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 THE 
 
 FASHIONABLE WORLD 
 DISPLAYED, 
 
THE 
 
 ( 
 FASHIONABLE WORLD 
 
 V 
 
 i 
 
 DISPLAYED. 
 
 FROM THE FIFTH LONDON EDITION. 
 
 " VELUTI IN SPECULUM." 
 
 THE STAGE. 
 
 ^/ NEW-YORK 
 
 PRINTED BY HOPKINS AND SEYMOUR,"" 
 
 FOR J, OSBORN, BOOKSELLER AND LIBRARIAN, 
 NO. 13, PARK. 
 
 1806. 
 
TO 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D. 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF LONDON^ 
 
 NOT MORE DISTINGUISHED 
 
 BY 
 
 HIS ELOQUENCE AS A PREACHER, 
 
 «IS VIGILANCE AS A PRELATE, 
 
 HIS SANCTITY AS A CHRISTIAN, 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS VARIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 
 
 AS 
 
 A SCHOLAR AND A MAN, 
 
 THAN BY 
 
 HIS INDEFATIGABLE EXERTIONS 
 
 TO DETECT THE ERRORS, 
 
 REBUKE THE FOLLIES,' 
 
 AND 
 
 REFORM THE VICES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FASHIONABLE WORLD, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPT TO BENEFIT 
 
 THAT PART OF SOCIETY, 
 
 BY MEANS TOO FREQUENTLY EMPLOYED TO CORRUPT IT, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
 
 BY HIS lordship's FAITHFUL 
 
 AND DUTIFUL SERVANT, 
 
 JOHN OWEN, 
 
 A 2 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 I HAVE often been surprised, that among the 
 many descriptions which ingenious writers 
 have given of places and people comparative- 
 ly insignificant, no complete and systematic ac- 
 count has yet been written of the Fashionable 
 World. It is true, that our poets and carica- 
 turists have honoured this people with a great 
 share of their notice, and many particulars, 
 not a little edifying, have been made known 
 through the medium of these admirable pub- 
 lications. It is also true, that our prose-writ- 
 ers have occasionally cast a very pertinent 
 glance over this fairy ground. Some of these 
 have even gone so far, as to write absolute 
 treatises upon certain parts of the Fashiona- 
 
Vlll 
 
 ble character. Mrs. More, for example, has 
 delineated the religion, and Lord Chesterfield 
 the morals of this singular people, with the 
 greatest exactness and precision. Nor would 
 it be just to overlook the very acceptable la- 
 bours of those writers, who, in their Court- 
 calendars and Court-almanacs, bring us ac- 
 quainted, from time to time, with the modes 
 of dress which prevail in the Fashionable 
 World, and the names of its most distinguish- 
 ed inhabitants. But after all that has been 
 done towards exhibiting the manners and un- 
 folding the character of this splendid commu- 
 nity, much remains to be done : for though 
 certain details have been well enough handled, 
 yet I repeat, that a complete and systematic 
 account of the Fashionable World, is still a 
 desideratum in cosmography. 
 
 I am far from pretending to either the abi- 
 
IX 
 
 lity or the design of supplying this deficiency. 
 The utmost that I propose to myself, is to 
 bring more particalars into a group, than 
 former writers have done ; and to exhibit an 
 outline, upon which others of more enlarged 
 experience may improve. It seems to me of 
 great importance to the interests of society, 
 that its members should be known to each 
 other; and of this I am persuaded, that if 
 there be one description of people, the know- 
 ledge of whose genuine character would be 
 more edifying to mankind than another, it is 
 — ^the pepple of Fashion. 
 
Xll 
 
 CHAP. VI. PAGE 74. 
 
 Dress — Amusements* 
 
 CHAP. VII. PAGE 87. 
 
 Happiness of the People estimated, 
 CHAP. VIII. PAGE 97. 
 
 Defect of the System — Plans of Reform- 
 Conclusion. 
 
FASHIONABLE WORLD, 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 SITUATION BOUNDARIES CLIMATE 
 
 SEASONS. 
 
 1 HOUGH I do not undertake to write a geo- 
 graphical account of the Fashionable World, 
 yet I should think myself highly culpable 
 were I to pass over this interesting part of the 
 subject wholly in silence. My readers must be 
 at the same time cautioned, not to form their 
 expectations of the geography of Fashion from 
 that of other countries. The fact is, that the 
 whole community which sustains this appel- 
 lation, extensive as it is, can scarcely be 
 treated as having any peculiar or exclusive lo- 
 cality. The individuals who compose it are 
 
 B 
 
not, it is true, absolute wanderers, like the 
 tribes of Arabia, nor yet are they regular set- 
 tlers, like the convicts at Botany Bay : but 
 moveable and migratory to a certain degree, 
 and to a certain degree stationary and perma- 
 nent, they live among the inhabitants of the 
 parent country; neither absolutely mixing 
 with them, nor yet actually separated from 
 them. 
 
 This paradoxical state of the people renders 
 it not a little difficult to reduce their territory 
 within the rules of geographical description. 
 They have, it is true, their degrees and their 
 circles ; but these terms are used by people 
 of Fashion in a sense so different from that 
 which geographers have assigned them, that 
 they afford no sort of assistance to the topo- 
 graphical inquirer. It is, I presume, on this 
 account, that in all the improvements which 
 have been made upon the globe, nothing has 
 been done towards settling the meridian of 
 Fashion; and though the Laplanders, the 
 Hottentots, and the Esquimaux, have places 
 
assigned them, no more notice is taken of 
 the people of Fashion than if they either did 
 not exist, or were not worthy of being men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The only expedient, therefore, to which a 
 writer can resort, in this dearth of geographi- 
 cal materials, is that of designating the terri- 
 tory of Fashion by the ordinary names of those 
 places through which it passes. And this is, 
 in fact, strictly conformable to that usage 
 which prevails in the language and communi- 
 cation of the people themselv^es i for London, 
 Tunbridge, Bath, Weymouth, &e. are, in 
 their mouths, names for little else than the 
 lands and societies of Fashion which they re- 
 spectively contain. 
 
 Now, the portion of each place to which 
 Fashion lays claim, is neither definite as to its 
 dimensions, nor fixed as to its locality. In 
 London, a small proportion of the whole is Fa- 
 shionable ; in Bath, the proportion is greater : 
 and in some watering-places of the latest ere- 
 
alion, Fashion puts in her demand for nearly 
 the whole. The locality of its domains is 
 also contingent and mutable. Various cir- 
 cumstances concur in determining when a 
 portion of ground shall become Fashionable, 
 . and when it shall cease to be such. The only 
 rule of any steadiness with which I am ac- 
 quainted, and which chiefly relates to the me- 
 tropolis, is that which prescribes a western la- 
 titude ^ : if this be excepted (which indeed 
 admits of no relaxation,) events of very little 
 moment decide all the rest. If, for example, 
 a Duchess, or the wife of some burgeois-gen- 
 tilhomme, v/ho has purchased the privileges 
 of the order, should open a suite of rooms for 
 elegant society in any new quarter, the soil is 
 considered to receive a sort of consecration by 
 such a circumstance ; and an indefinite por- 
 tion of the vicinity is added to the territory of 
 
 * For the geographical solecism of '* a western lai'Uude,^^ 
 the author has only to plead that the people of whom he 
 treats acknowledge no points of the compass but those of 
 east and v)est, and that the term longitude has scarcely any 
 place in their language. 
 
Fashion. If, on the other hand, a shoj be 
 opened, a sign hung out, or any symptom of 
 business be shown, in a quarter that has hi- 
 therto been a stranger to every sound but the 
 rattling of carriages, the thunder of knockers, 
 and the vociferation of coachmen and ser- 
 vants, it is ten to one but the privileges of 
 Fashion are withdrawn from that place j and 
 the whole range of buildings is gradually given 
 up to those who are either needy enough to 
 keep shops, or vulgar enough to endure them. 
 Now, it happens as a consequence from this 
 adoption of new soil and disfranchisement of 
 old, that the territory of Fashion is extremely 
 irregular and interrupted. A traveller, deter- 
 mined to pursue its windings, would soon be 
 involved in a most mysterious labyrinth ; his 
 track would be crossed by portions of country 
 which throw him repeatedly out of his beat : 
 insomuch that his progress v/ould resemble 
 that of a naturalist, who, in tracing the course 
 of a mineral through the^bowels of the earth, 
 encounters various breaks and intersections, 
 and often finds the corresponding parts of the 
 b3 
 
same stratum unaccountably separated from 
 each other. 
 
