as 
 into the world. — Does he imagine that I 
 will become a master of the ceremonies to 
 an assembly of fools ? — No, no, young 
 man ; you are my nephew ; and, as I 
 have never been married, I intend to make 
 b 2 
 
4 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 you my heir; but I will not dance into 
 public, like a bear with a monkey on its 
 back, to 
 
 f( Dazzle fools, and set them all agape.* 
 
 Mundungus. — My father, dear Sif, 
 presuming on your friendship, and know- 
 ing your experience of the world, has 
 merely requested that you will give me 
 some insight into its beauties and defects; 
 which will, perhaps, be of more real 
 service than bestowing your fortune on 
 me. 
 
 Grumblerius. — I have seen none of its 
 beauties, and it would "be an unpleasant 
 task to grumble over its defects ; especially 
 to a gay youth who, as yet, sees nothing 
 but flowers before him. Why, then, 
 should I make him anticipate the thorns, 
 
OR, DANCE 'OF FOOLS. 5 
 
 which he will meet with bat too soon, and 
 begloom the only happy portion of human 
 life — happy in ignorance? 
 
 Mundurtgus. — I may not be so sanguine 
 in my expectations of the world as you, 
 Sir, may imagine. — I wish to learn the 
 truth, and so far as books 
 
 Grumblerius.— Books ! You might as 
 well have raked for the moon in a horse.- 
 pond. To know mankind, .you must study 
 men themselves. 
 
 Mundungus.—- That^ Sir, is what I would 
 wish to do, with a little of your guidance 
 at the outset. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Poh ! It will be better 
 for you to cut in and shuffle with fools, 
 and take your chance in the world. " Odd 
 puerulum prcecoci sapieniiu " — I cannot 
 endure a child who is a premature man. 
 
6 THE TARANTULA I 
 
 I shall only tear the veil from your eyes, 
 which I almost wish had still remained 
 before my own. Had I been contented 
 without analysing the follies of others, I 
 had not come to the pass of knowing 
 myself to be a fool. I advise you to take 
 a contrary course, and, thinking yourself 
 wise, like the rest of the world, be a fool 
 without suspecting it. Take my word for 
 it, that the deception will render your 
 passage through life much more pleasant* 
 To take the world as it goes is the ne plus 
 ultra of human wisdom ; and even that, 
 Solomon tells us, is folly. 
 
 Mundwigiis. — The ancients feigned, that 
 Justice fled from the earth ; do you really 
 think that Wisdom has likewise aban- 
 doned us? 
 
 Gnimhleriiis* — I can only say that I 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 7 
 
 have never met with her in any human 
 
 being, — not even in the D of 
 
 p 9 Mr. P 1, Mr. C g, 
 
 or any other of our sapient rulers. The 
 only glimpse which I have ever been able 
 to get of a faint resemblance of her, is 
 that consciousness which teaches a man to 
 conceal his folly; for, as Sancho Panza 
 says, " We are all as God made us, and 
 are not obnoxious to ridicule for being 
 what we are, but for wishing to pass for 
 what we are not." The world is full of 
 affectation, and all affectation is folly ; for 
 which reason Cicero observes — 
 
 <e Stultorum plena sunt omnia." 
 
 Folly pervades all things. — This is also 
 the result of my own experience, and I 
 leave it to yourself to determine, whether 
 you would press the subject any further. 
 
8 THE TARANTULA \ 
 
 Mundungus.S'w, I think I should 
 profit by your discussion, as I flatter my- 
 self with sense enough to distinguish be- 
 tween a true or false argument or conclu- 
 
 i 
 
 ' sion 
 
 Grumblerius. — Why, there it is. — Every 
 fool is tvise in his oxen conceit ; and you, 
 yourself, are the first argument in support 
 of my doctrine of universal folly. 
 
 Mundungus. — I stand corrected, Sir, 
 and hope also to be instructed. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Well, well; if you will 
 persevere in extracting my opinion from 
 me, remember that it will" be vour own 
 fault, if you should be disgusted either 
 with the world, Or my description of it. 
 I assert, then, that every age, sex, and 
 condition, is tinctured with folly 9 more or 
 less gross indeed ; and that he who thinks 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 9 
 
 Mm self free from it is the greatest fool of 
 all. Volumes might be filled with proofs 
 of this assertion ; indeed, history is merely 
 a record of them; — but it will be suffi- 
 cient for our purposes of conversation to 
 take a cursory review of mankind in a 
 scale descending. — The ancient fables of 
 heroes and demigods I shall notice only to 
 instance the gross jolly of those who in- 
 vented such chimeras— of those who re- 
 ceived them as true,- — and of those who, 
 in the present day, consider a memory 
 stuffed with them, as the acme of edu- 
 cation. The heads of our youth, thus 
 early charged with fabulous matter, are 
 never to be freed from romantic ideas. 
 To how many thousands of pedantic, as 
 well as romantic, madmen, would not 
 Cervantes have extended his benefit, if, 
 
10 the tarantula; 
 
 together with Esplandian, Amadis of 
 Greece, Don Olivante de Laura, Floris- 
 marte, Platir, the twelve peers, and other 
 chivalrous worthies, he had made the 
 Curate, Master Nicholas, the Barber, and 
 Don Quixote's housekeeper, consign to 
 the flames the Pantheon, and the infa- 
 mous amours of its gods, goddesses, 
 heroes, and heroines. Let us now pass 
 on to those, not imaginary, rulers of the 
 earth, whose adventures are ascertained 
 to us by history, and we shall find that 
 common sense is not more the prerogative of 
 kings and princes, than of other people. 
 Alexander the Great was only one of those 
 fools whom Horace lashes as — c imitatores, 
 servum pecus*. Having made Homer's 
 Achilles, phantom or reality, his model, 
 Achilles had his friend Patroclus, Alex- 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS* 11 
 
 ander his Hephestion; Achilles piqued 
 himself on his swiftness of foot and per- 
 sonal valor, so did Alexander; Achilles 
 gave a loose to the violence of his passions, 
 so did Alexander, Homer gave Achilles 
 a divine origin on his maternal side, and 
 Alexander defamed his parents, by causing 
 himself to be styled the son of Jupiter. 
 And yet this son of the mighty thunderer 
 was so soft a fool, as to w*eep for more 
 worlds to conquer, as a baby cries for 
 more toys. Added to these proofs, his 
 drunken gambols, the murder of Clytus, 
 and the firing of Persepolis, must rank 
 him as a fool of the first water. Xerxes 
 would have been a most laughable jack- 
 pudding, if he had not led more than a 
 million of fellow-creatures to the slaugh- 
 ter. No commander in chief, not even 
 
22 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 in our blessed days, ever made a cam- 
 paign with such a seraglio; but, after join- 
 ing Asia to Europe by a bridge, and 
 scourging the sea for disobedience, he was 
 glad to make his escape from a handful 
 of enemies in a skiff. It might seem invi- 
 dious to draw any parallel betwixt this 
 expedition, and a recent one to the Texel! 
 Julius Ccemr blubbered like a whipt 
 school-boy, at recollecting that he was 
 unknown in the world at an age when 
 Alexander was both the admiration and 
 master of it. Fired with emulation, he 
 conquered his country's enemies, and then 
 enslaved her. When we add to this base- 
 ness the vile means by which he strove to 
 maintain his power — by being the husband 
 - of every wife, and the wife of every hus- 
 band in Rome, we must, at least, set him 
 
OR, DA¥CE OF FOOLS. 13 
 
 down as a common buffoon. Who can read 
 the lives of the subsequent Caesars, (three 
 or four excepted) without feeling the ut- 
 most contempt for such extravagant fools. 
 The unnatural debaucheries of Tiberius, 
 in the island of Caprcea; the incests of 
 Caligula; his cockle-shell expedition; (to 
 
 be equalled only by those of the D of 
 
 Y :, Sir James P , and General 
 
 W ;) his raising his horse to the 
 
 highest office of state ; (we have seen 
 many an ass there y) his infamous wish 
 that the people of Rome had but one neck, 
 that he might signalize himself by cutting 
 them all off at one blow; and his ordering 
 himself to be worshipped as a god, till a 
 dagger proved his mortality. The stupidity 
 of Claudius Nero, the blind cuckold of 
 those two infamous wretches, Messalina 
 
14 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 and Agrippina ; the former of whom h e 
 put to death, and was himself poisoned 
 by the latter. The bestialities of Domitius 
 Nero, the parricide, fiddler, stage player^ 
 and catamite, who finished all by execut- 
 ing the hangman's office on himself. The 
 avarice of Vespasian^ who taxed even 
 urine. The combined lust, cruelty, avarice, 
 and scandalous artifices of Commodus 
 Antoninusy the gladiator, who fell by the 
 contrivance of his mistress, and her favo- 
 rite paramour, — I say, the almost unin- 
 terrupted succession of such contemptible 
 rogues, idiots, monsters, and fools, must 
 sufficiently account to us for the licentious- 
 ness of the soldiery in putting up the 
 empire for sale, and for that corruption 
 which produced the decline and fall of the 
 .Roman empire. In this country (where 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 15 
 
 may God render fools as scarce as snakes 
 in Ireland^ which is very far from being 
 the case at present) Canute was fool 
 enough to let his courtiers tickle him into 
 a belief that the sea would obey his com- 
 mands. Edward the Fourth, and Henry 
 the Eighth, raised large sums from the 
 public, and landed armies in France, 
 where the farce ended in ostentatious inter- 
 views and tournaments between the rival 
 princes, and other such royal follies, — with- 
 out the least benefit to the nation, in return 
 for their vast expense. The follies of the 
 Stuarts deprived them of the English crown, 
 and, in the present day, those of the 
 Bourbons have, perhaps, for ever severed 
 them from those of France and Spain » 
 The effeminacy of the Italian princes, 
 confiding more in their confessors than 
 
16 
 
 THE TARAXTULA % 
 
 in the conquering arts of their hardy an- 
 cestors, has swept them away like dust 
 from the face of the earth; whilst the 
 foolish jealousies of the emperors of Austria 
 and Russia, and the temporizing folly of 
 the King of Prussia, have rendered them 
 abject vassals of a once-needy adventurer. 
 Add to all these follies, our own foolish 
 expeditions, under still more foolish gene- 
 rals, to the continent of Europe, the island 
 of Ferrol, and Buenos Ayres — and who 
 can be astonished that the whole face of 
 Europe is changed — that kings have been 
 compelled to act as allies with a man whom 
 they despised and detested, and by whom 
 they had been insulted and trampled upon r 
 against their own dearest interests, rela- 
 rives, and natural allies — that queens have 
 been reduced to stigmatise their husbands, 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 1/ 
 
 and issue as cuckolds and bastards, and 
 have been dethroned, after having been 
 thus ignominiously treated as egregious 
 fools? We most earnestly pray to God 
 (with Rabelais) that he will send them 
 more sense, and ourselves more money. 
 Our only glimpse of hope is, that, as the 
 tyrant of Europe is not exempt from 
 human follies, he will try at something 
 beyond his strength, and be wedged, like 
 Milo, in attempting to rive a tree, till he 
 perish miserably. Some dust-licking doc- 
 tors of a certain foreign university have 
 already transplanted him into Orion's belt, 
 with which gross flattery the little, vain, 
 
 fool was highly tickled. So that you see 
 we have instances of imperial and regal 
 
 folly, even at the present day. 
 
 Mundungus. — I must confess, that you 
 vol. i. c 
 
18 the tarantula; 
 
 have adduced a long train of evidence, 
 which, I can conceive, may be extended to 
 far greater lengths. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Aye — far beyond what 
 you may suppose ; the conduct of some of 
 the very best of them will justify the old 
 adage of " Birds of a feather foch toge- 
 ther ; r as we may gather from historians 
 and poets, that kings were so much attached 
 to fools, as to have them ever about their 
 persons. — One of the greatest, as well as 
 justest of the Eastern sovereigns, the 
 caliph Haroun Alraschid, maintained a 
 fool, named Balahoul, whose business it 
 was to divert him. — As familiarity breeds 
 contempt, this fool had one day the impu- 
 dence to seat himself upon the caliph's 
 throne, for which temerity he received a 
 very plentiful shower of blows from the 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 1$ 
 
 cane of one of the officers. The fool 
 made such a horrible outcry that the 
 caliph heard it, and came to enquire the 
 cause. When he was informed of the 
 vanity of the fool's bum to associate itself 
 with that of royalty, he, good humour- 
 edly, laughed, and endeavoured to console 
 him under his sufferings. " It is not on 
 my own account that I weep/' said Bala- 
 houl ; ** it is for you I am alarmed ; for if 
 I deserve to be so severely handled for 
 playing the fool on the throne for only a few 
 minutes, what have you to expect, who 
 have played the fool therefor more than ten 
 years f 
 
 Mundungus. — Well hit, fool! Never 
 
 was a pill better gilt, that is, a keener 
 
 satire conveyed with more humour ! 
 
 Stultitiam simulare loco prudentia summa 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 est. — It is the greatest wisdom to know 
 when to play the fool seasonably. — Bala- 
 houl deserved a crown for his wit better 
 than many of those upstart fools, on whose 
 heads many have rained, in the present day, 
 without their having ever said or done a 
 good thing. I can easily conceive why 
 kings are fonder of fools than wise men. — 
 Royal ears are very tender organs, and the 
 latter mordaci raddent vero grate them 
 with stinging truths ; but the former tickle 
 them by mixing a sufficiency of oil of fool. 
 Besides un homme, qui rit } ne sera jamais 
 dangereux — a fool's bolt is soon shot and 
 disregarded as harmless ; whereas a wise 
 man's arrow is barbed for an opposite rea- 
 son. 
 
 Grumblerius. — You are right ! Kings, 
 who have been flattered into a belief of 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 21 
 
 their being superior to humanity, cannot 
 endure to find themselves inferior to their 
 meanest subjects, even in that court- 
 neglected article — common sense. No 
 wonder, then, that as wise a king as any, 
 perhaps, on earth, should have preferred 
 
 the jests of B y R s to the solid 
 
 conversation of a Dr. J n ; or, to de- 
 scend from things superlatively great, to 
 things comparatively insignificant, that Sir 
 
 W C s should imbibe politics 
 
 from the prattle of his barber, rather than 
 from any of his no less loquacious, and 
 very little more sensible, brethren of the 
 
 H of C . 
 
 Mundungus. — I think I can guess too 
 why Ovid has given asses' ears to Midas. — 
 He meant to imply that royal ears not only- 
 love to be tickled, but that they prefer 
 
22 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 their own braying to all the music in the 
 universe. 
 
 Grumblerius. — An ingenious explanation 
 truly ; and I begin to think my time will 
 not be thrown away upon you. I have 
 shown you, by one anecdote, how easy a 
 matter it is to tickle a king into a know- 
 ledge of his being ajool ; I will now teach 
 you, by another, how dangerous a thing it is 
 to drub him into a sense of it: — A certain 
 king of Portugal was once taught better 
 planners, even by one of his own foot sol- 
 diers, in a very uncommon manner. The 
 story was this :— The soldier, after serving 
 the greater part of his life as an artillery- 
 man, was discharged as unfit for service. 
 The kino; remained in arrears to him for 
 six years pay, besides the value of a mule 
 which had been pressed from him, in time 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 23 
 
 of war, for the king's service. He set 
 forth his claims in a petition to the king 
 which he presented himself. After waiting 
 some time in fruitless attendance, he pre- 
 sented another petition, which the king 
 received, and gave to one of his suite. 
 However, as this met with the fate of the 
 first, he presented a third ; but the king, 
 recollecting the man's face, pushed it on 
 one side, saying: " Fellow, why do you 
 plague me thus with your petitions ?" The 
 old soldier was obliged to retire ; but, sullen 
 and thoughtful, he thus reasoned with him- 
 self: " I have served the king the better 
 part of my life — I am now old, and he owes 
 me money, — yet he not only refuses to pay 
 me, but treats me with contempt ; — / will 
 have satisfaction /" Accordingly, he pro- 
 vided himself with a trusty cudgel, with 
 
24 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 which (Oh, ye Gods !) he was determined 
 to dust his majesty's jacket, the next morn- 
 ing, as he went out to hunt. With this 
 design, he planted himself with the utmost 
 composure at the park-gate of the palace of 
 Villa Viciosa; and just as his majesty came 
 through, he hammered away like a London 
 dustman upon his poor jack-ass, and con- 
 tinued this uncourtierlike behaviour, till he 
 was seized and pinioned. The attendants, 
 in their fury, would have instantly dis- 
 patched him, if they had not been pre- 
 vented by the king, who ordered them tc 
 spare his life. The soldier was closely 
 confined, and all his acquaintance, friends, 
 and relations, were imprisoned, to find out 
 who had instigated him to so rash an action 
 as that of putting a flea into the ear of 
 majesty; but all enquiries proved fruitless, 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 25 
 
 as it did not appear that he had any accom- 
 plices, but had acted merely from a prin- 
 ciple of taking satisfaction for the kings 
 injustice. What became of the poor 
 fellow afterwards was never known: but 
 the army owed him this piece of service, 
 that their arrears were shortly after paid. — 
 Whatever disrespect he showed to the 
 royal hide, certain it is that no man, not 
 even our great and glorious commander-in- 
 chief, (whose life may God preserve by 
 keeping him at home !) deserved better the 
 appellation of — a soldier's friend. 
 