 It would be only fatiguing the reader to say 
 more upon the topographical part of my sub- 
 ject. It is obvious, from what has been stated, 
 that the regions of Fashion, considered as a 
 whole, are rather numerous than compact: 
 and indeed such difference of opinion subsists 
 among the people themselves upon the terri- 
 tories which are entitled to that name, that 
 no correct judgment can be pronounced upon 
 a question of so much controversy. Thus 
 much, however, may be affirmed, that there is 
 scarcely a market-town in the kingdom in 
 which some portion of land is not invested with 
 Fashionable privileges, and designated by such 
 terms as mark the wish of the inhabitants to 
 have it considered as forming part and parcel 
 of the demesnes of Fashion. 
 
 The Climate of Fashion is almost entirely 
 factitious and artificial ; and consequently dif- 
 fers in many material respects from the natu- 
 
ral temperature of those respective places over 
 which its jurisdiction extends. Though changes 
 from heat to cold, and vice versa, are very 
 common among these people, yet heat may 
 be said to be the prevailing character of the 
 climate. They appear to me to have but two 
 seasons in the year; these they call, in con- 
 formity to common language rather than to 
 just calculation, Winter and Summer. Of 
 summer little is known ; for it seems to be a 
 rule among this people to disband and disperse 
 at the approach of it, and not to rally or re- 
 unite till the winter has fairly commenced. 
 Though, therefore, they exist somehow * or 
 
 * This somehow and somewhere existence of people of 
 Fashion, might lead a stranger to svippose that they have 
 no permanent dwelling-place. He must, however, be told, 
 that while they are thus migrating from place to place 
 without comfort and without respect, many of them are 
 actually turning their backs upon the conveniences of a 
 family mansion, and the influence of a dependent tenant- 
 ry. This disposition to emigration in persons of distinc- 
 tion has been so admirably noticed in a late elegant and 
 interesting work, that I cannot refuse myself the plea- 
 sure of transcribing the passage : 
 
8 
 
 somewhere during the summer months, they 
 wish it to be considered that they do not exist 
 under their Fashionable character. They wash 
 themselves m the sea, drink laxative waters, 
 lose a little money at billiards, or catch a few 
 colds at public rooms ; but all these things 
 they do as individuals, and wholly out of their 
 corporate capacity as members of the commu- 
 nity of Fashion. So that in their mode of dis- 
 
 " That there exists at present amongst us a lamentable 
 want of rural philosophy, or of that wisdom which teaches 
 a man at once to enjoy and to improve a life of retirement, 
 is, I think, a point too obvious to be contested. Whence 
 is it else that the ancient mansions ofour nobility and gen- 
 try, notwithstanding ail the attractions of rural beauty, and 
 every elegance of accommodation, can no longer retain 
 their owners, who, at the approach of winter, pour into the 
 metropolis, and even in the summer months wander to the sea- 
 coast, or to some other place of Fashionable resort ? This unset- 
 tled humour in the midst of such advantages, plainly ar- 
 gues much inward disorder, and points out the need as well 
 as the excellency of that discipline which can inspire a pure 
 taste of nature, furnish occupation in the peaceful labours 
 of husbandry, and, what is nobler still, open the sources 
 of moral and intellectual enjoyment." — Preface to Rural 
 Philosophy y by Ely Bates, Esq, p. 9. 
 
posing of the summer, they invert the stand- 
 ing rule of most other animals ; they choose 
 the fair season for their torpid state, and show 
 no signs of life but during the winter. It is 
 not easy to sa}^ exactly when the winter begins 
 in the Fashionable World ; an inhabitant of 
 Bath would have one mode of reckoning, and 
 an inhabitant of London another. To do 
 justice to the subject, the commencement of 
 winter ought to be regulated by the former of 
 these places, and the close of it by the latter. 
 Supposing, therefore, that it begins some 
 time in November, there can be no difficulty 
 in settling its duration ; for the 4th of June is 
 by a tacit, yet binding ordinance, considered 
 as a limit over which a Fashionable winter can 
 never pass. 
 
 There are many circumstances in which the 
 climate of fashion stands peculiarly distin- 
 guished from every other. It has already been 
 intimated that, heat is its prevailing charac- 
 teristic : it is, moreover, not a little remark- 
 able, that this heat is at its highest point in 
 
10 
 
 the winter season; and that the inhabitants 
 often perspire more freely when the snow is 
 upon the ground than they do in thie dog-days. 
 The truth is, that, as was before said, the 
 climate is wholly created by artificial circum- 
 stances, and the natural temperature of the 
 air is completely done away. The sort of com- 
 munication which these people keep up with 
 each other, is considered to require a species 
 of apparatus which fills their atmosphere with 
 an immoderate degree of phlogiston. Besides 
 this, they are notoriously fond of assembling 
 'in insufferable crowds; and travellers have 
 assured us, that they have often witnessed from 
 ten to twelve hundred persons suffocating each 
 Other within a space which would scarcely 
 have afforded convenient accommodation for a 
 dozen families. And this may enable us in 
 some measure to account for the little benefit 
 which modish invalids are said to derive from 
 their frequent removals to the healthiest spots 
 in the universe. The original object of such a 
 prescription was doubtless to change the air; 
 and certainly no expedient could be better. 
 
11 
 
 miagm€d for bracing a constitution relaxed by 
 too intense applicadon to the business of a 
 Fashionable life. But the usages of ihe order 
 render a change of air to any salutary purpose, 
 utterly impracticable : for the weakest mem- 
 bers of the community consider themselves 
 bound to kindle a fiame wherever they go ; and 
 thus they breathe the same phlogisticated air 
 all over the world. 
 
 They profess to adopt the ordinary divisions 
 
 of time ; and talk like other people of Day 
 
 and Night : but their mode of computing each 
 
 is so vague and unnatural, that inhabitants of^ 
 
 the same meridian with themselves scarcely 
 
 understand what they meail by the terms. A 
 
 great part of this difficulty may possibly arise 
 
 from the very small portion of solar light with 
 
 which they are visited. For certain it is, that 
 
 no people upon earth have less benefit from the 
 
 light of the sun than the people of Fashion ; 
 
 so that if it were not for torches, candles, and 
 
 Argand lamps, they would scarcely ever see 
 
 each others' faces. 
 
IS 
 
 With regard to the constitutions of these 
 people, I have been inclined to think them 
 naturally robust, from observing the astonish- 
 ing heat and fatigue which they endure. And 
 in this respect the women have appeared to 
 evince an uncommon degree of hardiness ; 
 for, besides that they wear on every occasion 
 a slighter species of clothing than the men, I 
 have been confidently told that many among 
 them will appear, in the severest part' of the 
 season, with dresses of such transparency and 
 scantiness, as convince every beholder that 
 they^who wear them are utter strangers to the 
 weaknesses of the sex. There is, however, 
 some room for doubting whether the air which 
 this people breathe, and the usages which 
 prevail among them, are favourable to the 
 constitution. Their patience of fatigue has 
 been thought to be wholly the result of habit, 
 and their hardiness has been conjectured to 
 be little more than an air of extravagance and 
 bravado. .The frequent transitions which they 
 make from heat to cold, and back again from 
 cold to heat (perhaps half a dozen times in as 
 
15 
 
 many hours,) must very materially diminish 
 the physical strength of their bodies. Certain 
 it is that their natural countenances do not 
 betray the usual symptoms of health j and it 
 IS, I believe, admitted, that instances of ex- 
 traordinary longevity are not very common 
 among them. 
 
u 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 GOVERNMENT LAWS, &ff. 
 
 1 HE History of the Fashionable World is a 
 sort of undertaking, which, to be accurately 
 executed, would require abundantly more lei- 
 sure and diligence than I could afford to be- 
 stow upon it : and I very much doubt whe- 
 ther, after all, one reader out of a hundred 
 would be at the pains of perusing it. The 
 fact is, that the members of this community 
 are not sufficiently substantial to f®rm histo- 
 rical pictures. Their employments are not of 
 a nature to make their memory an object with 
 mankind. Hence, though they make a splen- 
 did appearance in a ball-room, they appear to 
 little advantage in a record ; and, like the 
 dancing figures in a magic lantern, they seem 
 to have answered the end of their being when 
 they have afforded an evening's amusement. 
 For these and other reasons which might be 
 
15 
 
 assigned, I shall content myself with giving 
 a brief account of their Polity and Laws ; re- 
 ferring those of my readers who are desirous 
 of further information upon their history, to 
 novels and romances, and to such chronicles 
 of antiquity as have preserved the memorials 
 of obsolete and superannuated manners. 
 
 It is a task of no ordinary difficulty to con- 
 vey any tolerable idea of this people, in their 
 aggregate or national capacity. Consisting, 
 as they do, of various and detached societies, 
 they are yet considered to possess a sort of 
 federal relation among each other ; and to 
 unite into an imaginary whole, under the col- 
 lective denomination of the Fashionable World. 
 It is under this aggregate character that they 
 take their rank in society ; and the appellation 
 which denotes their community is recognized 
 by the tradesmen who advertise for their cus- 
 tom, and the politicians who discourse of their 
 affairs. A very handsome proportion of the 
 daily newspapers is devoted to their service ; 
 and intelligence from their drawing-rooms is 
 
16 
 
 reported with as much regularity as that which 
 is derived from ;he first cabineti in Europe. 
 Indeed the minuleiitss with which i.heir routs 
 and dances, their dresses and dainties, the ex- 
 pres^-iv ns they utter, the <<.' i:.any they keep, 
 and the excesses they comnriit, are detai;e({, is 
 at once an evidence that these people are con- 
 sidered to hr.ve a corporate exislenie ; and tiiat 
 no little consequence is attached to th: i.r pro- 
 ceedings. I wish, with all m}' heart, they 
 thought a little more of this ; thev would then 
 scarcely run into such extravagances as make 
 them objects of ridicule to one part of society, 
 and dangerous examples to the other. 
 
 Their Population is more fluctuating and 
 uncertain than that of any people upon the 
 face of the earth. There are among them 
 certain tribes or families distinguished by dif- 
 ferent descendible titles, who are said to claim 
 a sort of prescriptive right to the name of 
 Fashionables. In these the federal appellation 
 continues hereditary ; and it is an axiom 
 among the body, that people of Quality (for 
 
17 
 
 this is the term by which they designate the 
 titled gentry) can never be out of Fashion. 
 
 This, however, it must be observed, is their 
 own representation of the matter ; and I am 
 inclined to suspect that there is no little ma- 
 nagement at the bottom of it. There is some- 
 thing, no doubt, very splendid in the idea of 
 including all the families of rank within the 
 limits of Fashion ; and it is a mark of no con- 
 temptible policy to have constructed an ajiiom 
 which cuts off their retreat. But surely it 
 would at least be decent to allow the gentry 
 of the realm to have a voice in the business. 
 I cannot but think that if they were fairly con- 
 sulted, many would decline the honour of exer- 
 cising this prescriptive privilege ; and that per- 
 sons of the first distinction in the country would 
 be found among that number. 
 
 However, these dignified families are, ac- 
 cording to Fashionable computation, almost 
 the only standing members of the community ; 
 and, if these be excepted, all the rest of their 
 c 2 
 
18 
 
 body is mutable in the extreme. There is a 
 perpetual reciprocation of numbers between 
 them and the society in which they reside. 
 Scarcely an hour passes without some inter- 
 change. The gossip of every day announces 
 that some have migrated from the region of 
 Fashion, and that others have made their ajD- 
 pearance within it for the first time. The 
 causes which produce these variations, and 
 the reasons by which they are defended, are 
 in some instances too mysterious, and in others 
 too frivolous, to become subjects of recital. 
 In general it may be affirmed, that though 
 persons become Fashionable with the con- 
 currence of their will, they cease to be such 
 against it. For, if a few accidental converts 
 to plain sense and sober piety be excepted, the 
 greater part of those who retire, have been 
 superseded ; and resign their places, only be- 
 cause they cannot any longer retain them. 
 However that be, the fluctuation thus occa- 
 sioned in the numbers and characters of those 
 who compose this Fashionable community, 
 diversifies its complexion daily j and renders a 
 
19 
 
 precise account of its population and totality 
 utterly impossible. 
 
 The form of government subsisting among 
 this people^ so far as it can be traced out, is 
 Oligarchical, and the spirit of it is absolute 
 and despotical. The few in whose hands the 
 supreme authority resides, do not consist of 
 any regular or definite number, nor are they 
 confined to any particular sex. In general 
 they are composed of persons out of both sexes, 
 who, while they exercise a separate influence 
 in things relating to the sexes respectively, 
 possess also a common jurisdiction in matters 
 of universal concern. 
 
 The governing few are not invested with 
 their authority by any formalities of lawj 
 nor do they obtain their station by any specific 
 qualifications. The magistracy which they 
 hold appears to be neither hereditary nor elec- 
 tive, but contingent. The term of their coui- 
 tinuance in power is also as indefinite and ca* 
 pricious as the right by which they acquire it^ 
 
^0 
 
 One thing however is certain, that as a moral 
 reputation has no influence in recommending 
 them to the stations they fill, so the forfeiture 
 of it in no degree weakens the stability, or 
 abridges the duration of their power. That a 
 government of this independent description 
 should exist in the heart of the British empire, 
 an imperium in imperio^ will appear scarcely 
 credible to my reader. He may, howevxr, rely 
 upon it that the fact is as I have stated it ; 
 and if he should express his wonder that such 
 contempt of the sovereign authority as it even- 
 tually leads to, has not been properly resisted, 
 he will only do what thousands have done be- 
 fore him. But to return — 
 
 The laws by which the government of 
 Fashion is administered, like the common law 
 of England, are unwritten ; and derive their 
 force, as that does, from usage and prescrip- 
 tion. The only code of any note among this 
 people, is that which they distinguish by the 
 collective appellation of the LAW OF HO- 
 NOUR. This extraordinary code has been 
 
%l 
 
 defined to be " a system of rules constructed 
 by people of Fashion, and calculated to facili- 
 tate their intercourse Avilh one another *." 
 Now if this definition be a just one (and I pre- 
 sume it is, from the high authority by which it 
 is giv=^en,) it will afford us no indifferent help 
 towards unfolding the mysteries of Fashionable 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 It seems then that the Law of Honour^ by 
 which people of Fashion are said to be govern- 
 ed. Is wholly and exclusively designed to make 
 them acceptable to each other. , Now, not to 
 mention other things, persons in a Fashionable 
 sphere cannot be strictly agreeable to each 
 other, unless they are well dressed j nor can 
 that intercourse which they chiefly value, be 
 pleasantly maintained, without splendid equips 
 ages, choice wines, and sumptuous entertain- 
 ments. As, therefore, the necessity of the case 
 requires such accommodations, the Law of 
 Honour^ to say the least, does not look very 
 nicely into the means by which they may have 
 
 * Vide Paley's Mor, Philos, vol, i. p. 1, 
 
22 
 
 been procured. Hence it follows by the fairest 
 inference, that a man of Fashion is not at all 
 the less respectable in his own circle, merely 
 because he is what the rest of the world calls 
 unjust. For whatever may be the law else- 
 where, a man of Fashion can owe nothing to 
 his inferiors : and his character will therefore 
 suffer no stain, though he should have broken 
 his word a thousand times with the reptile that 
 made his clothes, built his carriage, or furnish- 
 ed his table. 
 
 This law is also distinguished by many 
 other features of toleration, which well ac- 
 count for the respect and influence that it 
 possesses in the Fashionable World. By a 
 spirit of accommodation of which there is no 
 other example, it overlooks, if it does not- 
 even encourage, a variety of actions which in 
 the mouth of a moralist would be absolute 
 vices J and which, to say the truth, are 
 scarcely deserving of a much better name. 
 Thus, a man may debauch his tenant's 
 daughter, seduce the v/ife of his friend, and 
 
^5 
 
 be faithless and even brutal to his own, and 
 yet be esteemed a man of honour (which is 
 the same as a man of Fashion,) and have a 
 right to make any man fight him who says he 
 is not. In like manner, a man may blas- 
 pheme God, and encourage his children arid 
 servants to do the same ; he may neglect the 
 interests and squander the property of his 
 family ; he may be a tyrant in his house, ^ and 
 a bully in the streets; he may lie abed all 
 day, and drink and game all night ; and yet 
 be a most dutiful subject to the Law of Honour, 
 and a shining character in the society of 
 Fashion. 
 
 , There is, I own, much convenience in all 
 this, and some consistency. Persons who 
 live only for this world, should have a propor- 
 tionable latitude allowed them for the employ- 
 ment of their animal propensities ; and the 
 law which provides for the regulation of their 
 conduct, should have a special reference to 
 this consideration. Supposing, therefore, that 
 people of Fashion ought to exist, they must^ 
 
u 
 
 have such a law as that which they possess* So 
 that, taking the law of honour in this connex- 
 ion, I cannot but think it a masterpiece of po- 
 litical contrivance. 
 