 Mundungus. — A king, who would me- 
 rit the appellation of the Father of his 
 People, should never shut his ears against 
 the complaints of the meanest of his 
 subjects.— Nothing tends to conciliate the 
 minds of inferiors so forcibly as an affable 
 
26 THE tarantula; 
 
 and condescending demeanor in their su- 
 periors. William the First, Prince of 
 Orange, would return the salute of the 
 meanest mechanic, and observed to a 
 person who condemned so much conde- 
 scension, that an honest man's good will 
 was cheaply purchased at the small expense 
 of a bow. 
 
 Grumblerius. — I allow this to have been 
 sound policy in William ; but it will only 
 render more glaringly foolish, the oppo- 
 site conduct of James the First of Eng- 
 land, of pedantic memory. — He who 
 made such a ridiculous exclamation against 
 the intoxicating qualities of tobacco, loved 
 the pleasures of the table to excess ; 
 would get princely drunk with his royal 
 brother of Denmark, and accept invita- 
 tions from his most wealthy subjects. 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 27 
 
 Osborne, if I am not mistaken, records 
 the following anecdote of his gratitude and 
 politeness. Having received a magnificent 
 treat, and thanked his host for his civility, 
 he had no sooner reached the porch than 
 
 he let a f to convey to all his courtiers, 
 
 his real sense of his obligation to his kind 
 entertainer. 
 
 Mundungus.— Such foolish conduct will 
 easily account for the contempt which his 
 subjects entertained for him, and for the 
 revolution which, in the third following suc- 
 cession, deprived his family of the crown. 
 Is it not lamentable, that kings do not 
 oftener find fiiends wise and bold enough 
 to teach them their true interest? 
 
 Grumblerius.— It is so; but their mode 
 of education prevents their seeking^ or 
 even wishing to find such friends. — 
 
28 the tarantula; 
 
 Encircled, from their infancy, by parasites 
 and self-interested sycophants, modest 
 merit will not undergo the drudgery of 
 breaking through the phalanx, especially 
 when, after all, his services may prove 
 disgusting to a mind diseased by prejudices. 
 — All Buchanan's precepts had little weight 
 against the flatteries of the youthful 
 James ; and when he was reproached with 
 having made nothing but a pedant of him, 
 he justly observed, that it was a wonder 
 he had made so much of him. 
 
 Early habits are rarely, if ever, to be 
 shaken off; and, as imbecility of intellect 
 is utterly incompatible with the firmness 
 of real friendship, history affords us no 
 instancess of royal favourites, who have 
 not been as weak, vicious, foolish, and 
 contemptible, as their masters. — Witness 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. QQ 
 
 the Gavestons, de Spensers, Carrs, Mor- 
 timers, Bothwells, Buckinghams, in our 
 own annals, who either fell sacrifices to a 
 change in the royal sentiments, or to the 
 vengeance of an insulted people, from 
 which their imbecile masters were unable 
 to preserve them. — The following jeu 
 d' esprit will show the value of royal friend- 
 ship ; and that the death of a dear friend 
 may even cost a king — a jest, provided 
 he be possessed of a more than a common 
 portion of regal sensibility: — Louis XIII. 
 could never be without a favourite, and 
 Cardinal Kichlieu, hated by every one 
 about the king, gave him one in the per- 
 son of Elliat Cinq Mars, that he might 
 have a creature of his own about the 
 throne. This youth was no sooner made 
 master of the horse, than he wanted 
 
30 the tarantula; 
 
 to be one of the council ; and the Car- 
 dinal, who opposed it, had immediately 
 an irreconcileable enemy in him. The 
 king, who was disgusted at the minister's 
 pride and state, imparted his dislike to his 
 favourite, whom he always termed his 
 dear friend, and this confidence em- 
 boldened Cinq Mars to plot against him. 
 He proposed to the king to have him 
 assassinated ; but the power of the favo- 
 rite growing on the wane, he conceived 
 no less a hatred against the king than 
 Richlieu. He carried on a correspondence 
 with the Duke de Bouillon, and the king's 
 brother, and Richlieu's good fortune dis- 
 covered the plot and the treaty of the con- 
 spirators with pain. Cinq Mars was con- 
 victed, and beheaded at Lyons. At the 
 hour appointed for his execution, the king 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 31 
 
 pulkd out his watch, and turning to the 
 surrounding courtiers, said, with a smile, 
 " I fancy our dear friend cuts but a sorry 
 figure just now !" 
 
 Mundungus. — What a wretched crea- 
 ture is one of those upstarts, expcsed by 
 the insolence of his giddy brain to the 
 malignant jealousy of his rivals, to the 
 caprice of a weak master, and to the con- 
 tempt and indignation of a loyal people, 
 who scorn to receive even the commands 
 of royalty at second-hand ! and what a 
 pretty sort of a being to rule others, is 
 that king, who is fool enough to put him- 
 self out to dry nurse to one of these des- 
 picable wretches, and to totter like an in- 
 fant in leading strings ! 
 
 Grumblerius. — And yet — these are the 
 Lord's annointed, the jure divino men. 
 
32 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 the — but you shall hear what titles some 
 of them arrogate to themselves. The 
 Emperor of the Turks is — Lord of lords, 
 king of kings, glorious, great, invincible, 
 and even victorious ; disposer of crowns 
 to the greatest princes upon earth ; su- 
 preme master of both seas, and all coun- 
 tries adjacent ; lord of the east and west. — 
 The king of Persia is — king of kings ; 
 heir of the firmament. — This fellow cer- 
 tainly makes a great bounce, but he is 
 outdone by the king of Siam, — who is king 
 of Heaven and earth, and brother to the 
 sun. — The emperor of China is styled — 
 Thiencu and Hoamgthi, the son of Hea- 
 ven, and lord of the earth. — The empe- 
 ror of Abyssinia is — king of kings, and 
 the shadow of God spread over the earth. 
 — Who, then, can wonder that a young 
 
OR, t)AXCE OF FOOLS. 33 
 
 prince, generally surrounded by the scum 
 of the earth, and taught to believe him- 
 self worthy to inherit such titles, merely 
 from birth, without any other qualification 
 or attainment, should be a fool all his 
 days? — How much better would it be, both 
 for royal expectants, and their future 
 subjects, if the former were habituated to 
 hear the truth, as was formerly the custom 
 among the Arragonese ? Whoever was 
 elected their king, kneeled down, with his 
 head uncovered, whilst a magistrate, appoint- 
 ed for that purpose, and who kept his hat on 
 his head, swore him to observe their laws 
 and privileges. After the oath had been 
 taken, the people, by the mouth of the 
 magistrate, acknowledged him (ov their 
 king in the following terms: — " We, wh® 
 are as good as you, constitute and appoint 
 vol. i. i> 
 
34 THE TARANTULA.; 
 
 you our king, upon condition that you 
 will preserve our privileges and immu- 
 nities, and not otherwise." — This was as 
 it should be. A king and his people 
 should always talk plain language to each 
 other, as a good understanding would 
 beget such confidence and harmony as 
 could be shaken by no external violence. 
 We ourselves, although not so impolitic 
 as to claim equality with our monarch on 
 the very eve of his coronation, never- 
 theless compel him to swear, to govern 
 the kingdom according to the statutes in 
 parliament agreed on, and the laws and 
 customs of the same; but, to counter- 
 balance this seeming shackle upon royalty, 
 some ingenious courtiers have found out 
 m many modes of being up with us, by 
 making us swear allegiance, supremacy, 
 
OR. DANCE OF FOOLS. 35 
 
 \ ; 
 
 abjuration, custom-house, excise, income 
 and property tax, oaths, besides those of 
 the law, that there is not such another 
 .swearing pack of fools on the face of the 
 globe. A kingj indeed, may break his 
 oath with impunity, if his conscience will 
 permit him to do so ; but a subject may 
 not, without danger of the pillory : which is, 
 therefore, one of the distinctions between 
 king and subject. The gallows is another 
 distinction betwixt king and people ; 
 because it would infallibly become a sup- 
 porter to any subject, who should be de- 
 tected in infringing the royal prerogative 
 of cunning. — Indeed, it is very remarkable 
 that all nations, civilized as well as savage, 
 according to the modern jargon, should 
 agree in making their rulers outlaws, or 
 above laivf, — a prerogative allowed to none 
 
 D 2 
 
3(3 THE TARANTULA ,* 
 
 others, but infants, and non compotes men- 
 tis. It should seem, however, that this droll 
 prerogative has been an essential prop to 
 majesty, since a French author, M. Mer- 
 cier, tells us, that, in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, an artist had inscribed on a far- 
 thing, all the wise kings, whose names had 
 been handed down to us, and that there 
 was still room left for more ;— perhaps 
 a continuation to the present time would 
 not fill up the blank space. And another 
 author, of the same nation, M. Mar- 
 montel, makes the daughter of his Con- 
 noisseur to say. that history was not worth 
 reading, for the sake of seeing, in ail 
 ages, illustrious madmen and rogues, sport- 
 ing with a crowd of fools. — Do you re- 
 quire any more authorities on this head? 
 JMundungus. — None. —But, whence is 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 37 
 
 it so difficult, nay almost, as it appears, 
 so impossible, a thing, to convince a mo- 
 narch 5 that his true glory is the people's 
 honour— his greatness, their protection — 
 his safety, their security — his content, their 
 ease and happiness .? 
 
 Grumblerius. — You forget that I have 
 already attributed it to their mode of edu- 
 cation. — Courts are so thronged with j&ara- 
 sites, that, should a young prince chance 
 to have a good master allotted to him, 
 which it is one thousand to one against 
 his having, as the office is generally filled 
 bv measure of interest, and not of wis- 
 dom, their pernicious flattery will choke 
 up all his wholesome instructions, as 
 weeds will overtop useful herbs. Thus, 
 one of the ladies of honor having de- 
 manded of Buchanan, with a goggle-eyed 
 
38 THE TARANTULA; 
 
 mixture of surprize, horror, and indig- 
 nation, how he dared to flog the lord's 
 anointed? he coolly replied, " Madam, 
 
 I have wipt his a e, it is true, and 
 
 you may now kiss it, if you please." If 
 the preceptor, therefore, wishes to do his 
 duty, as an honest man, the parasites 
 never fail to represent him to the young 
 prince as a pedagogue — a monster. They 
 render him averse to the labour of scho- 
 lastic study, by representing it as useless 
 to any body but a country parson, and 
 even there, only to a journeyman curate, 
 who must keep school to eke out his ways 
 and means. They render him averse to 
 the solidity of mental treasures, by laying 
 down exterior graces, and dignified deport- 
 ment, as the essentials of princely acquire- 
 ments. Every etourderie, uttered by the 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 39 
 
 young blockhead, is received with feigned 
 ecstacy ; every step, although scarcely more 
 graceful than the waddle of a goose, is ap- 
 plauded as a pattern of ease. At the age 
 of twelve or fourteen he is initiated into 
 the mystery of double entendre, by gloating 
 dames, and glowing maids of honor, and 
 taught to believe himself a prodigy of 
 wisdom, whilst only the but of as great 
 fools as himself, but with a little more 
 experience. The heir apparent, therefore, 
 instead of making himself acquainted 
 with the important events and great men 
 recorded in history ; instead of gaining 
 an insight into the laws of nations, and 
 particularly those of the kingdom which 
 he is about to govern, may learn gal- 
 lantry, gambling, bottle draining, table - 
 clearing, and, as a natural consequence, 
 
40 the tarantula; 
 
 the art of getting into debt. If he be pos- 
 sessed of superior emulation, he will make 
 one among jockey dubs, black legs, 
 rooks, and pigeons ; drive four in hand, 
 and patronize boxing and other elegant 
 arts. He will then be deemed an accom- 
 plished prince, and will, no doubt, make 
 an accomplished king. Nothing more 
 is required now a day, as the art of 
 government is reduced to head or tail; that 
 is, the choice of a minister, as will be 
 seen hereafter under its proper head. 
 The younger fry, too, will burn to cut a 
 figure some how or other, and therefore 
 they may qualify themselves by the same 
 modes for becoming accomplished generals, 
 admirals, and politicians. We cannot* 
 however, help smiling at the folly of 
 those princely commanders, who seek to 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 4l 
 
 carry the etiquette of courts into the field 
 of battle, or upon the quarter-deck of a 
 man of war. The only way for a com- 
 mander to ensure victory, is to make him- 
 self beloved by his soldiers ; and the mode 
 of gaining that love is to familiarize him- 
 self with them, befriend them, and seem 
 pleased with their uncourtly manner of 
 expressing and showing their attachment. 
 A soldier, or sailor, although pretty much of 
 slaves, have very little of the civet of a 
 courtier about them, because they never 
 can forget that they are men. Nay, so 
 very unlike are they to that spaniel-crew^ 
 that (strange to tell !) picquetting, cob- 
 bing, flogging, and other like gentle 
 means of conciliating their affections, have 
 had so contrary an effect, that the most 
 loyal soldiers in the universe, with impro- 
 
 D 3 
 
42 THE tarantula; 
 
 per treatment, have become mutinous, and 
 one of these princely cat-o'nine-tail com- 
 manders owed his life to a retreat without 
 beat of drum. Another, who by repeated 
 defeats had entirely lost the confidence of 
 his soldiers, ordered them to cut off their 
 queues, that, in case of future retreats, 
 they might not be charged with turning 
 tail to the enemy. Flog away, gentlemen ; 
 mind the frills of the shirts ; tie on tails, 
 
 or cut them off; make a. d d bustle 
 
 as though you knew something; but a 
 word in your ears — It is impossible to dis- 
 guise an ass as a war-horse. — One of these 
 flogging heroes, who was wisely kept from 
 making any more marks of his prowess 
 on the backs of his own soldiers, (God 
 knows, he never made one on an enemy's!) 
 absolutely turned his house into a garrison, 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 43 
 
 paraded his men regularly at meal times, 
 examined the frills of their shirts, and 
 served out their rations of meat and small 
 beer by measure and weight ; which exer- 
 cise, with the solace of a French dancer or 
 actress, was his sole employment, So 
 Dionysius, the tyrant, when he could no 
 longer rule over men, became a peda- 
 gogue, and flogged little boys!! The art 
 of getting into debt may be common to 
 them all ; and, if duns should be very 
 pressing, and people wearied out, as they 
 will be, with repeated begging and extra- 
 vagance, they may give proof of their 
 honor and honesty, by compounding for 
 payment of their debts by installments, 
 not to exceed ten or a dozen years. 
 
 Mundungus. — But how will such con- 
 duct appear in the eyes of the world ? — - 
 
44 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 Princes who have lost their credit and re- 
 putation, resemble merchants, who are 
 verging on a bankruptcy ; for all men im- 
 mediately call in their loyalty and respect 
 from the former, as they do their money 
 from the latter. 
 
 Grumbler ins. Psha! Princes are too 
 enlightened now-a-day, to trouble their 
 heads about such vulgar prejudices. 
 
 Mundungus. But composition with cre- 
 ditors is a vulgar practice. 
 
 Grumblerius. True, when resorted to 
 by vulgar persons; but every act of a 
 prince is ennobled, and as remote from 
 vulgarity as Brompton is from Kensington, 
 or as a man of Kent is from a Kentish 
 man. 
 
 Mundungus. Cry you mercy ! I was 
 to learn that distinction. 
 
OB, DAXCE OF FOOLS. 45 
 
 Grumblerius. Then — though the peo- 
 ple should have bestowed immense sums 
 on these prodigals, who should never have 
 troubled their heads about them, but when 
 they wanted their assistance ; yet, when- 
 ever the people, groaning under their im- 
 mense burthens, should in treat to be re- 
 lieved from some few unnecessary ones, 
 they may shew their gratitude by uniformly 
 opposing their wishes. Princes should 
 never do anv thing like common men, 
 if they w r ould not be suspected of having 
 something of humanity in them. Again — 
 should the people, on any vast emergency, 
 such as the rescue of Europe from the 
 fangs of a merciless despot, and universal 
 dominionist, deprecate the sending out 
 one of these luckless, princely comman- 
 ders, at the liead of the brave army, and 
 
46 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 sigh for a real commander, who has had 
 the art of gaining, and the good fortune of 
 preserving, the confidence of the soldiery, 
 it would be great to act in direct opposition 
 to them, and teach them the folly of wish- 
 ing. D n the rogues, what business 
 
 have they to think for themselves. 
 
 a vile submissive train ! 
 
 Fortune's tame fools, and slaves in ev'ry reign.' 
 
 Mundungus, I doubt which would be 
 the greatest fcols — princes who could con- 
 duct themselves in such a manner, or 
 people who would be so abject as tamely to 
 submit to it. 
 
 Grumhlerius. I remember once being 
 shocked at seeing a sand- man, whose ass, 
 ill-fed and overburthened, fainted under 
 its load, irritated at being unable to rouze 
 
CE, DANCE OF FOOLS. 7^ 
 
 it by repeated merciless blows over its 
 head as well as crupper, deliberately cut 
 off one of its ears. Yet the poor creature 
 only mildly looked the reproach of ingra- 
 titude at the brute, to whose existence 
 he had long administered. Cannot you 
 find me a parallel to this in politics? 
 
 Mundungus In France, perhaps, un- 
 der the old regime. 
 
 Grumblerius. No doubt, the sandman 
 and his ass have been seen in France, as 
 well as I myself once saw them in Eng- 
 land. But now we will bid adieu to 
 kings, princes, sandmen, and asses, and, 
 according to our proposed plan of discus- 
 sion, descend to — Nobility. 
 
 Mundungus. But you have not said a 
 word about queens. 
 
 Grumbler ius. Nor mean I to mention 
 
48 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 them, except to advise them not to be 
 queans; or, if their temperament be too 
 hot for controul, not to boast of their 
 shame, and flirt cuckold and bastards in 
 the face of their husbands and children. 
 People will lose their respect for crowned 
 heads, and tails too, if they are known 
 to be so frail, which might end in demo- 
 cracy — a system that cannot be too much 
 deprecated. Let queens play with the 
 tail of a whale (de balend, rex habeat 
 caput, et regina candam,) or the tail 
 of any thing else; but let them never 
 meddle with the helm of state, lest they 
 disclose their weakness, that is, folly. We 
 may boast of a bright instance of female 
 forbearance in this respect. But to the 
 nobility, and particularly such of them 
 as form what is termed the Court, that is, 
 bask in the royal sunshine. The rest are„. 
 
OR, DAKCE OF FOOLS. 4Q 
 
 as it were, in eclipse, longing for the remo- 
 val of the chill, interposing planet, which 
 causes their darkness. 
 
 Mundungus. This, I take it, is the 
 true distinction between the ins and outs, 
 about whom so much noise is made. 
 
 Grumblerius. Just so; and the two 
 parties resemble the earth and moon, 
 which eclipse each other by intercepting 
 the rays of the sun, that is, the royal 
 favor. In endeavouring to effect this, 
 there is so much shifting, shuffling, tricking, 
 nicking, shoving, rising, falling, (particularly 
 among the females) underhand, backstairs, 
 elbow-me-in, andjostle-him-out, work, that 
 a courtier has been aptly styled a Proteus. 
 The court has been likened to a shop with 
 wares in it for all kinds of customers ; 
 there is hope for some, who are to be fed 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 the tarantula; 
 
 at a small expense; there are titles for the 
 ambitious; pleasures for the young and 
 wanton ; places for the busy ; and bribes*, 
 to be closely conveyed, for such as desire 
 to maintain an appearance of honesty, 
 and betray their trust but now and then in 
 important matters. With these baits and 
 allurements, princes easily drag into their 
 nets the unthinking gentlemen of the 
 land, thereby poisoning the fountain head, 
 and sapping the foundation of the political 
 institution. Besides the planetary system 
 already mentioned, the motions of cour- 
 tiers have been said to resemble those of a. 
 country dance: — 
 
 Von first lead up, then turn about, 
 
 Join hands as tho' they'd, part no more : 
 
 Sinke off' again, turn in, turn out, 
 Then stand just as you were before. 
 
 W hilst thus they dance, you may be certain,. 
 
 ihe music plays behind the curtain. 
 
OR, DANCE / OF FOOLS. 5\ 
 
 Like the sun-flower, court personages 
 have their faces turned towards the sun, 
 because, to turn tail on majesty would be 
 construed into — kiss, &c. an indignity 
 never offered to royalty, unless by angry, 
 half-starved patriots, and unpensioned 
 poets. No automata, therefore, can be 
 more regular in their motions in the royal 
 presence, which are so uniform that the 
 whole might be performed by wooden 
 puppets. Their evolutions are exhibited 
 with much parade, and numberless trapping, 
 to charm and astound the eyes of fools; 
 so that a court, on a levee day, resembles 
 the platforms before the show-booths in 
 Bartholomew fair ; and, like them, too, 
 the best of the show is to be seen without, 
 and very little but mummery behind the 
 curtain.. The progenitors of these worthies* 
 E 2 
 
52 the tarantula; 
 
 may be ranked in three classes — the sons 
 of royal illegitimate amours, of steel, and 
 of trade. The first class is the highest, 
 because the moiety of royal blood, which 
 runs through the veins of a king's bastard, 
 is supposed to render him more than equal 
 to a full-blooded nobleman. The second 
 class, or those descended from warriors of 
 days of yore, assume the distinction of the 
 old nobility, from their being able to trace 
 their families back to the iron times of chi- 
 valry and crusade. The third class are 
 termed the neic nobility, and are regarded 
 by the other two classes as mere mush- 
 rooms, on account of their having but 
 lately emerged from the obscure origins of 
 the learned professions, or trade. This 
 last class sing very small, until a couple of 
 centuries, and a vamped up, purchased, 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 53 
 
 pedigree have thrown a mist over their real 
 origins; when they insolently boast of 
 their ancient house and honors, and scowl 
 contempt on the butterflies, which have 
 lately emerged from their crysalite state. 
 Nobles, therefore, are caterpillars in their 
 origin, crysales in their creation, and but- 
 terflies in their maturity. Like the cater- 
 pillar host, too, they are extremely vora- 
 cious, and very destructive to the possessions 
 of the laborious classes, being never to be 
 satiated. — You must have observed, when 
 garbage is throw r n into a trough, how a 
 herd of swine push, shove, nozzle, grunt, 
 bite, rub their rumps against, and contend 
 with, each other for the tempting fare : 
 just so it is with hungry courtiers, scram- 
 bling for what they term the loaves and 
 Jishes ; that is, the public plunder. And 
 
54 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 yet, though the sole dependence of the 
 younger branches is entirely on the public, 
 from whom they themselves emerged at a 
 more or less distant period, they affect to 
 be a different species of animals, and 
 look down upon their fellow creatures 
 (paidon me, nobility, for using such a 
 familiar expression !) with as much disdain 
 irS a peacock would show in strutting by a 
 goose. Their very blood they would have 
 believed to be refined, although the hot 
 temperament of the pampered females of 
 quality, and their excessive itch for gamb- 
 ling, with which most of them have been 
 innoculated, have entailed the titles and 
 estates of their lords on a bastard and 
 plebeian progeny of black legs, sharpers, 
 prooms, postilions, and footmen. Pride of 
 every kind is contemptible, but the pride 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. j5 
 
 of ancestry is the most ridiculous of all, 
 since it is wholly fortuitous, and not the 
 meed of merit. My lord A. and lady, or 
 iniss, B. are to come together, according 
 to the mode of people of quality, that is 
 to say, without knowing, or concerning 
 themselves, whether there be the least 
 congeniality of temper. As interest alone 
 is consulted, it is not expected that they 
 should not detest each other after a short ac- 
 quaintance, but the regulations of the beau 
 monde (God confound such jargon ! As if 
 one part of the creation was more beautiful 
 than another !) require that they should 
 conceal their bickerings from all the world, 
 except their own servants, whose prying 
 eyes cannot be always eluded. In order to 
 keep the estate in the family, or, in plain 
 English, to prevent creditors from laying 
 
56 the tarantula; 
 
 their profane hands on any part of it, the 
 intended bridegroom and bride, or their 
 parents, convey the estates to trustees for 
 the benefit of the eldest son, (be he a 
 booby or not) and charge it with one year's 
 value to each of the younger children, be 
 they ever so deserving of more* By this 
 foolish — one might say, fraudulent, act, 
 were it not countenanced by a foolish law. 
 they deprive themselves of all judgment as 
 to th \ future disposition of their property ; 
 confess themselves dead in law, and are, 
 in nine cases out of ten, despised for so 
 doing by their eldest son, whom they have 
 foolishly rendered wholly independent of 
 themselves. — But then, the family pride 
 is supported! — Yes, and often times too, 
 at the expense of the comforts of some 
 score honest, industrious tradesmen, who 
 
OH, DANCE OF FOOLS. 57 
 
 have contributed their stocks to support 
 this pride, in hopes of a suitable return. 
 Sir Samuel Romilly deserves a monument 
 (were it the only meritorious act of his 
 life) for his attempt to unfetter these kna- 
 vish entails, and make the estates subject 
 to the just demands of creditors. But of 
 what use can one honest man be among six 
 hundred — honourable gentlemen ? — To 
 return to the point: my young lord is 
 brought up as if he had been sent into the 
 world merely for the purpose of vege- 
 tating in the family mansion, and succeed- 
 ing to the family title and estate. He 
 very soon learns to think that this cannot 
 happen too soon, and he is approached 
 only by sycophants, who feed the peccant 
 humours of his disposition. He need not 
 trouble himself to learn to read, for he 
 
58 the tarantula; 
 
 ,will be a peer, nor to write, unless his 
 name to a frank, or deed of conveyance. 
 Thus the title and estates descend through 
 a long string of illustrious fools. With 
 these plough-boy qualifications, he takes 
 his seat in the first assembly in the nation, 
 where, as every thing is carried by a majo- 
 rity, & fools aye will weigh against a wise 
 mans no; and, having no rule of judg- 
 ment, or knowledge of national concerns, 
 he swims with the stream of absurd preju- 
 dice, in which he has been brought up to 
 think, that merit is not requisite where 
 there is high birth — and supports rever- 
 sionary grants, although the execrations of 
 a virtuous, and burthened, people pursue 
 him for it. But, as Shakespeare says : 
 
 " The night is long that never finds the day.'* 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 5Q 
 
 Well — when this dishonest game of 
 family settlements has been played from 
 generation to generation, through two or 
 three ages, the family is styled, and, as it 
 were, ennobled, (if not really so by a royal 
 patent) by the term of a good family, or 
 an ancient family ; by which latter appella- 
 tion, perhaps, is meant one older than 
 derived in the common w T ay from Adam 
 and Eve. — Risum teneatisf — Talents and 
 genius make the real distinction, and all 
 else is essence of asses' milk for fools. — A 
 king, not the division of a hair from a dri- 
 veller, shallconfera title which, byhereditary 
 descent, may devolve upon one who is no 
 less an ideot than the king who bestowed 
 it. Lord, how the multitude of f ools 
 gape at this ideot as the work ' of majesty, 
 without considering that majesty itself is 
 
60 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 only the manufacture of such fools as 
 themselves. So did the foolish Israelites 
 make to themselves a golden calf, and 
 then fell down on their faces and worship- 
 ed it. What dotards — But let us have an 
 anecdote, which will set this matter in a 
 clearer light than volumes written on the 
 subject: — A nobleman of Portugal, who 
 had risen through his own merit from 
 obscurity, happened to fall into company 
 with some grandees of ancient families, 
 who wished to rail at his infant nobility. 
 They therefore turned the discourse on the 
 honors derived from their ancestors many 
 ages back, whose achievements they ex- 
 tolled to the skies. When it came to the 
 nobleman's turn to speak, the company 
 were ready to burst with laughter, suppo- 
 sing he must leave the room overwhelmed 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 6l 
 
 With confusion ; but to their own shame 
 and astonishment, he soon turned the 
 tables upon them by this manly discourse: 
 — C6 My lords, I acknowledge that all of 
 you have given a very flattering account 
 of the great deeds of your ancestors ; but 
 from this I can only gather that the 
 honors you enjoy were handed down to 
 you by hereditary succession : now, my 
 case, thank Heaven, is widely different : 
 I have the virtuous satisfaction of saying, 
 that I obtained all my honors by my own 
 immediate actions, and shall leave my 
 successors to boast of them /" 
 
 Mundungus. — But, surely, you do not 
 mean to agree that all the young nobility 
 are equally ignorant ? 
 
 Grumblerius.— With very few excep- 
 tions. 
 
62 the tarantula; 
 
 Mundungus. — You must, however, 
 recollect that there have been such men as 
 Buckingham, Lansdowne, 'Lauderdale, 
 Rochester, Roscommon, Bolingbroke — 
 and have we not at present — 
 
 GrumMerius. — Aye, whom have we at 
 present? — Let us see — lord M — o, the 
 rhapsodist — lord B — n, the minor — and 
 — ami — though not within the pale of 
 nobility, Sir John C — r, knight and 
 travel-monger. — Rare lists, eh? 
 
 Mundungus. — But as our universities 
 swarm with young noblemen, surely some 
 of them must bring away a stock of learn- 
 ing. 
 
 GrumbUrius. — Pshaw ! — They enter 
 themselves at the universities for the name 
 of the thing, and because it is the fashion 
 —that is all ! Colleges and libraries ! — mens* 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. ' 63 
 
 stuff! — your coffee-houses are the only 
 repertories for such as have never learnt, 
 or have forgotten Latin and Greek. — The 
 magazines afford history, divinity, philo- 
 sophy, mathematics, geography, astro- 
 nomy, biography, arts, sciences, and 
 poetry. — The Reviews form the complete 
 critic, without consulting the dry rules of 
 iVristotle, Ouintilkm and Bossu ; and 
 enable the student to pass his judgment 
 on volumes which he never read. — Novels 
 supply the place of experience, and give 
 lectures of intrigue and gallantry.— 
 Occasional Poems diffuse the itch of 
 rhyming, and haplessly tempt many young 
 fellows with the cacocthesi cribcndi pastoral, 
 lyric, or elegiac trash.— -Political Pam- 
 phlkts, and Newspapers, give an insight 
 into the blunders of the D — of P — , lord 
 
64 THE tarantula; 
 
 C — r— h, M. P— r— 1, and other cabi- 
 net old women, of the present day. As 
 there are books adapted to every taste, 
 so, also, there are liquors suited to every 
 species of reading. Amorous tales may 
 be perused over arrack punch and jellies ; 
 insipid odes over orgeat or capillaire ; 
 politics over coffee ; divinity over port ; 
 and bad defences of bad generals, and bad 
 ministers, over whipt syllabub I so that 
 university learning can no longer be deem- 
 ed a dry study. Then the colleges, or 
 halls, are far more numerous than we com- 
 monly suppose. There are the tennis 
 courts, for exercise; the dancing schools, 
 vulgarly termed hop-shops, at which lord 
 H — P — qualified himself for the chancel- 
 lorship of the exchequer ; the billiard tables, 
 where the laxcs of motion are exemplified, 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. t)5 
 
 and which afford a supplement to our courses 
 of experimental philosophy; the nine-pin 
 and skittle alley, where we get an insight 
 into geometry, and the centripetal princi- 
 ple. Besides, navigation is learnt on the 
 Isis or Cam ; Gunnery, by shooting 
 pigeons, ducks, pigs, or fowls, on the 
 adjacent farms ; horsemanship on hacks ; 
 the axis in periirochio, is described in a 
 phaeton ; and patience, humility and pru- 
 dence, may be learnt on pennyless-bench. 
 