 At the same time, I cannot agree with those 
 who have been led to consider this table of 
 Fashionable jurisprudence as deserving a place 
 in the temple of morality. Into this error a 
 celebrated writer appears to have fallen in his' 
 Treatise of Moral Philosophy. For having 
 defined morality to be " that science which 
 teaches men their duty and the reasons of it," 
 he proceeds to cite the Lazv of Honour as one 
 of the three rules by which men are governed. 
 That respectable writer has indeed admitted 
 that this law is defective, because it does not 
 provide for the duties to God and to inferiors; 
 he has also proclaimed that it is bad, by stating 
 that it allows of fornication, adultery, drunk- 
 enness, prodigality, duelling, &c. Still, 
 however, he has rather left us to infer that 
 it ought wholly to be rejected, than abso- 
 lutely told us so. By classing it with the 
 
S5 
 
 law of the land and the Scriptures, he has 
 (undesignedly no doubt) prevented its utter 
 condemnation, and afforded ground for con- 
 sidering it as n moral rule to which men owe 
 a qualified obedience. 
 
 Having specified the sort of practices which 
 the Laxv of Honour allows, I shall take some 
 brief notice of the duties which it exacts. 
 The principal of these, and that upon which 
 its tone and spirit are most peremptorj^, is the 
 resentment of injuries. Now it must be ob- 
 served, that the term injury^ in the use oiF 
 people of Fashion, is of a very wide and com- 
 prehensive signification. It not only means 
 such an act of outrage as amounts to a mani- 
 fest and palpable wrong, but extends to every 
 dubious point of conduct from which a 
 Fashionable sophist could find scope to infer 
 an injurious intention. Thus a sister seduced 
 and then abandoned, and a word or a look 
 not satisfactorily explained, are all equally in- 
 juries ; and constitute, in the spirit of this 
 code, so many obligations to the most lively 
 
 D 
 
^6 
 
 and implacable resentment. It may be that 
 the offended person is of a placable disposition, 
 and would rather endure a moderate injury 
 than seek revenge ; or he may have too much 
 respect for the laws of the parent state to wish 
 to. seek redress in any other than the legal 
 way ; or he may know that the offending 
 party is a man disposed to seek a quarrel, and 
 that he desires nothing so much as to provoke 
 the innocent person whom he has purposely 
 insulted, to claim satisfaction; or lastly, it 
 may be that the supposed injury is founded 
 wholly on mistake, and that the reputed ag- 
 gressor will not believe nor own himself to 
 have offended, and will therefore make no 
 atonement* In all these cases personal re- 
 sentment might as well be waved ; but this 
 the law of honour positively forbids : and he 
 who should conscientiously decline to pursue 
 a personal quarrel upon these or even higher 
 motives, might be a better father, a better 
 husband, a better subject, and a better Chris- 
 tian, for so doing, but he would certainly be a 
 worse man of honour. 
 
27 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that these reputed 
 injuries are sometimes so minute and transi- 
 tory, or so distant and obscure, that if every 
 thing depended upon the aggressor and the 
 aggrieved, they would either be wholly undis- 
 covered or speedily forgotten^ But each of 
 these consequences is not unfrequently de- 
 feated by the officious industry of some kind- 
 hearted being, who loves his friend too well to 
 let him be insulted, and who can govern his 
 feelings well enough to stand by and see him 
 murdered. This is, certainly, a refinement 
 upon friendship, which may be fairly set down 
 among the most, extraordinary achievements 
 of the Lcav of Honour, Indeed, this bloody 
 code allows of no exceptions j and hence we 
 see reputed friends sacrifice to resentment 
 with as little reserve as the bitterest enemies ; 
 and that, perhaps, to settle a coffee-house dis- 
 pute, or to avenge a theatrical quarrel ! 
 
 Having said so much of the principal duty 
 enjoined by the law of honour, I shall offer 
 a few observations upon the sort of punish- 
 
28 
 
 ment which it inflicts. I trust I shall be ex^ 
 cused, if, in treating this part of my subject, 
 I employ the term punishment in a sense not 
 strictly similar to that in which it is ordir^arily 
 used. The fact is, that this singular law 
 makes the parties both judges in their own 
 cause, and executioners of their own sentence. 
 The universal award against every convicted 
 offender is, that he shall fight a duel with the 
 offended party. So that if that may be set 
 down as punishment which is ultimate in a 
 controversy, and which is exacted as a satis- 
 faction of the law ; death, or exposure to it, is 
 the lowest punishment which honour inflicts 
 upon the least offender, and the highest which 
 it enforces upon the greatest. 
 
 And this is, I confess, a political incon- 
 gruity which I have not a little difficulty in 
 reconciling with the good sense of many who 
 have undertaken to defend it. The law of 
 England has often been blamed (and I think 
 with justice) as unreasonably sanguinary. In 
 answer to this it has been said, that though 
 
29 
 
 nearly two hundred offences of almost as many 
 -degrees of guilt are made equally punishable 
 with death, yet justice is administered with so 
 much discretion and mercy, that the penalty 
 is inflicted only on a few. Feeble as this ex- 
 cuse is for a law which deals in blood, it 
 would be well for the law of honour if it ad- 
 mitted of such a palliation. But the truth is, 
 that in this latter case there is nothing to abate 
 the demand for blood — ^there is no legal arbi- 
 tration of the difference, no court to inquire 
 into the true grounds of the quarrel, and to 
 balance the merits of the controversy ; if the 
 judgment be false, there is no equity to reverse 
 the verdict ; if rigorous, there is no mercy to 
 withdraw the victim from suffering. 
 
 It must be evident from this view which 
 has been presented of the law, that as an in- 
 jury may be created by the most trivial occur- 
 rence, so punishment may be inflicted with 
 the. most preposterous and unequal retribution. 
 I cannot better illustrate the frivolous founda- 
 lion upon which an injury may be erected 
 D2 
 
30 
 
 than by adverting to an occurrence of very 
 recent date, and of sufficient notoriety in the 
 Fashionable World. Two men of Fashion, 
 incensed against each other by an accidental 
 rencontre between their respective dogs, drop- 
 ped in their warmth certain expressions, which 
 rendered them amenable to the bloody code. 
 Duel was declared indispensable ; and in less 
 than twelve hours, one of the two was dis- 
 patched into eternity ; and the other narrowly 
 escaped the same fate *. 
 
 The inequality of the retribution is, indeed, 
 an inevitable consequence of that article of the 
 
 * For an account of this transaction, see the trial of 
 Captain Macnamara for the murder of Colonel Montgo- 
 mery ; in which it will appear, that though the Captain 
 admitted the fact, yet the jury acquitted him of the crime. 
 Such complaisance on the part of juries is particularly fa- 
 vourable to this summary mode of terminating differences. 
 Fatal duels are now become almost as common as highway- 
 robberies j and make almost as little impression upon the 
 public mind. The murdered is carried to his grave, and 
 the murderer received back into society with the same ho- 
 nour, as if the one had done his duty in sacrificing his 
 life, and the other had only 4one his in taking it away. 
 
31 
 
 code which compels men of Fashion, with- 
 out distinction, to decide their differences by 
 fighting a duel. It results from this promis- 
 cuous injunction, that the peaceable man 
 must fight the quarrelsome j that the heir of 
 a noble family must meet the ruined esquire ; 
 and that the mari who has never drawn a trig- 
 ger in his life must encounter the Fashionable 
 ruffian who has all his life been doing little 
 else. This inequality is further manifest, 
 from the different circumstances and connex- 
 ions of life under which the combatants may 
 be found. The son of many hopes may be 
 matched against the worthless prodigal ; the 
 virtuous parent against the unprincipled seduc- 
 er ; and the man of industry, usefulness, and 
 beneficence, against the miscreant who only 
 lives to pamper his lusts and to corrupt his fel- 
 low-creatures. Nothing has here been said of 
 the indiscriminate manner in which judgment 
 is executed. The innocent and the guilty 
 must both be involved in the same awful con- 
 tingency ; each must put his life to hazard ; 
 and the probability is, that, if one of the two 
 
32 
 
 should fall, it will be the man whose conduct 
 least entitled him to punishment, and whose 
 life was most worth preserving. 
 