 Mundungus. — This is a degrading pic- 
 ture which you make of our young nobi- 
 lity. — It must be surcharged. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Take your walk through 
 St. James's Street, Bond Street, Hyde 
 Park, and look into Tattersall's, and 
 youAvill see and hear it all verified. A great 
 fortune to a fool is a great misfortune ; but 
 
 VOL. I. F„ 
 
66 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 the greatest misfortune of all is to be high- 
 born, without possessing any other merit, 
 since birth attracts the eyes of all, and 
 pleases only when properly accompanied. 
 One of these haughty, vain fools, was 
 seasonably and severely reproved in the 
 following terms : " You are always boast- 
 ing," said his acquaintance, " of your 
 rank ; instead of which, were you to con- 
 ceal it, men would despise you less.'' 
 
 Mundungus. — It is certainly true that 
 education makes the man ; and if our 
 young nobility are really so destitute of 
 learning, as you saj they are- 
 
 Grumbkrius. — I have already informed 
 yon in what manner they pass their time in 
 the Universities ; I will now explain to you, 
 thejr launching into life. A suit of rooms. 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 6*7 
 
 for instance, is to be purchased for about 
 seven hundred guineas — 
 
 Mundungits. — Seven hundred guineas 
 
 for three rooms ! 
 
 Grumblerius. — Aye, seven hundred gui- 
 neas ! — As a particular favor ; mark, as a 
 particular favor ; and if you have the 
 money to pay for them, I can introduce 
 you to a set in a certain street at the court 
 end of the town — where you must pay that 
 sum — a mere trifle when you are fully 
 acquainted with all its most convenient 
 advantages. — A sprig of nobility, for in- 
 stance, or a sprout of a cabbage vender, 
 c'est la meme chose, if he possess only 
 the grand essential, " beaucoup d argent? 
 purchases a set here, and his proprie- 
 torship is a passport into all the fashionable 
 circles. — " Think of that, master Brook ! 
 f 2 
 
68 THE TARANTULA; 
 
 — think of that !" — It was, I believe, origi- 
 nally intended as an establishment for M. 
 P.'s— as a convenient resort for such mem- 
 bers of both houses, if such there were, 
 as were unmarried ; or, whose attendance 
 to their duties was an object paramount 
 to every other consideration ! — Ha ! ha ! 
 ha! — members of parliament, indeed! — 
 Members of Jockey Clubs ! — Whip Clubs! 
 — Cricket Clubs! — Funny Ciubs! — Spout- 
 ing ! id est, Debating Clubs ! — Members 
 of any thing, save parliament, were the 
 occupiers of these fashionable depits. — 
 Oh ! how delightful it must be to have 
 your dancing master — your maitre a la 
 hair trigger — your boxing master — your 
 pimp, or delicious carver of delicious titl 
 bits, always about you. — What have you toj 
 do with books ? — Books, indeed ! what are 
 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 69 
 
 Puffendorf, Montesquieu, Calonne, or 
 Neckar? — dry, dull; pedantic stuff! 
 
 Mundungus. — But, my dear Sir ! are 
 books never resorted to by them — to open 
 — to relax the mind — to 
 
 Grumblerius. — To do what, my young 
 friend ? — Why, yes, Ovid's Epistles, Aris- 
 totle, and the Woman of Pleasure, are 
 resorted to to relax the mind ; and the 
 Key, in Chandos Street, is used to open 
 it ! I know of no other books, except 
 those of a similar tendency, that are in de- 
 mand there. Why, what an enviable 
 sight it must be to behold one of these 
 honorable gentlemen make his exit and his 
 entrance from the Temple of Cytherea, 
 in, perhaps, Saint Giles's, to the Temple of 
 debate in Saint Stephen's ; — how deeply 
 impressed his mind must be with the 
 
70 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 subject before the house, after the 
 scenes he has just left; and it must be 
 acknowledged, that the following schools 
 are admirably calculated to form the finished 
 statesman. — Whites and Boodles teach 
 him calculation — the Boxing Schools teach 
 him fortitude — the Stables complete him 
 in elegance of dress and speech — and the 
 Bagnio experiences him in all the vicissi- 
 tude?, — I will call it the ups and downs — of 
 life, and lets him fully, at the same time, 
 into all the shuffling, cutting, cogging, 
 painting, patching, intriguing, deceptive 
 arts, so indispensably necessary for the 
 duties of his station. — How can we fail 
 succeeding in every measure of aggran- 
 dizement, when we have such pillars as 
 these to support the grand fabric of our 
 constitution ? — Well may our expeditions 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 71 
 
 be celebrated for their secrecy and unpa- 
 ralleled dispatch — well may surrounding 
 Nations envy us our military appoint- 
 ments, — enviable indeed is our state! — 
 It falls to the lot of few powers to be en- 
 riched with the thrice-renowned genius 
 of a W — el — e ! — with such commanders, 
 what have we to fear ? — Fear ? — by the 
 great right hand of Achilles! we have 
 but to appear in the field, and our dis- 
 patches will equal " the Roman in bre- 
 vity ;'' — we need only say Feni, Vidi et 
 Fugi ! — 
 
 Mundungus. — But, Sir, you will, I 
 hope, allow that we have many gallant 
 officers in our army, who possess genius 
 to plan, and courage to execute any enter- 
 prize, however difficult ? 
 
 Grumblerius. — Allow it ? — Yes ; I do 
 
72 THE tarantula; 
 
 allow it : and it is with shame I see such 
 gallant veterans either overlooked, or 
 trampled upon by a young red-coated civet, 
 Avhose only merit is his full purse ! — What 
 must be the feelings of the old soldier, 
 who has fought and conquered ere the 
 minikin was " mewling and puling in his 
 nurse's arms V 9 To be not only treated with 
 the most supercilious contempt, but to be 
 spurned ; aye, " as you would a stranger- 
 cur across your threshold," by this pop- 
 pinjay, whose purse, or the smiling inter- 
 cession of a fair lady, has thus placed over 
 the head of sterling merit! What must be 
 the feeling of a veteran private, whilst 
 smarting under the cane of such a hero? — 
 Will he not, think you, bear a grateful 
 recollection of the obligations such acts 
 as these have laid him under, if he should 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 73 
 
 ever have an opportunity? — What a 
 blow! — such a blow! and so given! — to 
 such a soldier ! — u Oh, let it not be said !" 
 
 Mundungus. — But, Grumblerius, is it 
 not indispensably necessary, in order to 
 maintain strict discipline, that correction 
 should be sometimes resorted to ? 
 
 Grumblerius. — What do you mean by 
 strict discipline? — I would punish a man 
 for* theft, murder, or any act of crimina- 
 lity, in proportion to the enormity of the 
 offence ; — but I would not strike a man 
 across the face, because his hat fell off. — 
 Excellent, most excellent, was the follow- 
 ing exclamation of a veteran officer to one 
 of these Marmozets, on a similar occa- 
 sion : " That's right, Sir ! — That's right ! — 
 Strike the rascal ! — for you know he dare 
 not return the blow !" — No, no, my young 
 
74 the tarantula; 
 
 man ; whilst such is the hopeful state of 
 our military arrangements, hopeless indeed 
 is our chance of beholding again the days 
 of Cressy, Poictieurs, or Agincourt. — Let 
 merit. Sir, head our battalions from the 
 Serjeant to the General, and we have no- 
 thing to fear ! — Let a noble stimulus be 
 held out to our bold Yeomen ; — banish all 
 venal contractors from our Army List — 
 hoist the glorious standard of Palmam 
 qui meruit fer at — and thep my friend — 
 
 <c Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
 " And we shall shock them !" — 
 
 But it is not alone in the army that folly 
 holds her court ; — no, no ; her votaries are 
 numerous as the sands of the sea, and you 
 will find — 
 
 Mundungus. — I beg pardon for inter- 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 75 
 
 rupting you, my dear Sir, but really I 
 cannot see such cause for censure as you 
 do. 
 
 Grmnblerius. — And what is the rea- 
 son ? — simply this ; your youthful mind 
 can look upon nothing but what you call 
 the bright side of the picture — that is, 
 the flattering, harlot-like deception which 
 folly cloaks herself in — which, because it 
 bears a specious appearance, you will not 
 give yourself the trouble of investigating, 
 nor of drawing aside the veil which preju- 
 dice has placed before your eyes ; and 
 which would enable yoit to discover this — 
 
 u Goodly apple, rotten at the Core," 
 
 But yet I am not surprized that your belief 
 is staggered at my relation; — to a youth, 
 emerging into the world, whose only 
 
75 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 knowledge of men is derived from books, 
 such accounts must appear strange, — You 
 have, at school, been accustomed to consi- 
 der every description of rank, title, and 
 quality, from the monarch to the moun- 
 tebank, as they should be, not as they 
 are ; for, now, my good Sir, to such a 
 pitch of metamorphose are our nobility of 
 the present day arrived, that it is the most 
 difficult thing in nature to discover the 
 peasant from the prince. — Their dresses 
 are the same — their addresses are the same ; 
 — his grace dresses like a groom, — so does 
 the common black leg.— His lordship eats, 
 drinks, walks, talks, laughs, and quaffs, 
 with pickpockets, sharpers, bruisers, bull- 
 baiters, cock- feeders, and cock-fighters, — 
 so does the common black leg ; and, in- 
 deed, to the very nicest minutiae of compari- 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 77 
 
 son, the one treads so closely on the heels 
 of the other " he galls his kibe." I had 
 an instance of this, which I will relate to 
 you, in a benefit mock - bruising, or 
 sparring meeting, of the thrice-renowned 
 Daniel Pedrosa : — Curiosity, and a wish to 
 " sound the very base string of humility ,*' 
 induced me to attend the dinner, — for a 
 dinner commenced, and sparring ended, the 
 sports of the day. — Little did I imagine 
 that one- third of the company was com- 
 posed of the sons of right honorables, 
 senators, and warriors, — not of the fist, — 
 which turned out to be the case : and the 
 peer shook the pick-pocket by the hand 
 with the mbst cordial familiarity. The 
 following is part of the conversation which 
 passed between Dutch Slang and the right 
 honorable lord Quick-sight : 
 
78 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 L. Q.— Well, my boy, how stands the 
 clirtkum on Gregson in the last battle— 
 eh? 
 
 D. S. — D--mn — ly punished, there, by 
 G-d! my — lord in for two hundred, bl-st 
 me! 
 
 L. Q. — I was also hard hit ; — received a 
 body pop in that business — cross buttock- 
 ed for a thousand — but can't you flash the 
 biter ? 
 
 D. ^. —Can't bubble the twaddler there ; 
 no, bl-st me ! nicked Old Easy on the 
 Chicken-lay before; must come the go 
 here, — or smash 
 
 L. Q. — D nat— n unfortunate that ; 
 
 for I have none of the ready — however, a 
 seat in the house secures me from the 
 soap and candle concern : only it has too 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 79 
 
 much in the flash (if I cut this) to raise ■ 
 a bite a second time * * # * * 
 
 Here my attention was called off by the 
 entrance of a bailiff and his follower, who 
 instantly seized the great hero of the fist 
 — the redoubtable Dan — and were bearing 
 him away to " durance vile" for a paltry 
 debt of twenty pounds ! — the great father 
 of bruisers, black-legs^ and black-guards, 
 to be arrested for twenty pounds ! — The 
 thought was shocking to humanity ! so — 
 the above noble lord taking a hat, and ad- 
 dressing his honorable associates, in their 
 language, tossed a guinea into it, and sent 
 it round the table; — every one followed 
 the example, though they would refuse 
 to relieve the woes of a famished wretch, 
 expiring in the street, with a shilling; no 
 one on this occasion refused his guinea !— 
 
80 the tarantula; 
 
 The consequence was, the hero was in an 
 instant discharged — the bailiffs kicked out 
 — and fifty guineas remained after the 
 release. — But mark ! out of this the know- 
 ing ones who were in the secret received 
 back their subscription — amongst whom 
 ranked his lordship, who had so neatly 
 bubbled the poor wide-mouthed, full-sapt, 
 flats or fools — who knew not that the 
 arrest was a sham one. — Dan did not owe 
 a guinea to any man — because no man 
 would trust him one! I was one of the 
 fools who purchased the secret at the price 
 of one pound one shilling ; and I fancy it 
 was* better than giving to a physician, who 
 would only have hummed and had over my 
 pulse, without being able to tell me the na- 
 ture of my disease. — Now these physicians 
 not only convinced me I was troubled with 
 
OR ; DANCE OF FOOLS. £1 
 
 a redundancy — not of bile — but of folly ; 
 but they applied an effectual remedy, at 
 least pro tempore. 
 
 Mundungus. — Infamous degradation ! — 
 What a shameless prostitution of all they 
 owe to noble ancestry does not such ac- 
 counts as these exhibit ? — My dear Grum- 
 blerius, I am here a convert to your 
 lash of follies (to call them by no worse 
 name) that I own I did not think existed. 
 But I hope such instances are not gene- 
 ral ; if they are, how would the forefa- 
 thers of this degenerate stock blush for 
 their actions could they witness them? — 
 But was not the father of the nobleman, 
 whose name you have just mentioned, 
 one of the greatest statesmen of the last 
 reign ? — Was he not one of the principal 
 pillars of Whiggism ? 
 
 VOL. I. / G 
 
82 THE TARANTULA} 
 
 Gnimblerkis.' — He was so; — and your 
 last question brines to my recollection an 
 anecdote relating to Whiggism- which you 
 shall hear. — Having occasion to wait upon 
 my lord Buzzard on business of a very 
 urgent nature^ in which his lordship was 
 materially interested, I could not help' 
 feeling, on approaching the door, a sensa- 
 tion of esteem, respect, and awe^ when 
 I cal'ed to mind the brilliant senatorial 
 talents of the father; and the heroic 
 achievements of the grandfather. — On 
 """knocking at the door, I was informed, by 
 the servant — as I then understood him — - 
 that his lordship was out, in attendance 
 as a member of the Whig club— of which, 
 on enquiry, I discovered he was one of 
 the principal supporters, — This information 
 increased, if possible, the esteem I che- 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 83 
 
 risbed for his exalted name. " Ah V s - said I to 
 myself, " this is, indeed, a youth worthy of 
 representing the successful defender of his 
 country, both in the field and cabinet — this 
 is, indeed, a model, — ye youths! worthy 
 of imitation. — Instead of wasting his 
 health and strength in the lap of riotous 
 dissipation, behold him boldly contending 
 for the grand palladium of our happiness, 
 as a nation, and fearlessly endeavouring to 
 stem the overwhelming power of a Tory 
 faction." — I had scarcey uttered this, 
 before an equipage, driving into the 
 square, attracted my attention from the sin- 
 gularity of dress and appearance en tout 
 of the coachman. — He wore a hat of 
 scarcely three inches depth in the crown, 
 with a brim of equal breadth, — a lounging 
 drab great coat, in which was stuck an 
 
 G 2 
 
84 the tarantula; 
 
 enormous bouquet, — breeches which ex- 
 tended far below the calf of his leg, at 
 the extremity of which dangled sixteen 
 strings ; and boots, if boots they could be 
 called " which shape had none/' met 
 them with shrinking reluctance, — a cravat 
 a la Jehu completed the dress of the man 
 whose employer's caprice I thought had 
 thus transformed into so pitiable a state, 
 and I felt hurt on being informed, by the 
 servant, that it was his lordships carriage 
 that was driving in, — However, thought I, 
 not wishing to spoil the pleasant picture 
 I had lately indulged in, 'tis perhaps — < 
 'tis perhaps a sacrifice to the fashionable 
 whim .of his lady ;- — but what were my sensa- 
 tions on discovering that this non-descript, 
 this rankest compound of affected puppyism 
 that ever offended decency, was, — by the 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 85 
 
 unblushing front of shame, Sir! — the 
 right honorable Lord Buzzard himself! 
 Yes, Sir, the man whom busy fancy had 
 the instant before placed in my view 
 weilding the strong and irresistible argu- 
 ments of truth and conviction in support 
 of Magna Chart a — I now beheld weild- 
 Ing — what? — the strong and irresistible 
 arguments of a long whip, and a set of 
 reins over an animal a thousand times more 
 noble than himself, — ; < Is this," I exclaimed, 
 passionately, "■ is this the son of the cool 
 reasoner, the subtle querist, the dignified, 
 finished statesman? — Is this the grandson 
 of the man w 7 hose name alone was a tower 
 of strength against our foes" — Is this the 
 leader, the support of the Whig club?" — 
 Further enquiry, however, convinced me 
 that I had misunderstood the servant with 
 
$6 the tarantula; 
 
 a vengeance — It was the leader of the 
 whip club, a society, I found afterwards* 
 formed of all the fools and madmen in 
 town and country, whose greatest ambi- 
 tion was to be reckoned a deep dab at the 
 dice box, a knowing boy at billiards, a 
 backer of bruisers, a sly cock at crim. con. 
 and a patron of every vice and folly to be 
 found in the character of a dasher, or, 
 more correctly speaking, in the annals 
 of what is termed a sporting calendar ! — ■ 
 After waiting some time*. I was ushered 
 into the room, where I found him sur- 
 rounded by several of his companions, 
 similarly habited, and whose language, 
 during the short time I staid* was cor- 
 responding with their dress ; — a mixture of 
 coarseness and insipidity, interlarded with 
 horse -jockey terms* was conspicuous 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 87 
 
 throughout th£ group, whose ignorance, 
 Vanity, and self- conceited folly, appeared 
 to reign triumphant ;— well, thought I, 
 
 * € A skipping, dancing, worthless, tribe ye are ! 
 