 1 forbear to enter further into the system of 
 Fashionable government, or to meddle with 
 the inferior points of legislation. What has 
 been said of the Law of Honour will apply, 
 with little variation, to every other institution 
 of minor concern. To facilitate polite inter- 
 course, and to exclude, as much as may be, 
 duties to God and inferiors, is a considerable 
 object in every regulation ; and it is but jus- 
 tice to this people to say, that, in this respect, 
 they are at once consistent and successful. 
 
S3 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 In attempting to give an account of the I^eH' 
 gion of the people of Fashion, I feel myself 
 not a little embarrassed. It were, indeed, very 
 much to be wished that one of their own num- 
 ber would, in the name of the rest, draw up a 
 confession of their faith. This is, perhaps, 
 expecting too much ; and yet I cannot but 
 think that it would be a very good employ- 
 ment for some of those pliable priests, who 
 pa-TL so much of their time in the circles of 
 Fashion. They give every proof that they have 
 leisure for the undertaking j and the access 
 which they have to these people, by attending 
 them so familiarly at their theatres, their 
 operas, and their routs, must render them 
 perfectly masters of the subject. However, as 
 I am not aware that any thing of this nature is 
 yet taken in hand, I shall lay before my reader 
 
S4 
 
 such observations as I have been able to make ; 
 partly because it seems necessary to the per- 
 fection of my work that something should be 
 said on the subject; and partly because I 
 should be unwilling to afford by my silence 
 any ground for suspicion — that there is no re- 
 ligion in the Fashionable World. 
 
 I am then, in the first place, decidedly 
 of opinion, that people of Fashion are not 
 Atheists ; though I am sufficiently aware, that 
 some strict religionists have entertained an 
 opposite^ conviction. It has been contended by 
 the latter in support of their hypothesis, that 
 people who believed in a God would have 
 some scruple about taking such liberties with 
 his name, and his attributes, and his threat- 
 enings, and generally with all his moral prero- 
 gatives, as people of Fashion are accustomed 
 to do. There is certainly something plausible 
 in this sort of reasoning, and I must candidly 
 confess that I have never yet seen it fairly 
 overthrown ; but then I cannot think that it 
 proves their disbelief of a God, though it cei>. 
 
B5 
 
 tainly does prove their want of reverence for 
 him. It seems to me, at the same time, pro* 
 bable, that the ideas of this people, and those 
 of stricter Christians, upon the subject of that 
 reverence vi^hich is due to the Deity, may 
 differ sufficiently, to account for these offen- 
 sive liberties, without having recourse to the 
 'hypothesis of Atheism. Indeed, when I con- 
 sider the spirit and construction of that law 
 by which these people are bound, I can find 
 other reasons for their conduct in this respect, 
 besides that which these theorists have assign*- 
 ed. For, to say the truth, those obnoxious 
 expressions from which so much has been in- 
 ferred, are in perfect unison with the exclu- 
 sion of a Deity from the rules which regulate 
 their intercourse with each other. The more 
 therefore I reflect on this subject, the more I 
 am confirmed in my opinion, that the charge 
 of Atheism against them is without any just 
 foundation ; and that their appeals to God in 
 levity, earnestness, and anger, are designed to 
 show their contempt of his authority, and not 
 their denial of his being. 
 
36 
 
 I was for a long time of opinion that these 
 people^ were believers in Christ; for I had 
 observed that his name was found in their 
 formularies of devotion, associated with their 
 baptismal designation, and frequenti37 appealed 
 to in their conversation with each other. 
 There Vv-ere, I confess, many things at the 
 time which staggered me. Having taken up 
 my ideas of the Saviour from those Scrip- 
 tures which they profess to receive as well as 
 myself, I was not a little astonished at the ul- 
 timate diiference between us. Their belief of 
 a God was, I knew, inevitable, and forced up- 
 on them by every thing in nature and experi- 
 ence ; I could therefore conceive, without 
 much difficulty, how they could subscribe to 
 his being, and yet not hallow his name ; but I 
 could not with equal facility conceive, that 
 people should go out of their way to embrace 
 a solemn article of revealed religion, only that 
 they might have an opportunity of trifling with 
 the holy name of Him, who was the author 
 and the object of that revelatian. 
 
37 
 
 I had, besides, occasion to remark, that this 
 name was seldom appealed to, but by the ladies; 
 and it did not appear in the first instance pro- 
 bable, that the gentlemen would leave them in 
 exclusive possession of a mode of imprecation, 
 by which any thing was meant. These, and 
 other circumstances, excited in my mind a 
 great deal of speculation. I will not, how- 
 ever, trouble my readers with the many con- 
 clusions which I drew from them ; since an 
 event has occurred which affords no indifferent 
 evidence, that belief in a Saviour does not form 
 an article of Fashionable religion. The event 
 to which I refer, is the publication of a Me- 
 moir of the late Lord Camelford. In this 
 Memoir the author professes to acquaint the 
 world with the last moments of a Fashionable 
 young man, who had received a mortal wound 
 in an affair of honour. In perusing this ex- 
 traordinary narrative, I was much surprised 
 at finding, that neither the dying penitent, (for 
 such he is represented to have been) nor his 
 spiritual confessor, ever once mentioned the 
 name of ChrisU But when, on further at- 
 
38 
 
 tention, I found his Lordship expressing a hope 
 that his own dying sufferings would expiate 
 his feins ; and placing his dependence upon the 
 mercy of his Creator ^ ; I had only to conclude 
 that the divine was deterred from mentioning 
 a name with which his office must have made 
 him familiar, out of respect for that Fashion- 
 able creed from which it is excluded. 
 
 There is some reason for supposing that 
 these people believe in the immortality of the 
 soul, the existence of an evil spirit, and a 
 place of future torment. It must at the same 
 time be acknowledged, that their ideas on each 
 of these points are so loose and confused, that 
 it is difficult to determine in what sense they 
 apprehend them. 
 
 * '* In the worst moments of his pain, he cried out that 
 he sincerely hoped, the agonies he then endured might expiaie 
 the sins he had committed.^' **#*<<! wish with all my 
 soul (says the writer of the Memoir,) that the unthinking 
 Totaries of dissipation and infidelity could all have been 
 present at the death-bed of this poor man; could have 
 heard his expressions of contrition for his past misconduct, 
 and of reliance upon the mercy of his Creator." — Vide Memoir 
 of the late Lord Camelford, by the Rev. W. Cockburne, Fel- 
 low of St, John^s College, Cambridge. 
 
39 
 
 In subscribing, for example, to the immor- 
 tality of the soul, they give it a value to which 
 the corruptible body can never pretend : the 
 inference from this, in a fair train of reason- 
 ing, would be, that the care of the former is 
 of infinitely more importance than that of the 
 latter. And yet this is manifestly not the in- 
 ference they draw : for the experience of every 
 week proves, that if they give three hours to 
 the soul they think it too much ; while they 
 will give six days and nights to the body, and 
 think it too little. This is, I confess, a part of 
 their character of which no satisfactory explana- 
 tion has ever been given. 
 
 I have no other evidence of their belief in 
 an evil Spirit and a place of future torment, 
 than the report of their Prayer-books and 
 the tenor of their conversation. I must at 
 the same time acknowledge, that the loose- 
 ness and frequency with which they refer to 
 Hell and the Devil on the most ordinary occa- 
 sions, have excited my doubts whether they 
 use these awful terms in the same religious 
 
40 
 
 sense in which orthodox Christians are accus- 
 tomed to employ them. These doubts have 
 been greatly encouraged by that sceptical fa- 
 cetiousness with which they apply the name 
 of the evil spirit to their Fashionable amuse- 
 ments, and make the place of torment a sub- 
 je£t of scenic representation^. I will not say 
 that these people do not believe what they thus 
 caricature ; but I think it must be obvious that 
 they cannot have any very exact notions of 
 their scriptural import, while they continue to 
 employ them as terms of merriment and 
 sources of diversion. 
 
 Religious worship, though not inculcated as 
 absolutely necessary in the Fashionable World, 
 is yet neither prohibited nor renounced. Cer- 
 tain persons of considerable influence among 
 them, and whose connexion with them arose 
 out of the incidental circumstances of birth, 
 or office, or elevation, have carried into the 
 societies of Ifashion some principles which 
 
 * Vide Don Juan, and the ballets at the Opera House 
 
 on the vigils of the Sabbath, 
 
41 
 
 operate as a check upon the natural libertinism 
 of the community. I impute it to this, rather 
 than to any sober consideration of duty, that 
 religious worship, though it is not esteemed 
 essential to a Fashionable character, is yet not 
 regarded as any impeachment of it. My rea- 
 son, in a word, for ascribing this to influence 
 rather than principle is, that it is a contra- 
 diction of ideas to suppose that persons can 
 seriously mean to worship a God whom they 
 habitually blaspheme, or to pray against a 
 devil whom they are apcustomed to hold out 
 as a bugbear or a joke. 
 