 '* Fit only for yourselves, ye herd together ; 
 
 iC And when the circling glass warms your vain hearts* 
 
 * c You talk of beauties that you never saw, 
 
 " And fancy raptures that you never felt.'* 
 
 Rowe. 
 
 But whilst I am shewing you the glaring 
 follies of our youthful nobility, of the 
 present day, it may not be amiss to take a 
 view of what I shall call a modern system 
 of tour making. — Formerly, curiosity 
 would whisper to our noble youths, stimu- 
 lated by a theoretical view of nature, whilst 
 immured within the close-pent walls of a 
 •college — this description is but a daub ! 
 
83 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 but a mere water colour — nature disowns 
 such a portrait ; — to be convinced, see it 
 yourself; — then, our youths had an impulse 
 worthy the object in view ; — then we look- 
 ed forward to their return to explanations 
 of doubts — to confirmations of opinion— 
 and we were rarely disappointed; — now, 
 Sir, a dasher, or what is synonymous, a 
 young man of family, of the present day, 
 makes, for instance, the tour of Wales ; — 
 his first letters teem with what? — of course 
 a descriptive view of the beauties which 
 have met his eye in each day's progress. Lord 
 bless you ! — he writes to say, that Snarler 
 and Sloven are both lame in th£off foot ; — 
 that Drowsy refused the whip three times 
 
 up the hills of , and that, as for 
 
 Miss Slim (for he drives four) she was 
 knocked up the second stage ; and that 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 89 
 
 if he cannot drive four in hand ten miles 
 at a burst, he would not give a d — n for 
 all the views in Christendom ; — and this is 
 another of our " hopes of the land!''' — - 
 This is — but I had forgotten his partner, 
 or companion, for etiquette obliges him to 
 have one — this convenient jackall to an ig- 
 noble master — this pleasant pander to his 
 vices — is found indispensably necessary — - 
 for he not only fills up the vacant seat in 
 the vehicle — no unimportant matter, let 
 me tell you — but he fills up a far more 
 agreeable vacuity, — he can pimp, on occa- 
 sion, with the dexterity of a Sir Pandariis — 
 and procure a petite file cle joye, with as 
 much ease and nonchalence as he can 
 squeeze a lemon into a bowl of punch — 
 and yet this convenient piece of travelling 
 furniture is a degraded sprig of divinity — - 
 
QO the tarantula; 
 
 aye, indeed ! — the younger son of a very 
 great — very poor — man, who, having no 
 fortune to leave him, (as even competency 
 taken from the necessary provision requi- 
 site to keep up the family name cannot be 
 spared to the youngest of seven children) 
 sends him to college, after the usual proba- 
 tion at a public school, where, if he has 
 not the good fortune to spunge himself in- 
 to the notice of, if not a nobler, at least a 
 richer sprig, his dernier resort is to fasten 
 himself, leech lilie, upon one of that de- 
 scription at college — to pry into his secrets 
 — to worm into his affairs — to do all his 
 dirty work — and to receive what ? — Does 
 not your mouth instinctively open ? — Does 
 not your empty hand clench involuntarily? 
 —Why, a good fat benefice ! — Oh, Mun- 
 
©R, DAXCE OF FOOLS. Ql 
 
 {lungus! think of six hundred pounds a 
 
 year ! 
 
 " I often wish that I had clear, 
 
 <f For life, six hundred pounds a year !" 
 
 Swift. 
 
 The sound, the very sound alone, 
 breathes comfort ! What might not be 
 purchased with six hundred pounds a year? 
 Man dun gits. — Yet to purchase it at this 
 expense, my friend, — no, by my soul ! if 
 this is to be the price of my stipulated 
 ladder of advancement, — I will still wear 
 my thread -bare coat, and wear it proudly ; 
 — and when envious Time has compelled it 
 to " shiver in the wind'— I will e'en patch 
 it myself, — if want compels me to borrow 
 a needle and thread. 
 
52 THE TARANTULA % 
 
 Grumblerius. — Come, I see I have 
 roused the game ; — but this is not all — for, 
 on his return, — he must, forsooth, publish 
 his travels, and the town is pestered with 
 his stale lucubrations — the only merits of 
 which are, the paper, the engravings, the 
 margin, and the binding ; yet not a book- 
 seller's shop window but exhibits the lame, 
 common-place, and unlettered, effusions 
 of this dishonourable honourable ! 
 
 To bind such trash in vellum chaste. 
 
 Would be a grievous sin 5 
 'Tvvere better far to have them done 
 
 In good tough ass's skin. 
 
 Mundungus. — That man must, indeed, 
 be a fool, who will have the boldness to 
 set up for an author, without a sufficient 
 stock of learning. 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. g3 
 
 Grumblerius. — Learning ! Lumber you 
 mean, — literary lumber. No young man 
 of fashion will be at the pains of lay- 
 ing in a stock of it at present, at 
 the expense of wading through the 
 deep, hollow, tedious, gloomy road of 
 the classics, when there is so much 
 shorter a cut to it by skipping away to Tat- 
 tersall's, Hanover Square concerts, the 
 Opera house; the various exhibitions of 
 pictures, and other fashionable places of 
 resort. A thorough acquaintance with 
 these, and the terms used by painters, joc- 
 kies, and musicians ; the habit of a groom ; 
 3 moderate reading in Taplin's farriery, 
 Blaine's diseases of dogs and horses, and 
 a pair of hair-trigger pistols, are the whole 
 stock of learning — the ne plus ultra of the 
 education of nine-tenths of our nobility 
 
§4 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 and gentry. If the remaining one-tenth 
 should happen to have a scholastic edu- 
 cation, it is because they were younger 
 brothers, who were sent to the university 
 in the idea of having only small fortunes ; 
 but who have since succeeded to the family 
 estates by the deaths of the heirs apparent* 
 As to the first born, they are almost inva- 
 riably trained up in ignorance, idleness,. 
 and vice ; and their whole stock of sci- 
 ence consists of a jargon of 100 or 150 
 slang terms applied in defiance of common 
 sense, and supported with uncommon 
 effrontery. Such accomplished fellows are 
 the rising generation, who are to support 
 the honors of nobility, and therefore it 
 will not be a matter of astonishment if it 
 should get into disgrace with men of sense. 
 But, with the reader's leave, we will tell 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOI S. 95 
 
 him a story of one of these accomplished 
 fellows, founded on fact. — 
 
 THE 
 
 NOBLE AMATEUR; 
 
 OK, 
 
 How to make a little Science go a great way. 
 
 A noble youth, who lov'd much better pleasure 
 Than dry, dull, philosophic rules ; 
 
 Had gather' d little of the ancient treasure— 
 We mean those authors read at schools ; 
 Yet he knew how to puzzle fools, 
 
 And wise men too ; for he'd, at finger's end, 
 Latin and Greek quotations oat of number 5 
 
 Which, right or wrong, he'd to his purpose bend, 
 Altho' he scarcely knew the case from gender. 
 
 No matter — it went off — he was a lord, 
 (And that alone for most folks is enough) 
 
 Besides, of learning savour'd ev'ry word, 
 With Aristotle's rules he'd stuff 
 His hearers, as his nose with snuff. 
 
96 THE tarantula; 
 
 He would be thought a poet,, (help his brain !) 
 And have the credit liberties of taking, 
 
 With the nine sisters, coy as Dian's train — 
 
 Soshow'dsome verses,~which he paid for making. 
 
 A critic — dilettante — virtuoso— 
 And amateur— -the terms of art 
 
 He splutter'd out, as if no person knew sq 
 Much as himself—'twas all by heart- 
 To place 'em right the puzzling part. 
 
 " Tom/' cried his father, " what a noise you make 
 " About your science— very much I doubt it— '* 
 
 <( You're right, Sir ; those, who credit it, mistake, 
 " But then, you see,— I do as well without it /5> 
 
 One night his father to a nnm'rous party 
 A conceit gave—Tom took a part, 
 
 Shaking his elbow, as a fiddler hearty : — 
 (< Bravissimo, my lord ! — encore !" 
 The audience cried,— and many swore 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 97 
 
 My lord a finer bow drew than the best :™ 
 
 " Did you not hear/' said they," how he ran o'er 
 
 " Passages most difficult to be exprest ? 
 So sweet a play'r ne'er was heard before !" 
 
 ' ' Well," said his father, when the comp'ny gone, 
 " You're skilled, I'm told^in tweedle— twiddle :, 
 
 <( From one t'another science how you run, 
 i( To me this matter's quite a riddle 5 
 " I never saw you with a fiddle.— 
 
 " How did you learn ?" — " Sir I can't play a note 5 
 fe Nor e'er of music did the gamut know." 
 
 " Why, how the devil then— what ! play by rote?" 
 " Lord, Sir, why can'tyou guess }~Igreasdmy bow !" 
 
 Another of these noble connoisseurs, 
 however, did not come off so cleanly in 
 one of his flights. Having for more than 
 an hour pestered the late Mr. Barry, whilst 
 he was painting in the room of the society 
 
 vol. 1. h 
 
£8 THE TARANTULA J 
 
 of arts in the Adelphi, he, at length, 
 took the liberty to criticise some part of 
 the performance. Barry, with the utmost 
 coolness and contempt, dipped a pound 
 brush in the paint pot, and drew it across 
 the virtuoso's mouth, saying: " I perceive, 
 Sir^ that you are a man of taste T 
 
 And yet these accomplished gentlemen 
 are the leeches who are to suck the best 
 blood of England; — it is for the ostenta- 
 tious vanity and jealousy of these men, 
 that the recreation of Englishmen has 
 been curtailed, and almost annihilated by 
 debarring them from killing from a phea- 
 sant to a woodcock and snipe, and that 
 they are debarred from carrying a gun, 
 unless, forsooth, to defend the overgrown 
 possessions of their indolent, depreciated, 
 oppressors; — it is for such men that we 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 99 
 
 suffer privation of money, amusement, 
 and every thing worth an Englishman's 
 having, merely to feed a horde of army 
 agents, government contractors, loan job- 
 bers, excise men, &c. whilst all petitions 
 from the harassed nation to prevent rever- 
 sionary grants in favor of these public- 
 spirited worthies, are rejected with con- 
 tempt by a combination of men who are 
 in the enjoyment of them, and who are, 
 consequently, propria causa judices — 
 judges in their own cause. It has been 
 supposed, that the writings of Rousseau, 
 Voltaire, and other French philosophers, 
 were the volcanic matter which caused 
 that dreadful eruption — the late revolution. 
 But no; it was the pride, the arrogance, 
 imd oppression of the nobility, which was 
 apparent from their universal expulsion, 
 * h 2 
 
100 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 or emigration, if that term is less grating 
 to the ears of nobility. It was an awful 
 example from which our own nobility 
 might and ought to profit ; but they are 
 fools whom one may despair of ever 
 seeing reclaimed, since, if they did not 
 wear the garb of their groom, talk the same 
 stable talk, swear the same oaths, use the 
 like gestures., and appear together on the 
 same dicky, they would have some other 
 folly equally preposterous. One instance, 
 for all, will sufficiently prove their degene- . 
 racy. At a period the most alarming, 
 and yet the proudest that ever these king- 
 doms experienced, since our existence as 
 a free nation (without which it were better 
 not to exist at all) was threatened, and the 
 threat drew forth such a blaze of British 
 plebeian patriotism as made the threatener 
 
OH, DAXCE OF FOOLS. 101 
 
 hide his diminished head : — at such an 
 eventful crisis, our nobility might very 
 well have passed for a genus of the species 
 of dormice, if they had not convinced us 
 of their being awake, by forming a com- 
 mittee for superintending the affairs of the 
 Opera House ; or, in plain English, an 
 importation of Italian, Spanish, a ad 
 
 French, rogues, iv s and spies. — Nay, 
 
 to insult the very people to whom they 
 owed protection in their overgrown estates, 
 they raised a subscription for a similar inno- 
 cent place of recreation in Argvle Street, 
 whence their brave defenders were to be 
 excluded, as beings of a different specie's. 
 Be it allowed that we are so — it is for us 
 the proudest of distinctions. Most of the 
 brute creation are endued with gratitude — ■ 
 
102 the tarantula; 
 
 we know who have not the least spark of 
 it. 
 
 Mundungus. — But what say you to our 
 female nobility? — I trust that your judg- 
 ment of them will be less severe, 
 
 Grumklerius. — The judgment which has 
 been so often of late passed in the Courts 
 of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and 
 Doctor's Commons, will speak for them, 
 and be a sufficiently severe censure on their 
 folly in so often exposing their adulterous 
 gambols before the public. But what else 
 can be expected from their mode of educa- 
 cation, if education it can be called ? The 
 mother thinks that to be sick and dis- 
 figured during nine months, and to be 
 confined a month or six weeks after, so 
 immense a sacrifice that the child is from 
 its birth abandoned to a foster mother; 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 103 
 
 next to nursery maids, and then sent to a 
 boarding school under English and French 
 teachers, mostly of lax morals. Here she 
 is taught to read badly, write and spell 
 worse, and drawl out a tune accompanied 
 by herself on the piano ; — but the chief 
 article is to acquire the graces, — that \% % 
 to dance in such luxurious attitudes, as if 
 they were eastern dancing girls, who were 
 to live by the prostitution of their persons. 
 Indeed, nine out of ten of their marriages 
 ar§ little better. Miss returns from school 
 almost as ignorant as she went thither, 
 but woefully changed in manners and 
 person. Her natural modesty has given 
 way to a pert, presuming, self-conceit; 
 her mind is stored with Mary Woolstone- 
 erafVs lubricous lucubrations ; and, as the 
 ruddy hue of trie rose and i' embonpoint 
 
104 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 are regarded as unfashionable, she has ac- 
 quired a death-like paleness by sucking 
 lemons, drinking vinegar, and abstaining 
 from the most nutritious viands, thereby 
 laying in a stock of future disease. Her 
 polish is now to begin ; and, after innume- 
 rable private lessons from mamma, on 
 female Machiavelism, Miss is introduced 
 to a particular friend or two, and so on, 
 till the number is increased to a select 
 party. The time draws near for pub- 
 lishing her — that is, introducing her at 
 court, where, her charms being quite new, 
 mamma presages the most happy success 
 — not in her daughter's future happiness 
 — but in her own, who is likely to get rid 
 of a formidable rival, as daughters are 
 always considered at that age by pleasure- 
 loving mothers. But ibr further security, 
 
OR, DAXCE OF FOOLS. 105 
 
 the publishers of the newspapers are 
 bribed to announce the first introduction 
 of the divine lady Wish ;ort, by her no 
 less divine mother, whose bloom of youth 
 might have causd her to be taken for her 
 daughter's sister. Then, if mamma has 
 any design for her daughter on the male 
 heir of any particular family, the editor, 
 who, perhaps, was never at a levee, or 
 drawing room, in his life, remarks, that 
 that young nobleman was seen to cast many 
 a sheep's eye at the young lady, which is a 
 hint at match-making. Miss, after having 
 thus practised all the mummery of haut 
 ton breeding, as a filly goes through her 
 paces of the menage, and been introduced 
 at court for the inspection of the vouno; 
 fools of the other sex, is considered as 
 exposed to the hammer, and open to any 
 
100 the tarantula; 
 
 bidding ; bat she is taught that it would 
 be sacrilege to suffer her feelings to be 
 interested, or to consult any thing but the 
 family interest, As the other sex proceeds 
 on the same footing, nothing can be more 
 equal. The parties are offered to each 
 other, as horses are sometimes put up for 
 sale — with all defects and blemishes. 
 
 " Ah ! sure such pairs were never seen, 
 " So justly form'd to meet by nature !" 
 
 Miss can dip a courtsey, and lisp a few 
 common-place observations, like a par- 
 rot: Master can fling a nod, and converse 
 withMissnearlyupcn par. But those whoare 
 not fools of fashion, will see and read, with 
 pity and contempt, that Nature, the author, 
 had produced a beauteous work, which had 
 been so defaced and disfigured by Art. the 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 107 
 
 publisher, that, as Shakespeare has been 
 used by his commentators and annotators, 
 and Dr. Johnson by his biographers, 
 scarcely a fragment cf the original is to 
 be seen through the spurious patch work. 
 — What, therefore, can be expected from 
 husbands, who, as bachelors, did not 
 know how to take care of themselves, and 
 from wives, who have been taught only 
 the arts of ensnaring husbands, and who 
 consequently, are beneath their lessons 
 when they have gained them. — Left to 
 their unruly passions, without any plan 
 for their government, they are irresolute, 
 weak, and too often vicious. Hence, 
 there are not wanting couples in high life, 
 who, when satiated with each other, have 
 mutually agreed to seek their pleasure 
 elsewhere, and, so far from thwarting, to 
 
i08 the tarantula; 
 
 pimp for each other ; hence, we may still 
 see a husband who will be content to be 
 a cypher, and leave the honors of the 
 house to be supported by his lady, which 
 she dexterously effects by means of play- 
 tables, and converting the inmost recesses 
 of the house into a stew, where losing 
 females pay winning males, not in cash but 
 ecstaeies, void of all blush and fear, 
 because unseeing and unseen. Hence, also, 
 we have heard of nobles, who, having 
 caught their ribs tripping, have compro- 
 mised matters with the paramour, and, for 
 a round sum, permitted him to continue to 
 amuse .himself; — hence — but we should 
 never have done if we ran through all the 
 catalogue of the consequences of fashion- 
 able unions, and, therefore, let us come 
 to the end of them— namely, divorce. It 
 
OR, BANCS OF FOOLS. IO9 
 
 must certainly be no small consolation to 
 them that they possess this advantage over 
 most plebeians, who cannot afford to pay 
 for it. My lord has immediate recourse 
 to his proctor, whilst the middling classes 
 must bear their burdens till nature 
 kindly frees them from their clogs. A 
 West-country clown, indeed, once divor- 
 ced himself by stratagem, and we will 
 have the story by way of a little relaxa- 
 tion. 
 
 THE DIVORCE ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 How to get rid of a tippling Wife. 
 
 In Western county liv'd a clown, 
 
 A rude, unpolish'd fellow 5 
 Whose wife (perhaps her cares to drown) 
 
 Was always getting mellow. 
 
110 THE tarantula; 
 
 John, who from sun -rise to sun-set 
 Was delving, o; was digging; 
 
 Enough for victuals scarce could get, 
 Much less for ale-house swigging. 
 
 Twelve shillings weekly was his store — 
 'Tvvas devilish close beard shaving; 
 
 But when half went for liquor score, 
 Poor fellow ! he was raving. 
 
 His clothes were bare, his visage pale 3 — 
 Dame didn't care a farthings 
 
 She'd rather than want good fat ale 
 See twenty husbands starving. 
 
 Hard case for John ! who all day toifd., 
 Nor evening spent in clover -, 
 
 Who found at home nor roast, nor boii'd 3 
 But dame full half seas over. 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. Hi 
 
 He gentle means, and rough ones, tried-— 
 
 But vain was love or anger -, 
 Her heart thus hard, he thought her hide 
 
 Might softer be— he bang'd her. 
 
 Both methods fail'd — the tongue and stick- 
 Some other must be taken j 
 
 He hit at last on a shrewd trick 
 To smoke his deary's bacon. 
 
 One ev'ning, to Dame's great surprize. 
 
 Who was in usual pickle, 
 John reeling came— a I'm drunk! " he cries-— 
 
 These words her ears did tickle. 
 
 " Lard, John !" cries she, " I be main glad 
 
 " To zee thee'st done wi'thinking • 
 " Till now I always thought thee mad 
 
 " To vind vault wi' my drinking. 
 
 " Zoon as thee dost the pleasure vind, 
 
 " " Good ale thee'lt take delight in -, 
 
 4( We both shall be in the same mind 
 
 " No quarrelling, nor vighting. 
 
112 THE TARANTULA; 
 
 Joan now kiss'd John with greatest glee,, 
 
 And straightway fetch'd a flaggon $ 
 So tipsy got, she scarce could see 
 
 A horse from broad-wheel waggon. 
 
 Now was John's time :--- " Ah ! Deame," quoth he, 
 " Thee know'st not what I'm thinking." 
 
 " Laird ! John, how should I ?" — " Well, thee'ltzee, 
 " I ben't for nothing drinking. 
 
 " I'm going to make myzel away, 
 
 " Into the river pop me." 
 " Laird ! John '" : — " 'Tis true as I do zay,, 
 
 " So doan't thee go to stop me." 
 
 " I won't, John, 'tis your own affair, 
 
 n And if zo be you're willing ; 
 u None have a right to interfere 
 
 *< To keep one from zelf killing." 
 
 €t Thank ye, good Deame, vor vavors past, 
 
 <( And now we part vorever \ 
 " Do let me beg thee'lt zee the last 
 
 <{ Of poor I in the river. 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 113 
 
 * "WV all my heart"— They both set out 
 
 To where the water deepest 5 
 And artful John look'd all about 
 
 To see where bank w r as steepest. 
 
 " Well, good b'ye, Deame !" — "Then thee wiltgo ?"— 
 •* I wull," quoth John, " most surely j; 
 ** But lest I zuffer long, pray do 
 " Tie both my hands zecurely." 
 
 " Rather than zee thee z offering 
 
 " Like drowning pups or martyrs ; 
 " I'll help thee, John, to any thing — 
 
 " Here take one of my garters. '* 
 
 When she had tied his hands as tight 
 
 As e'er her strength would let her, 
 Quoth John, "I leave this world to night." — 
 
 " Ah, John, thee'ltvind a better./' 
 
 " But yet, Deame, 'tis an awkward thing, 
 
 " Eternity to rush in 5 
 ie Do thee go back, and wi' a spring," 
 
 ** Gi' I a zudden push in." 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 the tarantuxa; 
 
 " I wiill, John — any thing I can — '} 
 
 She went, and came on jumping y 
 John stepp'd aside, and on Deame ran,— 
 
 The river shefell plump in. 
 
 u Help ! help ! good John ?"--- she sprawling cried— 
 " For Lard's sake, help !-^-I'm sinking !" 
 
 (i I can't," quoth John, f( my hands are tied— 
 <( Zo take thy vill o' drinking." 
 
 Mundungus. — Ha! ha! ha! John's wit 
 served him as well as any proctor, whose 
 assistance was unattainable in his situation. 
 The laws of divorce are, undoubtedly* 
 very unequal ; but to proceed. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Well— at this rate w6 
 see fools, prudes, coquettes, gamesters 
 idlers, talkers of nonsense and scandal, 
 -intriguers, &c. forced to couple with each 
 other, or else to remain single, as, itt 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 115 
 
 their eyes, no sin is so heinous as that of 
 matching without their own circle. The 
 game of settlement is played over again ; all 
 the family estate is entailed on the firstborn 
 fool, and all the sinecure places and pen- 
 sions of the kingdom, numberless as they 
 are, (the Red Book being little more than 
 an abstract of them) will not suffice the 
 younger fry of nobility. How then can 
 wefooluhly denominate them useless, when 
 they keep the aristocracy from impove- 
 rishing their fortunes by providing for 
 younger children, and keep in repair the 
 middle prop of our glorious constitution f 
 What are our sufferings compared with 
 their splendor — what the sweat of our 
 brows set against the enamel on their 
 faces ? — What our privations to their en- 
 joyments ? — Custom has established their 
 i 2 
 
116 the tarantula; 
 
 pre-eminence, and custom is hut folly ; so 
 that we must charge our burthens upon 
 folly. — Is it not the acme of folly in our 
 rigid moralists to find fault with the nobi- 
 lity for converting night into day ; when, 
 if i z were to be employed in the ordinary 
 manner, their excesses would be less, and 
 their progeny so numerous, that the army, 
 navy, and even the three learned profes- 
 sions, would be blockt up against us ple- 
 beians, and no avenue open beyond trade? 
 Their vices are the flood-gates of our ho- 
 nors, through which one or other of us 
 plebeians does, now and then, pop into a 
 little preferment ; they are the ichneumons 
 which destroy the young crocodiles that 
 would otherwise devour us all. 
 
 Mundnngus.- — It is, indeed, happy for 
 sis that women of quality only breed, and 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 117 
 
 do not litter like the wives of peasants. 
 Pray, do not you think that, in addition 
 to the reasons, which you have given for 
 their not being so prolific as women of 
 the inferior classes, another cause is the 
 modern fashion of going half naked. 
 When you pass a female, who has been 
 caught in a shower in Hyde Park, and 
 whose gauze transparency, drenched with 
 rain, sticks close to her frame, and leaves 
 little or nothing to the imagination, would, 
 you not think them — laborantes utero pu- 
 
 € ll aS * * * * ■# # *•';-* * * 
 
 # # *, ####### $ 4 
 
 Grumblerius. — Poh ! No. It is a coin- 
 mon, but no less false, saying, that the 
 world is grown worse than ever it was, 
 
118 the tarantula; 
 
 and one of the instances adduced in proof 
 of it is the dress, or rather want of dress, 
 of the present race of females. But this 
 argument, in our humble opinion, proves 
 quite the reverse, and, that we are not 
 many removes from the primitive simpli- 
 city of the garden of Eden. — " And they 
 were both naked, the man and his wife, and 
 zvere not ashamed' 3 The bkjsh of shame 
 had not then tinged the cheek — it was 
 painted solely by the rose of health, for 
 which our ladies have been long obliged 
 to substitute rouge ; but they seem deter- 
 mined now to retrace back their steps to 
 those scenes of primitive innocence, when 
 it was not conceived that nakedness disco- 
 vered aught indelicate, or that it should be 
 concealed. 
 
6m, DANCE OF FOOLS. 1 l§ 
 
 ** Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame, 
 " Of nature's works : honour dishonourable 
 " Sin bred ! how have ye troubled all mankind, 
 ** With shews indeed, mere shews of seeming pure, 
 c * And banish'd from man's life^ his happiest life, 
 " Simplicity, and spotless innocence !" 
 
 Milton. 
 
 This sin-bred shame our modern fair seem 
 resolved to banish, and to substitute in its 
 place the roses of health, by discarding 
 unnecessary cloathing, and case-harden- 
 ing themselves to the weather. As the 
 fig-leaf was not introduced until the ima- 
 gination became corrupt, it must follow 
 that the nearer our belles approach to nu- 
 dity, the more they approximate to pu- 
 rity ! ! !— 
 
 Mundimgus. —You speak ironically now. 
 
 Grumbleriiis. — Pray postpone your 
 
120 the tarantula; 
 
 inference, until I shall have concluded. 
 The grand impediment to marriage, 
 namely the female taste for expensive 
 dresses, is now about to vanish ; and in pro- 
 portion as wedlock increases, illegitimate 
 amours, and their unhappy consequences, 
 will vanish. Bahaloul, the fool of Haroun 
 Alraschid, of whom honorable mention 
 has been already made, had a very great 
 aversion to marriage, notwithstanding 
 which, the caliph insisted on his being 
 wedded to a female who was both young 
 and handsome, assuring him that he 
 would then be perfectly happy. Bahaloul 
 submitted ; but the instant he laid down 
 by this bride, he jumped out of bed, and 
 ran away as if he had been frightened out 
 of his senses. The parents of the bride 
 complained of this insult to the caliph, 
 
Or, dance of fools. 121 
 
 who sent for the Jbol, and, in a severe tone, 
 demanded the cause of such behaviour. 
 ^ My lord/' replied Bahaloul, " I have 
 nothing to allege against the young wo- 
 man ; she is handsome, and may be vir- 
 tuous and wise; but the very moment I 
 entered the nuptial bed, I thought I heard 
 a number of children's voices, one asking 
 for a ribband, another for a vest, and ano- 
 ther for a robe, that I ran away, in spite 
 of your commands and my wife's charms, 
 to avoid being more foolish than I am. 
 The colds, and other disorders, brought on 
 by thin clothing, will prevent all fear of a 
 numerous progeny ; and, the expense of 
 dress, being done away, prostitution will 
 cease ; man's wants will be reduced to a 
 little, and knaverv will be no longer a 
 trade. We shall be all Adams and Eves. 
 
122 the tarantula; 
 
 Even the most decried and most pernicious 
 of all our amusements (I mean masque- 
 rades) tend to this end, as good arises 
 out of evil. We still retain some lines of 
 a humourous description of one of these 
 exhibitions: — 
 
 f< When we enter'd this paradise, judge, my dear madam , 
 <x With what pleasure we met our first ancestor,, Adam, 
 " Good God ! 'twas so awful to see whence we sprung, 
 <c For the dress to his body most prettily clung 5 
 4C And, lest his green girdle might pass for dame Eve's> 
 " He kept on the fruit, which peep'd out 'twixt the leaves. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 ******* 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 * * * * * * , * 
 C{ Now, as for the women, why nine out of ten 
 
 " So doubtful were clad, you might take them for men 5 
 
 [necks, 
 "Till, shrewdly enough, 'twixt their knees and their 
 *' For decency sake they discovered their sex," 
 
OFt, DANCE OF FOOLS. 123 
 
 The arts too will flourish, since we have 
 
 a lady H who will exhibit her naked 
 
 beauties to our sculptors and painters., and 
 
 a lady C C , whose light drapery 
 
 displays the utmost elegance of dress 5 
 without concealing an iota of her charms. 
 — Eve's birth-day suit was scarcely more 
 natural than one of this lady's birth-day 
 dresses. — It was a full match for the gar- 
 ments of the Lacedaemonian girls, which, 
 we are told, discovered more than they 
 -concealed. Varro mentions u vitreas 
 vestes? glassy garments ; and Horace also 
 notices them under the appellation of Caan 
 garments, from the island of Coos, where 
 the stuff was made : — ■ 
 
 Cois tibi pcene videri est 
 
 Let nudam.- 
 
 Through the Coan vest* 
 
 You see her almost naked.- 
 
124 the tarantula; 
 
 Menander also mentions those cobweb 
 dresses under the appellation of transparent 
 vests ; but we cannot conceal that he stig- 
 matizes them as the apparel of courtezans. 
 — Be they so, our ladies of the present 
 day are divested of all those prejudices, 
 and readily adopt the fashions set them by 
 kept mistresses, opera girls, or actresses. 
 There is another cause, flowing from these 
 transparent dresses, why nudes are less pro- 
 lific than wearers of petticoats. To defend 
 themselves against the internal cold, they 
 swallow so much British gin — (yes, reader, 
 British gin — which is become a most 
 fashionable liquor, perhaps from the high 
 price of foreign spirits) that almost every 
 twentieth house throughout the metropolis 
 is a gin shop, which is amply supported by 
 the other nineteen, — a drunken man is bad 
 
OE, DANCE OP FOOLS. 125 
 
 enough, but a drunken woman is every 
 thing that is bad. Husband, children, and 
 reputation, she will send to the devil for 
 gin. If a stop is not put to this pernicious 
 practice, the legislature ought to allow 
 drunkards to be shut up in a mad-house, 
 as they are, in every sense of the word, 
 note compotes mentis, incapable of mana- 
 ging their affairs, bent on the destruction, 
 of their families, and finally on suicide. 
 