 Their mode of worship is generally that 
 which prevails in the country in which they 
 live : they like the eclat of an establishment, 
 and the convenience of taking things as they 
 find them. There are, I am told, some mem- 
 bers of Fashion among those who dissent 
 from the established religion. These I shall 
 leave to the care of their Pastors ; and proceed 
 to animadvert upon the Fashionable adherents 
 to the religion of the state. 
 E 2 
 
42 
 
 In their manner of observing the rites of pub- 
 lic worship, nothing is so remarkable as the 
 degree of refinement which they introduce into 
 every part of it which is capable of being refined 
 upon. Chapels are for the most part prefeiTed 
 to churches ; and the reason, among others, for 
 this preference appears to be, that the modem- 
 ness of their structure, and their exemption 
 from parochial control, render them better 
 adapted to such elegant improvements as are 
 requisite for Fashionable piety* Hence that 
 variety of ingenious accommodations and fan- 
 ciful ornaments, which gives to their favourite 
 place of devotion the air of a drawing-room ; 
 so that a stranger introduced to their religious 
 assemblies might be excused for doubting, 
 whether he v/as about to worship the Deity, or 
 to pay a Fashionable visit. The conduct of 
 their service is in many cases marked by an 
 attention to mechanical effect, w4iich is more 
 nearly allied to the parade of the theatre, than 
 to the simplicity of the church. The orators 
 who fill their pulpits are generally preferred in 
 
43 
 
 proportion as they display the captivating at- 
 tractions of a graceful utterance and a liberal 
 theology. These preachers have, indeed, a 
 task to execute of no ordinary difficulty. By 
 the tyranny of custom they are compelled to 
 take their text, and to produce their authori- 
 ties, from the canon of Scripture; and I think 
 it is much to the praise of their dexterity, 
 that, so often as they have occasion to dis- 
 course from those offensive writings, they yet 
 contrive to give so little offence. How they 
 manage this, I am at a loss to know ; unless 
 it be by blinking every question that in- 
 volves a moral application ; or else by allow- 
 ing their audience the benefit of that Fashion- 
 able salvo, that the company present is always 
 excepted. 
 
 It has also been remarked by scrupulous 
 observers, that they perform almost the whole 
 of their public devotions in a posture which 
 rather accommodates their indolence than ex- 
 presses their respect for the object of their 
 worship. If this be the fact, it is not a littk 
 
44 
 
 extraordinary ; since they use a liturgy which 
 prescribes kneeling^ and standmg as well as 
 sitting; and which contains distinct instruc- 
 tions when each is to be used. I can indeed 
 account without much difficulty, for the dis- 
 use of kneeling ; because the structure of the 
 pews does not always admit of it : besides that, 
 it is a posture into which people cannot be ex- 
 pected readily to fall, who have not much prac- 
 tice in private. But I cannot so easily account 
 for their refusing to stand: for this is notori- 
 ously an attitude to which they are sufficiently 
 accustomed. And that they do not consider 
 the posture in which a thing is done indifferent, 
 is manifest from the zeal with which they rise 
 from their seats and expect others to do the 
 same, when about to join in a loyal chorus. 
 I wonder it has not occurred to them, that 
 there is some indecency, not to say impiety, 
 in rising from their seats to sing the praises of 
 their King j and keeping them while they sing 
 the praises of their God. 
 
45 
 
 I have before delivered it as my opinion, 
 that this people comply with the custom of 
 public worship, rather from influence than 
 from conviction ; and this opinion receives 
 some confirmation from the pains which they 
 take to remove those impressions which the 
 offices of religion may have made upon their 
 minds. In the metropolis, the visit to the 
 house of God is succeeded, as soon as maybe, 
 by the drive into the Park. Here they meet 
 with a prodigious concourse of persons of 
 their own description, and have the most 
 charming opportunities of seeing the world, 
 exhibiting themselves, and of conversing upon 
 the opera of the preceding evening, or the 
 parties for the ensuing week. The effect of 
 this drive upon their animal spirits, and the 
 whole frame of their mmd, is just what might 
 have been expected. Though they have so 
 recently assisted at the most awful solemnities, 
 they can now relax into the most boisterous 
 mirth; and satisfying themselves that they 
 have done their duty by remembering the 
 Almighty in the first part of the day, they 
 
AG 
 
 take no common pains to forget him during 
 the remainder. 
 
 In the vicinity of the metropol^, and in 
 other places of Fashionable residence, other 
 expedients are resorted to, in order to produce 
 the " same happy effect. No sooner has the 
 priest pronounced his Morning benediction, 
 than the carriage which has conveyed the 
 family to church must be driven round the 
 neighbourhood ; and the bells and knockers of 
 twenty doors announce that the restraints of 
 public worship are at an end. This pleasant 
 divertisement is not lost upon the great body 
 of the inhabitants. Persons the farthest re- 
 moved from all Fashionable pretensions rejoice 
 with their superiors at this speedy termination 
 of the Sabbath ; . and, with a servile imitation 
 oi their example, pursue their pleasures in some 
 house of entertainment, instead of seeking a 
 second blessing in the house of God ^. 
 
 * The Bishop of Durham animadverts (with just severity) 
 upon ** the great neglect of church in the Sunday afternoons, 
 ivhen the duties of religion are deserted for the fashions or fr ieft^- 
 ship of the ivorld." Vide Charge for 1801. 
 
47 
 
 Though there is something very lively and 
 ingenious in this method of dissipating reli- 
 gious impressions, yet I think it might be ^n 
 improvement upon the plan, not to allow them 
 to be made at all. Experiments to this effect 
 have been actually tried by many persons of 
 no mean condition in the Fashionable World, 
 who have wholly renounced the habit of pub- 
 lic worship ; and these experiments would pro- 
 bably have been tried upon a much larger 
 scale, had it not been for the consideration of 
 setting a pernicious example : for it seems to 
 be a maxinv among many of them, that per- 
 sons in a dependent state may really be bene- 
 fitted by the offices of devotion. With a 
 charity, therefore, that does them honour, 
 they make a sacrifice of their feelings and 
 their time to the interests of their inferiors ; 
 and when it is considered how much whirling 
 in a carriage, gaping, gadding, and gossiping, 
 it takes them to recover the true tone of dissi- 
 pation, it will be seen that the sacrifice is not 
 inconsiderable. 
 
48 
 
 In observing thus largely upon the religion 
 of the Fashionable World, I have furnished a 
 sufficient clue to their moral character: if, 
 from some hints which have been thrown out 
 in this and the preceding chapter, rigid Chris- 
 tians should be led to infer that it is no better 
 than it should be, they must be reminded that 
 people of Fashion have a standard peculiar to 
 themselves ; and that therefore what are devi- 
 ations from our standard, are very often near 
 approximations to theirs. In fact, they have 
 acted in this respect with the same convenient 
 policy by which they have been guided in 
 framing every other part of their system. 
 Pleasure being the object upon which a life of 
 Fashion terminates, it was sagaciously enough 
 foreseen, that an unbending morality would be 
 utterly incompatible with the modes, and ha- 
 bits, and plans of such a career. There re- 
 mained, therefore, no alternative but that of 
 frittering away the strength and substance of 
 the morality of the Gospel, till it became suf- 
 ficiently tame and pliable for the sphere of ac- 
 commodation in which it was to act. The 
 
49 
 
 consequence has been, that while they empl(^^ 
 the same terms to denote their moral ideas, as 
 are in use among Christians in general, yet 
 they limit or enlarge their signification as ex- 
 pediency requires. Thus modesty, honesty, 
 humanity, and sobriety— names, with stricter 
 moralists, for the purest virtues— are so mo- 
 dified and liberalized by Fashionable casuists, 
 as to be capable of an alliance with a low de- 
 gree of every vice to whiclithey stand oppored. 
 A woman may expose her bosom, paint her 
 face, assume a forward air, gaze without emo- 
 tion, and laugh without restraint at the loosest 
 scenes of theatrical licentiousness, and yet be 
 after all — a modest woman. • A man may de- 
 tain the money which he owes his tradesman, 
 and contract new debts for ostentatious super- 
 fluities, while he has neither the means nor the 
 inclination to pay his old ones, and yet be after 
 all< — a YQTy honest fellow. A woman of Fashion 
 may disturb the repose of her family every 
 night, abandon her children to mercenary 
 nurses, and keep her horses and her servants 
 in the streets till daybreak, without any im- 
 
 F 
 
50 
 
 peachmcnt of her humanity. So the gentle- 
 man of Fashion may swallow his two or three 
 bottles a-day, and do all his friends the kind- 
 ness to lay them under the table as often as 
 they dine with him ; yet if constitution or 
 habit secure him against the same ignomi- 
 nious effects, he claims to be considered — a 
 sober man. 
 
 There would be no end of going over all 
 the eccentricities of Fashionable morality. To 
 those who exact that truth which allows of no 
 duplicity, that honour which scorns all base- 
 ness, and that virtue which wars with every 
 vice, I question but every thing in the morals 
 of this people would appear anomalous and ex- 
 traordinary : but to, those who consider how 
 necess-ary a certain portion of wickedness is to 
 such a life of sense as these people must ne- 
 cessarily lead, it will not be matter of surprise 
 that there should be so little genuine morality 
 among them : the wonder will rather be— that 
 there should be any at all. 
 
51 
 
 CHAP. IV, 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 JN o people in the universe expend larger sums 
 upon the education of their children than 
 people of Fashion. It is a maxim with them 
 to commence the great business of instruction 
 in the very earliest period of life ; and if the 
 system of education corresponded with the 
 pains bestowed upon it, and the price at 
 which it is purchased, no persons would do 
 more honour to society than the subjects of 
 the Fashionable World. As it is, they are 
 not a little ornamental to a nation. They 
 are not, it is true, either the columns or the 
 base of the building; they neither support 
 nor strengthen it : but they supply the place 
 of reliefs, and hangings, and other superadded 
 decorations. 
 
5-2 
 
 Religion is allowed a respectable place 
 among the studies of the nursery. All those 
 useful tables of instruction are assiduously em- 
 ployed, which teach who was the Jirst, the 
 rvisest, the meekest, and the strongest man: 
 and the nursling is carefully conducted, by a 
 catechetical process, into the theory and prac- 
 tice of a Christian. As, however, the child ad- 
 vances to boyish or girlish years, this religious 
 discipline is pretty generally relaxed, in order 
 to allow sufficient scope for the cultivation of 
 those modish pursuits, which mark the man 
 and the woman of Fashion. 
 
 And here I cannot help remarking how 
 anxious the greater part of Fashionable parents 
 are to guard the minds of their children against 
 the permanent influence of that religion which 
 they yet have caused them to be taught. The 
 fact is, that they would have them acquainted 
 with the technical language, and expert in the 
 liturgical formalities of Christianity ; for these 
 acquirements can neither disparage their cha- 
 racter nor impede their pleasures : but a se- 
 
53 
 
 rious impression of its truths upon their hearts 
 might disafFect them to the follies and vices 
 which they are destined to practise ; and 
 therefore is the thing of ail others that is most 
 to be dreaded. The parents are, to say the 
 truth, not a little hampered by the engage- 
 ments under which they have bound the child 
 on the one part, and the character which they 
 wish him to sustain on the other. To leave 
 him in ignorance of a covenant in which he 
 has been involuntarily included, would be a 
 fraud upon his conscience j and yet to have 
 him renounce the devil, the world, and the 
 flesh, would be the utter ruin of his Fashion- 
 able reputation. What other course then can 
 parents thus circumstanced pursue, than that 
 of inculcating these lessons before they can be 
 understood, and removing their impression 
 before they can be practised ? 
 
 It is, I presume, upon the principle of pre- 
 caution already mentioned, that our Fashion- 
 able young men are not always intrusted to the 
 care of persons distinguished for the practice of 
 r 2 
 
54 
 
 piety. It is not impossible indeed, that, either 
 from the conversation, the connexions, or the 
 example of the preceptor, the pupil may con- 
 tract certain habits which it was not the precise 
 object of his education to produce. But then 
 the evil is not so great as fastidious moralists 
 would insinuate. For, as the youth is to figure 
 in the circles of Fashion, he will only have 
 learnt, a little before the time, those practices 
 which are to form a part of his manly cha- 
 racter: and though it might perhaps be as well 
 if he did not learn to swear and rake quite so 
 soon ; yet it is some consolation that Ke 
 has escaped those methodistical impressions, 
 which would hav^e prevented him from swear- 
 ing and raking as long as he lived. 
 
 It may also be considered as some confirma- 
 tion of the reasoning above employed, that pa- 
 rents introduce their children as early as pos- 
 sible to the amusements of the theatre. Now, 
 though swearing, and raking, and gaming, 
 when carried to excess, are blamed even by 
 persons of Fashion themselves ; yet it is no- 
 
55 
 
 torious, that a reasonable proportion of each 
 is indispensably requisite to a popular cha- 
 racter in the circles of refinenaent. Habits of 
 this sort must not be precipitately taken up. 
 There must be a schooling for the man of 
 pleasure as well as for the man of letters : and 
 certainly no school exists in which the ele- 
 ments of modish vice can be studied with 
 greater promise of proficiency, than the pub- 
 lic theatres. When it is considered at what 
 pains the managers of the stage are to import 
 the seducing dramas of Germany, as well as 
 to get up the loose productions of the English 
 Muse : when it is further considered how 
 studious the actors and actresses are to do 
 justice, and even more than justice, to the 
 luscious scenes of the piece ; to give effect to 
 the equivoques by an arch emphasis, and to 
 the oaths by a dauntless intonation : — when 
 to all this is added, how many painted strum- 
 pets are stuck about the theatre, in the boxes, 
 the galleries, and the avenues ; and how many 
 challenges to prostitution are thrown out in 
 every direction : it will, I think, be difficult to 
 
56 
 
 imagine places better adapted, than the the- 
 atres at this moment are, to teach the theory 
 and practice of Fashionable iniquity. 
 
 What lias been observed on the subject of 
 education, though said principally with refer- 
 ence to the male branches of Fashionable fa- 
 milies, will yet, with a few changes, be found 
 applicable to the youth of the other sex. The 
 principal points upon which their scheme of 
 education is brought to bear, are those of dis- 
 siJ)ation and display. A brilliant finger on 
 the piano, wanton flexions in the dance, a 
 rage for operas, plays, and parties, and the 
 faculty of undergoing the fatiguing evolutions 
 of a Fashionable life without compunction of 
 conscience, sense of weariness, or indications 
 of disgust, are qualifications which she who 
 has acquired, will be considered as wanting 
 little of a perfect education. 
 
 The same assiduity is discovered on the 
 part of the parents, to train their girls for the 
 sphere of polite life, as has been already ob- 
 served with respect to the boys j and the me- 
 
57 
 
 thods that are pursued to accomplish this end, 
 are very nearly the same. The blush of vir- 
 gin modesty (it is naturally foreseen) would 
 be extremely inconvenient, not to say abso- 
 lutely indecorous, in a woman of Fashion ; 
 and therefore it is wisely resolved, that such 
 steps shall be taken, upon the girl's growing 
 into life, as may most effectually destroy it. 
 The theatre seems principally to be resorted 
 to for this purpose ; and it must be manifest 
 from what has been already advanced, that no 
 expedient could have been better chosen. As 
 intrigue is the life of the drama, and this can- 
 not be carried on without expressions, atti- 
 tudes, and communications between the sexes 
 of a very particular nature, there is every rea- 
 son for regarding the stage as a sovereign re- 
 medy for the infirmity of blushing. 
 
 There are other things to be said on behalf 
 of the threatre as a school of polite morality. 
 
 It has already appeared that the system of 
 ethics which prevails among people of Fashion, 
 
58 
 
 differs materially from the received system of 
 unfashionable Christians. Now, I know not 
 any means by which a stranger anxious to 
 ascertain wherein that difference consists, 
 could better satisfy his inquiries, than by visit- 
 ing the theatres. The doctrine of the stage 
 therefore exhibiting (as nearly as possible) the 
 standard morality of polite society, nothing 
 could be better imagined than to give the em- 
 bryo woman of Fashion the earliest opportu- 
 nity of learning to so much advantage, those 
 lessons which she is afterwards to practise 
 through life. What she has imbibed in the. 
 nursery, and what she hears in the church, 
 would inspire her with a dread — perhaps a 
 dislikcr-^of many things upon which she must 
 learn hereafter to look with familiar indiffer- 
 ence, if not with absolute complacency. She 
 might thus (if some remedy were not provided} 
 be led to take up with certain melancholy 
 principles, which would either shut her out 
 from the society of her friends, or make her 
 miserable among them. But the stage cor- 
 rects all this ; and more than counterbalances 
 
^9 
 
 the impressions of virtue by stratagems of the 
 happiest contrivance. 
 