 Mundungnis. — Heaven defend me from a 
 wife of this description ! As Lucio says in 
 Measure for Measure — " married to a 
 punk, is pressing to death, whipping, and 
 hanging !*' 
 
 Grumblerius. — Pish, man ! 'tis the 
 fashion of the day, and it would be better 
 for a man to be pressed to death, whipped, 
 and hanged, than to be out of the fashion. 
 
126 THE TARANTULA \ 
 
 A man of the ton, who has attained to the 
 scavoir vivre, or living upon terms with the 
 world, will rather be obstinately blind to all 
 the frailties of his rib, than make an eclat, 
 provided some prying chambermaid do not 
 espy her amorous tournaments through 
 some crack or key hole, and officiously 
 divulge them. He is then obliged to open 
 his eyes, and expose himself to the jibes 
 of liquorish lawyers in Westminster-hall,, 
 and the sneer of the swiriish multitude, 
 to whom his dishonor is blazoned in a 
 half crown short-hand report of the trial,, 
 or a sixpenny pamphlet, embellished with 
 engravings from life. — -Nay, it often hap- 
 pens that, after having thus stamped him- 
 self a cockold, his wife will retort the 
 charge of adultery upon him, and hold 
 
©Rj DANCE OP FOOLS. 127 
 
 him fast noosed, in spite of all his strug- 
 gles to free himself. I will recite to you 
 a little conjugal thrust and parry on this 
 head, entitled, 
 
 RETALIATION. 
 
 Cornuto, giv'ii to am'rous strife, 
 
 As was his liq'rish dame ; 
 Prizing his honor more than life,. 
 
 Tax'd ma'am with want of shame. 
 
 The fair bore coolly being snubb'd, 
 
 And said — iC My love, have done$; 
 
 '■' You have a dozen cuckold's dubb'd, 
 " And I ne'er made but one" 
 
 Mundungus. — There have, indeed, been 
 frequent examples of these exhibitions of 
 late among the higher ranks, and not a 
 few of them among the lower ones. 
 
] 28 THE TAEANTULA ; 
 
 Grumbleriusi — And how can it be a 
 matter of wonder, since Lord Chesterfield, 
 that moral guide of the haut ton, particu- 
 larly recommends gallantry with married 
 women to his own son, as the surest me- 
 thod of getting up in the world. Whoever 
 would rise among men must kneel to wo- 
 men — is now become so trite a maxim that 
 it is in the mouth of every boy-peer, and 
 is- to-be man of fashion. Their whole clas- 
 sical study is the perusal of his lordship's let- 
 ters; and the highest ambition of their parents 
 is to see them, and their sole aim is to be- 
 come, a Chelterfieldian, a mock- moralist, 
 and sacrificer at the shrine of self-interest, 
 duplicity, and hypocrisy ! 
 
 Mundungus. — Hush, Sir! not such 
 harsh epithets on what the world terms the 
 scavoir vivre, elegance, politeness, and 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 1 ZQ 
 
 suavity of manners. These things are the 
 passports through life, the small current 
 coin by means of which our bark glides 
 smoothly down the current of life. 
 
 Grumblerius. — You should have said the 
 false and debased money with which the 
 unwary are deceived ; and those who use 
 them are as deserving of infamy as their 
 brotherhood, the smashers. Who can read 
 with patience the books of a man who 
 recommends to his son the arts of flattery, 
 deceit, dissimulation, and gallantry, with 
 married women, vulgarly termed adultery? 
 Indeed, we ought to thank the fair editor 
 of these letters (a worthy relation and 
 disciple of his lordship) for her intrepidity 
 in unmasking the battery of fashion, and 
 telling us, in her advertisement to the 2d 
 Edition, that c men of the world are not 
 VOL* i. K 
 
130 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 bound by the same rules of morality by 
 which those are who, by the converse of 
 the same figure of speech, are called men 
 out of the world. 9 We have only to regret 
 that his lordship did not complete the inten- 
 tion which he announced in another work, 
 of publishing a system of ethics for people 
 of fashion. The exhibition must have 
 been so disgusting to the little worlds that 
 they would have been radically cured of 
 the disorder of apeing their betters, and 
 hold in proper estimation the man, whose 
 nearest and dearest scheme was that of 
 teaching his son — 
 
 To bend his body in a graceful line, 
 To dance, to dress, to drink, and to design - 7 
 Who bade his son be crafty as a knave, 
 Cringe like a fool, and flatter like a slave. 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 131 
 
 Consult applause, by mean, disgraceful arts $ 
 Neglect all principle to show his parts ; — 
 Caress the polish'd, spurn the vulgar, race, 
 And gull the public with an easy grace. 
 
 It would not signify a straw to the world 
 upon what terms these noble fools live with 
 one another, if there was not a conta- 
 gious spirit of emulation caught from 
 them by plebeian fools. — Such a sharp look 
 out is kept after fashionable levities by the 
 inferior classes, that Deborah Drab, of 
 Petticoat Lane, and Fanny Flounce, of 
 Smock Alley, will have the very same 
 vices as the Duchess of Drenchwell, and 
 Baroness Byblow, of Grosvenor Square; 
 and cits and counts havq an equal right 
 to boast the cuckold's horn. I shall now 
 contrast specimens of seeing company in 
 high and low life, which will sufficiently 
 K 2 
 
132 the tarantula; 
 
 point out to you the pernicious, baneful 
 effects of the former on the latter. No 
 sooner has the town become full, than a 
 Marchioness or Duchess issues her cards 
 for & rout or masquerade, of which she 
 gives a regular set at stated periods 
 throughout the season. — Her cards will 
 be issued for twice as many people as her 
 rooms can hold with comfort — for if they 
 were not crammed to suffocation, it would 
 be voted a complete cut. — You perhaps 
 think that these parties are composed of 
 intimate friends and acquaintance; and I 
 dare say you only consider them as differing 
 from a sober whist party, in the country, by 
 the immense acquaintance such rank and * 
 title must unavoidably have in town. — 
 Why, Sir, the lady of the house does not 
 know one in twenty of her visitors/ even 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 133 
 
 personally : — she invites them because, 
 the Duchess of Farrandiddie, had them 
 on her list the preceding week, and it 
 would be quite outre, to recognize a face 
 at a rout, that you were known to be in 
 strict terms of intimacy with. — This renders, 
 perhaps, necessary the party of Bow- street 
 runners — who form an indispensable part of 
 her establishment for the evening: — you 
 start, my friend, do not be surprized ! — -'tis 
 a fact. — Now what a delicious treat one of 
 these fellows must have, who has the 
 handing, or handling, a fashionable nude to 
 her carriage — as to eating or drinking— 
 'twoud be just as easy to procure even a 
 biscuit or a wafer here on a full night — - 
 <c as to catch a soaped pig by the tall* — - 
 Because, though you might be enabled to 
 snatch, by great good luck, any such trifle^ 
 
134 THE TARANTULA; 
 
 the odds are as high against your re- 
 taining one, as the other, ivithout you are 
 as great an adept in the art of elbowing, 
 crossing, and jostling, as a hero of the 
 turf. — What a fine school for the morals, 
 must such a squeezing assemblage of legs 
 and arms exhibit, particularly when we 
 call to recollection thefull dress — Oh dear, 
 Oh dear ! of a lady of high ton. — Cards 
 are introduced here like common gaming 
 houses, and the lady of the house is at 
 the height of her gratification, if any poor 
 Pigeon in the group is plucked of every 
 feather at a sitting — the newspapers will 
 teem with the anecdote — and if perchance 
 a few 7 crim. con. engagements commence 
 from that night, and another rival queen, 
 who has had the temerity to give a rout 
 on the same night, should have her rooms 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 135 
 
 abandoned, whilst her's are crammed to 
 suffocation, she is at the acme of her 
 wishes ; and after every glass, and brittle 
 article of furniture, is broken to shivers, and, 
 to crown the whole, not even a pocket 
 picked except in an honorable way — noto- 
 riety will take her on her wings, and soar to 
 where? — where you like my friend. — Now 
 for high life below stairs :— Not long since, 
 an industrious, honest, simple, tradesman, 
 laid his complaint before me in the follow- 
 ing strain : — My spouse, who was the 
 daughter of a person that enjoyed a place 
 in the customs, the income of which he 
 spent as he received it, and left little or 
 nothing to his family at his decease, has 
 a wonderful knack at gentility. Having 
 read in the newspapers of the routs, 
 dinners, and other entertainments, given 
 
136 the tarantula; 
 
 by the nobility, she insisted on putting me 
 to a vast expense, and inconvenience, in 
 clearing my warehouse, that she might 
 have room to see company in style. The walls 
 were lined with rows of woodden sconces, 
 for the reception of ends of wax candles, 
 and the beadle of the parish church accom- 
 modated us with benches for the occasion* 
 and more than two packs of playing cards 
 were converted into cards of invitation 
 to Mrs. Fig's rout, by writing on the back 
 of them. About one hundred persons 
 attended, as, according to the old pro- 
 verb, " there are always wise folks enough 
 to partake of feasts when fools make 
 them/' — The rooms were so deliriously, 
 thronged, as my wife phrazed it, that 
 there was scarcely room to turn ; and the 
 heat, .smoke, and smell, occasioned in 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 137 
 
 consequence,, was barely supportable. 
 The company, which consisted of bakers* 
 butchers, tailors, and other tradesmen, 
 like myself, with their wives and children, 
 appeared like fish out of their element, 
 and gasped for breath, although they 
 would not betray their ignorance by shew- 
 ing any symptoms of uneasiness under 
 what my wife assured them was the tip 
 top of fashion. The consequence was, 
 that as the company left such a warm bath, 
 to walk home, which most of them did, 
 there w 7 as never before such a harvest for 
 the doctors, of colds, rheums, gouts, and 
 defluctions. Many of them were scarcely 
 able 5 and my wife among the rest, to stir 
 about in their shops for weeks afterwards. 
 But this was not the worst of it. — As the 
 straitness of tradesmen's houses, and the 
 
138 THE tarantula; 
 
 want of coaches, were discovered not to 
 be adapted to routs at home, my wife 
 resolved to have a Fate Sham Peter (Fete 
 Champetre) abroad. — After a week spent 
 in preparation of ham, fowls, pigeon pies, 
 saviloys, bolognas, tongues, — packing up 
 hampers of bottled porter, rum, brandy, 
 British gin, pipes and tobacco, and pray- 
 ing for fair weather, on the appointed day, 
 behold it broke out with splendor, and it 
 no sooner broke than all were in motion. 
 The party, about eighteen in number, 
 embarked at London Bridge on board two 
 wherries. I will not trouble you with an 
 account of our voyage, which ended by 
 landing us safely on a lawn at Twicken- 
 ham. We presently seated ourselves on 
 the grass, spread our cloth, and covered 
 it with the contents of the hampers. We 
 
GE, DANCE OF FOOLS. 13Q 
 
 were entering into all the spirit of our 
 excursion, when we were suddenly 
 surprized by a mastiff dog, which over- 
 threw one of the ladies, sprang into 
 the midst of our circle, demolished 
 bowls, bottles, glasses, plates, dishes, 
 and, seizing a duck, began to tear it 
 limb from limb without the least respect 
 to persons. The ladies screamed— and 
 some fainted, — or pretended to do so, — - 
 whilst a footman, belonging to the pro- 
 prietor of the lawn, stood at a little dis- 
 tance enjoying the confusion, of which 
 he had been the instigator, by setting on 
 the dog. Some of the gentlemen stripped 
 to punish this insolent disturber of our 
 harmless mirth> when the master of the 
 house appeared. He chid his servant for 
 behaving so rudely to decent people, when 
 
140 THE TARANTULA \ 
 
 he had only given orders to drive away the 
 lower order, and behaved so excessively 
 polite, in sending orders to his butler and 
 housekeeper to supply our loss from his 
 own larder and cellar, that our losses were 
 quite forgot, and the ladies, my wife 
 especially, were enraptured with this 
 polished gentleman, as they said he was, 
 every inch of him. Our fright was con- 
 verted into convivialty, and after our re- 
 gale, whilst the men were smoking their 
 pipes, the women proposed to stroll round 
 the grounds. When it grew dusk, we 
 called in the ladies, all of whom appeared, 
 except my wife. After searching for her, 
 in vain, for nearly an hour, I observed her 
 coming out of the house, and ran to 
 hasten her into the boat. — I observed that 
 her face was rather flushed, and her dress 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 141 
 
 disordered. — She burst out upon me with 
 acclamations of praise bestowed on the 
 owner of the mansion, who had invited 
 her to see the interior of his house, and 
 even his bed- room, which was the prettiest 
 in the world. She ran on for a minute 
 or two more in eulogies on crimson satin 
 window curtains, bed furniture, &c. until 
 I sternly demanded why she had left the 
 other ladies : €€ Lord bless my soul ! why, 
 surely, Mr. Fig, you a'n't jealous ?*' she 
 pertly exclaimed, reddening at the same 
 time. " No, no," rejoined I, ". but it cer- 
 tainly was not so decent to trust yourself 
 alone with the gentleman in his bed room." 
 — " Lord, Mr. Fig, why he is too polite 
 to offer any rudeness to me. 11 — " Polite? 
 ness," muttered I, u has very little to do 
 with this sort of business." — Whether or 
 
142 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 not my wife was ashamed of her conduct* 
 she prevaricated to the company by pre- 
 tending to have strayed in the pleasure 
 grounds, (as no doubt she did; whilst I 
 endeavoured to cbnceal my chagrin, and 
 have never mentioned this adventure to 
 any person but yourself. However, I have 
 had daily specimens ever since, that my 
 wife; despises me, and have often the mor- 
 tification of hearing her nightly exclaim — ■ 
 in her slumbers — " Fate Sham Peter — Fine 
 gentleman — sweet man — ecstatic moments 
 — satin bed!" 
 
 Mundungus. — 'Twas a bitter pill for the 
 poor cit, and the worse for that his rib 
 did not give him an opportunity to gild his 
 horns, and soothe him for being " the 
 common jest, and scorn, of laughing fools:' 
 
 Gru?nbkrius. — Gold is, in truth, the 
 
OE, DAXCE OP FOOLS. 143 
 
 cuckold's quietus, from the peer to the 
 pastry-cook. Nay, to such a pitch is the 
 phrenzy for fashionable follies arrived, 
 that there is a continual struggle main- 
 tained for precedency through every rank 
 from St. James's to Dyot Street. — The 
 shopkeeper at the west-end of the town, 
 thinks himself far superior to his brother 
 on the eastern side of Temple Bar; and 
 the haberdashers wife holds up her head 
 as much above the butcher's, as the latter 
 carries her nose above the small- coal-man's. 
 In the country, the squires', parsons', 
 lawyers' and doctors', wives, after number- 
 less bickerings, and not a few pitched 
 battles, at their red cloak, black stocking, 
 and patten assemblies, have amiably com- 
 pounded with each other to form what is 
 called the gentry of the neighbourhood, 
 
144 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 and assume as much consequence over the 
 farmers' and tradesmens wives, as they 
 take upon themselves above their labourers 
 and journeymen s» To cap the whole — 
 kept mistresses look upon themselves as 
 infinitely above the commoners in the pro- 
 fession; among whom, the tenant of the 
 first floor is superior to the one in the 
 parlours ; she to the other in the 2d floor, 
 and she again to the street-wanderers. — 
 
 ee Sing tan ta-ra-ra-ra, fools all!"' 
 
 Mundungas. — Surely, the noble flame 
 of emulation can never keep itself alive 
 in such base minds ? 
 
 Grumblerhis. — No — it is only a bastard 
 sort, begotten by pride, the curse of the 
 female sex, upon envy, which always 
 dwells in little minds. 
 
OR, DAXCE OF FOOLS. 145 
 
 Mundungns. — Bat I cannot conceive 
 
 how it should ever enter into the heads of 
 
 persons born, nursed, and brought up, in 
 
 the humblest sphere of life, to ape the 
 
 follies of those of the highest ranks. 
 
 Grumblerius. — Nothing easier to solve. 
 A bad education is the source of this mad- 
 ness, which has ruined thousands of 
 families. The modes of education should 
 always vary with circumstances; in all 
 cases they should tend to teach morality 
 and the useful arts — 
 
 But when accomplishment's alone acquired. 
 The female mind with vaxihj is nYcL 
 Happy the fair! if fortune then befriends 5 
 Else infamy, too oft, her steps attends. 
 More proud of persona], than ransntal, charms, 
 Elate she sees of humble lovers swarms. 
 
 VOJL. I, h 
 
146 THE TAKANTULA ; 
 
 To beauty^ unpossess'd, she owes her pow'r, 
 And mourns its loss, when lost her virgin flow'r. 
 To man's seductive arts she falls a prey, 
 But 'twas false education pav'd the way. 
 
 Mundungus. — Many of the seminaries 
 of education, I am afraid, are more cal- 
 culated to do harm than good. Surely a 
 question, which involves the welfare of 
 the rising generation, is of sufficient im- 
 portance for the consideration of our legis- 
 lature. 
 
 Grumblerius. — No doubt. Schools are 
 of the utmost consequence; but they 
 seem to be considered, by the world 
 at large, as of no consequence at all. Infi- 
 nitely greater pains are bestowed on en- 
 quiries into the qualifications of the hair- 
 dresser who is to cut Miss's hair, and the 
 mantua-maker who is to make Miss's 
 frock, than the person to whom the care 
 
OK, DANCE OF FOOLS. 147 
 
 of her education is to be entrusted. It is 
 sufficient that the school be what is term- 
 ed a genteel one ; that is to say, sufficiently 
 extravagant to induce people of fashion to 
 send their children to it. To keep a 
 boarding school is the last shift of every 
 decayed gentlewoman, who can raise 
 money enough to furnish a house, or find 
 credit with a broker. Every art is then 
 put in requisition to gain pupils, by cajo- 
 ling parents, and to increase perquisites. 
 To every fond mother that presents herself, 
 her own child is, of all the pupils, the 
 tallest, best shaped, and docile, pupil. 
 She dances divinely, has a pretty knack 
 at French, and sings and accompanies 
 herself on the piano delightfully. This 
 game is repeated toties quoties, and satis- 
 fies the fond parents for all the enormous 
 
 L2 
 
 i 
 
148 THE TARANTULA; 
 
 overcharges in the bill ; for books never 
 bough t, paper, pens, needles, thread, 
 samplers, <kc. never had ; use of globes, 
 and piano, the former of which is so soiled 
 and defaced that you could not distinguish 
 Great Britain from Prester John's domi- 
 nions on it ; nor extract from the latter 
 the wretched similitude of a tune! I 
 shall now present the reader with a bill of 
 a ladies' school in a little village, nearly 
 two hundred miles west of London 
 which was put into my hands by the mis- 
 tress herself, 
 
OR, DANCE OF FOOLS. 14$ 
 
 I s. d. 
 Board, Needle Work, and English 
 
 Instruction, per annum. ..., 16 \Q 
 
 Seat at Church , O 4 
 
 Extras if required. 
 
 Tea, per annum 1 1 
 
 French 3 3 O 
 
 Writing and Arithmetic 1 i 
 
 Dancing , 3 3 O 
 
 Music 6 6 O 
 
 T)rawing. , 3 3 
 
 Entrances. 
 
 To the School , . f . 1 1 O 
 
 Music + ,...., 1 3 O 
 
 Drawing 10 6 
 
 Dancing \ O 10 6 
 
 French. , k O pO G 
 
 Institutes. 
 
 To bring towels, knife and fork, tea-spoon, tea-cwp 
 and saucer, and a tumbler. 
 
 Young Ladies who continue at School Midsummer 
 
 and Christmas, to pay two guineas and half 
 
 each Vacation. 
 
 A -quarters notice at leaving School, or^i quarter's 
 
 board 5 and if absent during any quarter, half that 
 
 quarter is charged. 
 
 *+* Bills to be paid at the Vacations. 
 
150 THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 There are, besides, many other smaller 
 wheels which add to the movement, and in 
 the end double, or nearly treble, the origi- 
 ginal terms. And after all this expense, 
 what do the parents get for it? — A pert, 
 conceited hoyden, who spells badly, writes 
 worse, scarcely knows one figure- of arith- 
 metic from another, jabbers about half a 
 dozen disjointed sentences in bad French, 
 horribly pronounced, murders time and 
 tune in music, and jumps through a reel 
 or country dance. But there is another, 
 and a worse, circumstance resulting from 
 these Preparatory Schools, which is, that 
 they often prove Preparatory steps to a 
 Bagnio. This arises from the vanity of 
 inferior tradesmen and mechanics, who 
 will have their children genteely educated. 
 Every village in the vicinity of the metro- 
 
OR, DANCE OP FOOLS. 151 
 
 polis swarms with these schools, with a 
 sign over the door, cc Young ladies board- 
 ed and educated." Nay, I've heard, and 
 doubt not that it might have been a fact, 
 that one of these mistresses, more igno- 
 rant than common, actually exhibited a 
 board, on which was inscribed, " young 
 ladies bored here." Hither the daughters 
 of the alehouse- keeper, shoemaker, tailor* 
 and blacksmith, are sent, as well as those 
 of the 'squire, parson, lawyer, doctor, 
 and independent people of the neigh- 
 bourhood, and from the moment they 
 enter the talismanic walls of the school, 
 the former are metamorphosed into young 
 ladies. That there should be a difference 
 between the plan of schools for the off- 
 spring of gentry and working people, the 
 swarm of unhappy females will evidently 
 
]3& THE TARANTULA ; 
 
 prove ; but this is so far from being the 
 case that the daughter of the green-grocer 
 or small-coal man is as much a young lady 
 as the daughter of a rich baronet ; and to 
 preserve the climax, the mistress discards 
 that vulgar appellation, and ascends into 
 the rank of governess. It matters not a 
 pin's head whether she knows her right 
 hand from her left, as extra masters are 
 hired to teach the children, and a heavy 
 tax is laid on the folly of parents. But 
 it ends not there. When the green-gro- 
 cer, or small-coal man takes his young 
 lady from school, he, perhaps, has the 
 additional Jolly to imagine that his daugh- 
 ter will weigh potatoes, or measure a bush- 
 el of coal. No such thing. Ignorant of 
 every thing that she ought to know, she 
 will be so grounded in the lesson of pride 
 
153 
 
 and vanity, that she will despise shop, 
 soap, candles, cabbages, coals, and bundles 
 of wood, and elope (a fashionable board- 
 ing school term) with the first man who 
 solicits her, and wears a genteel appear- 
 ance. On the contrary, had she been 
 sent to a school where the only arts and 
 sciences taught were plain work, reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic, and some articles 
 of good housewifery, she would have 
 stuck to her shop, been a relief and com- 
 fort to her parents, and passed through 
 life with ease and credit, instead of being 
 a pest and nuisance to society. 
 
 Mundungus. — With false education, 
 transparent dresses, and British gin, it is, 
 indeed, no wohder that female reputation 
 is at so low an ebb. 
 
154 the tarantula; 
 
 Grumblerius. — Why it is thought 
 scarcely worthy of attention. The loss 
 of her character will not cost a 
 fashionable lady, of the present day, 
 one - tenth of the sighs and tears that 
 the straying of a pug-dog would occa- 
 sion. A woma :, who should be detected 
 in & faux pas, and should lament her folly 
 to her bosom friend, would only get 
 laughed at for her prudish qualms, like the 
 frail one, of whom take the following 
 story: — 
 
 A wife (whose husband was at sea) 
 Had., in her conduct, been so free, 
 
 That Scandal blew her trumpet. 
 The neighb'ri ng prudes soon took alarm — 
 -Good natur d souls! — -they meant no harm, — 
 
 They only csiiYd her— £ 'trumpet! 
 
OK, .DANCE OF FOOLS. W& 
 
 ^In grief, to bosom friend she hy'd, 
 Lamented much, and sobb'd, and cry r d, 
 
 For character so hack'd on : 
 " Poh !" cried the friend, " do not be griev'd, 
 tc Your character, if ne'er retriev'd, 
 
 " At best was but — a crack' d -one" 
 
 When detected and exposed adultery is 
 softened down into a publicity in love 
 affairs, what woman will be so foolish as 
 to trouble herself about reputation, which 
 formerly cost such infinite pains to keep, 
 being prized as an inestimable jewel, but 
 now considered only as a drug ? A diamond 
 is precious only by common assent ; and, 
 by common assent, reputation is quite out 
 of date. Where women, of themselves, 
 weaken the barriers of virtue, men will 
 always be ready to overleap them. No 
 wonder, then 
 
356 THE TARANTUIA; 
 
 *' Oh, wretched husband ! while she "hangs about thee, 
 €C With idle blandishments, and plays the fond one: 
 <c Even then her hot imagination wanders, 
 <c Contriving riot, and loose 'scapes of love j £ster." 
 <c And while she clasps thee close, makes thee a mon- 
 
 INTo wonder that crim. con. is the rage, 
 and that John Bull is the appellation, by 
 the lump of horned nobles, as well as 
 horned cits. No wonder that matrimony 
 is only a Dutch medley, performed for 
 the amusement of friends, neighbours, 
 -and often of the grinning mob, in the fol- 
 lowing style: — 
 
 Sometimes harmony and concord — 
 Two soft flutes in concert playing; 
 
 Sometimes jarring, noise and discord — - 
 Fighting dogs, and asses braying. 
 
 Oft, in fond endearment sitting, 
 One will grant, if t'other ask it ; 
 
 Oftentimes, each other twitting — 
 Two cats snarling in a basket. 
 
OK, DANCE OP FOOLS. 15/, 
 
 On each other's neck oft hanging — 
 Lambkins playing, turtles billing 5 
 
 Oftentimes each other banging — 
 Bedlamites, and hogs a killing. 
 
 END OF VOL, I. 
 
 J. F. HUGHES, Printer, 
 5, Wigmore Street, 
 
POPULAR WORKS, 
 
 Just Published. 
 
 Memoirs of His Royal Highness the Prince 
 of Wales ; elegantly printed on foolscap 8vo. 
 3 vols, price 11. 4s. dedicated to the Queen. 
 
 " In these unhappy times, the World, Sir, examines the con- 
 11 duct of Princes with a jealous, a scrutinizing, a malignant eye. 
 u No man is more aware than I am of the existence of such 
 tt a disposition, and no man is, therefore, more determined to 
 " place himself above all suspicion."— letter from the 
 
 PRINCE OF WALES TO THE KING. 
 
 A Winter in Dublin; a Tale, with sketches 
 fashionable, whimsical, national, and sentimental, 
 by Mr. Sedley, 3 vols, price one guinea. 3d edit. 
 
 " The Irish, like ancient medals; are kept apart ; 
 and passing but few hands, preserve the first 
 sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has 
 given them— they are not so pleasant to feel- 
 but in return the legend is so visible, that at 
 the first look you see whose image and super- 
 scription they bear." 
 
 Sterne. 
 
 A Summer at Weymouth ; or, the Star of 
 Fashion ; a Modern Novel, in 3 vols. 15s. by the 
 Author of " A Summer at Brighton.'* 
 
 The Earl of Cork ; an Historical Novel, in 
 3 vols. 13s. 6d. by Madam de Genlis. 
 
 The Siege of Rochelle, a Romance, in 3 vols. 
 15s. By the same. 
 
 Sinclair, or the Victim of the Arts and Sci- 
 ences. 1 vol. By the same. 
 
JUST PUBLISHED. 
 
 The noble Cornutus, a collection of modern 
 tales, in 2 vols. 10s. for the amusement of the 
 fashionable world. 
 
 " If I spare any that have a head to hit, either 
 young or old, Cuckold or Cuckold Maker, 
 let me never hope to see a Chine again." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 Asmodeus; or the Devil in London; a satiri- 
 cal Novel, in 3 vols. 21s. By Charles Sedley, 
 Esq. written after the manner of Le Sage. 
 
 The Match Girl; a novel, in 3 vols. 15s. 
 By Mrs. Edgeworth. 
 
 The Witch of Ravens worth ; a Romance, in 
 2 vols. 10s. By Mr. Brewer. 
 
 St. Justin; or, the Hour of Trial; a romance, 
 in 3 vols. 15s. By Sophia Bouverie. 
 
 Montoni; or Confessions of a Monk; a Le- 
 gendary Tale. 4 vols. 20s. 
 
 The Offspring of Mortimer, cr Memoirs of 
 the Stratford Family ; a Domestic Tale, 4 vols. 
 20s. 
 
 This Novel details the secret Memoirs and curious 
 Anecdotes of a noble Family high in the 
 Favour of R y. 
 
 Characters at Brighton ; a novel, in 4 vols. 
 24s. Dedicated to His Royal Highness the Prince 
 of Wales. 
 
 Modern Characters for 1808, 3 vols. 18s. 
 
 Baron de Courcy ; or, Heading Abbey ; 
 romance, 2 vols. 9s. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 rciC 
 
 <CC 
 
 <r <r+ 
 
 uCCT 
 
 <3Q 
 
 qkhc 
 
 c<^ 
 
 ^<3Sr.^t3Tf 
 
 <5CC3C 
 
 <r 
 
 * <r< *? • 
 
 «c< 
 
 <s 
 
 <r<" ^n 
 
 <-ccc 
 
 cc 
 
 <"<r<:<c< 
 
 <Cccc c 
 
 <£ 
 
 <r<l^Cr 
 
 .. 5 «? &i 
 
 c < 
 
 <T <::<: -* 
 
 
 z± < 
 
 :_ <§i c <- < < 
 
 
 
 i. ^ 
 
 
 
 'Z ■ 
 
 *s<c< 
 
 :c 
 
 c: 
 
 
 <: < 
 
 ._ 
 
 c: 
 
 
 <i 
 
 <z< 
 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 
 : <r<: 
 
 cc 
 
 
 e 
 
 r< 
 
 <* 
 
 CCCC 
 
 
 _<c 
 
 c 
 
 '<""'.. ^ 
 
 • <tt < 
 
 -" ; - r 
 
 « 
 
 
 <r <^ 
 
 - cere? 
 
 i«^^X^;<3CSr^C 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: March 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
 (724)779-2111 
 

 
 ct"4 
 
 
 << '' 
 
 t4 
 
 ; 
 
 < /<- 
 
 «T * 
 
 < 
 
 Cc *M 
 
 i fifil 
 
 
 
 
 
 c < 
 
 
 
 4: c<a< ^r 
 
 
 
 
 *^~^F~ 
 
 ^:«sc"«? c - 
 
 w 
 
 4 
 
 .. C^_^WBtfc^ 
 
 ^ r<*r~« : C. 
 
 
 
 2^"~ "V- ^~^ *^L 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 
 ^sms:-< "S- 
 
 7: 
 
 - S <<cr -«c:<~: 5s ^# g 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 C 
 
 c 
 
 
 ■^CZ*C5= 
 
 
 <*^T 
 
 *£:< 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 jF; *L 
 
 
 ^- i^i 
 
 f^ ! *C ~ 
 
 
 t— _ - 
 
 
 H 
 
 »