 It is worthy of attention how much inge- 
 nuity is displayed in bringing about that moral 
 temperament which is necessary for the meri- 
 dian of Fashion. The rake who is debauch- 
 ing innocence, squandering away property, 
 and extending the influence of hcentiousness 
 to the utmost of his power, would (if fairly 
 represented) excite spontaneous and universal 
 abhorrence. But this would be extremely in- 
 convenient; since raking, seduction, and pro- 
 digality, make half the business, and almost 
 all the reputation, of men of Fashion. What 
 then must be done ? — Some qualities of ac- 
 knowledged excellence must be associated with 
 these vicious propensities, in order to prevent 
 them from occasioning unmingled disgust. 
 We may, I presume, refer it to the same 
 policy, that in dramas of the greatest popu- 
 larity the worthless libertine is represented 
 as having at the bottom some of those pro- 
 perties which reflect most honour upon human 
 
,60 
 
 nature : while, — as if to throw the balance 
 still more in favour of vice — the man of pro- 
 fessed virtue is delineated as being in the main 
 a sneaking and hypocritical villain. Lessons 
 such as these are not likely to be lost upon the 
 ingenuous feelings of a young girl. For, be- 
 sides the fascinations of an elegant address 
 and an artful manner, the whole conduct of 
 the ^piot is an insidious appeal to the simpli- 
 city of her heart. She is taught to believe by 
 these representations, that profligacy is the 
 exuberance of a generous nature, and decorum 
 the veil of a bad heart : so that having learnt, 
 in the outset of her career, to associate frank- 
 ness with vice, and duplicity with virtue, she 
 will not be likely to separate these combina- 
 tions during the remainder of her life. 
 
 To enter further into the minute details of 
 a Fashionable education, v/ould only be to 
 travel over ground which has been often and 
 ingeniously explored by writers of t\iQ greatest 
 eminence. Enough has been said to show, 
 that the system of education adopted by this 
 
61 
 
 people, like every other branch of then- eco- 
 nomy, is adapted to qualify the parties for that 
 polite intercourse with each other, which 
 seems to constitute the very end of their being. 
 And if it be considered of what nature that in- 
 tercourse is, it will occasion no surprise, that 
 the education which prepares for it should 
 confound the distinctions of virtue and vice ; 
 and inculcate duplicity in religion, and preva- 
 rication in morals. 
 
6^ 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 MANNERS LANGUAGE. 
 
 JL HE Manners of this people are remarkably 
 artificial. They appear to do every thing by 
 rule ; and not a word, a look, or a move- 
 ment escapes them, but what has at one time 
 or other been studied. In every part of their 
 demeanour they have reference to some invi- 
 sible standard, which they call the Ton or 
 the Fashion, (from which latter term they 
 have derived their appellation j) and by this 
 mysterious talisman, their mahners, their 
 dress, their language, and the whole of their 
 behaviour, is tried. ' It is singular enough, 
 that this standard which is to fix every thing, 
 is itself the most variable of all things. The 
 changes which it undergoes are so rapid, that 
 it requires a sort of telegraphic communica- 
 tion to become acquainted with them : and 
 though there is no regular way by which they 
 
may be known, yet nothing is considered so 
 disgraceful as not to know them. 
 
 The fluctuations to which this standard is 
 subject, render it difficult to catch the fea- 
 tures of people of Fashion, or to speak with 
 any precision upon the exterior of their cha- 
 racter. They are, in fact, moulded and mo- 
 dified by such capricious and indefinable cir- 
 cumstances, that he who would exhibit a true 
 picture of their manners, must write a history 
 of the endless transmutations through which 
 they are compelled to pass. It has indeed been 
 remarked by nice observers, that a dissimula- 
 tion of their sentiments and their feelings, 
 is a feature in the character of this people 
 which never forsakes them ; and that amidst 
 all the revolutions which their other habits 
 experience, this master-principle preserves an 
 unchanging uniformity. Nor is it sufficient 
 to overthrow this reasoning, that, among the 
 innovations of recent times, the manners of 
 people of Fashion have been brought into an 
 affected resemblance to those of their inferiors. 
 
64 
 
 The cropped head and groomish dress of the 
 men, and the noisy tone and vulgar air of the 
 women, would almost persuade a stranger 
 that these are blunt and artless people, and 
 that they love nothing more than honesty and 
 plain-tdealing. The fact however is, that 
 though the mode of playing is varied, yet the 
 gamt of dissimulation is still going on. This 
 condescension to vulgarity is, after all, the 
 disguise of pride, and not the dress of simpli- 
 city ; and is as remote from the sincerity 
 which it imitates, as from the refinement 
 which it renounces. 
 
 An exaggerated opinion of their own im- 
 portance is, in reality, a prevailing character- 
 istic of the Fashionable World. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans were thought to 
 have gone too far, when they called all nations 
 but their own, barbarians : but people of 
 Fashion go a step farther ; for they consider 
 themselves every body^ and the rest of the 
 world nobody. The influence of this senti- 
 
65 
 
 ment is sufficiently discernible over the whole 
 of their character. It dictates to their affec- 
 tions, and robs them in many instances of 
 their spontaneity, their sweetness, and their 
 force. It results from this, that their love is 
 often artificial, their friendship ceremonious, 
 and their charity ungracious. In a word, the 
 whole of their demeanour is such as might be 
 expected from a people, who idolize the most 
 frivolous or the most vicious propensities of 
 human nature; and estimate as nothing, the 
 talents, and industry, and virtue, which adorn 
 it. 
 
 Their Language would afford great scope 
 for discussion ; but the limits which I have 
 prescribed to my work will not allow me to 
 embrace it. I shall, however, throw together 
 such remarks as may enable the reader to form 
 some judgment of it j and refer him, for more 
 extended information upon it, to those modish 
 compositions in which it is conveyed, and to 
 the circles in which it is spoken. 
 G 2 
 
66 
 
 Their language then, is generally a dialect 
 of the people among whom they reside. They 
 do, it is true, intersperse their conversational 
 dialogue with scraps of French and Italian ; 
 they also construct their complimentary 
 phrases with singular dexterity ; they have be- 
 sides, certain epithets, such as dashing^ stylish, 
 Sec. which may be considered as perfectly their 
 own : — ^but if these be excepted, the rest of 
 their language is, to the best of my judgment, 
 wholly vernacular. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed, that be- 
 cause this people use the terms of the country 
 in which they live, they therefore use them in 
 their ordinary and received acceptation. No- 
 thing can be farther from the fact. I verily be- 
 lieve, that if the whole nomenclature of Fashion 
 were examined from beginning to end, scarce- 
 ly twenty words would be found, which, in pas* 
 sing over to the regions of Fashion, have not 
 left their native and customary sense behind 
 them. 
 
67 
 
 In support of this observation, I shall citCj 
 for the reader's satisfaction, a brief extract 
 from a private memorandum which I had ori- 
 ginally made, with the design of constructing 
 a Fashionable glossary. 
 
 Vernacular 
 
 Fashionable Sense. 
 
 , . Ordering goods without pre- 
 sent purpose of payment. 
 Something to swear by. 
 Fear of man. 
 Fear of God. 
 
 Debt A necessary evil. 
 
 Enthusiasm . Religion in earnest. 
 
 Every body's house but one's 
 own. 
 
 An imaginary Moloch claim- 
 ing licentious rites and human 
 victims. 
 Expert in folly and vice. 
 
 Life ..... Destruction of body and souL 
 
 Modest .... Always used in a bad sense 
 when applied to a man. 
 
 Religion • . . Occupying a seat in some 
 church or chapel. 
 
 Terms, 
 Buying . . 
 
 Conscience 
 Courage . 
 Cowardice 
 
 Home 
 
 Honour 
 
 Knowing 
 
68 
 
 Vernacular 
 Terms, Fashionable Sense. 
 
 Spirit Contempt of decorum and 
 
 conscience. 
 Thing .... As applied to a man, every 
 
 thing but what he should 
 
 be. 
 Wicked .... Irresistibly agreeable. 
 
 This transmutation of terms is a very favour- 
 ite operation with this people. It is, in fact, a* 
 work which is daily going on j and keeps pace 
 with the progress of their ideas, from the cor- 
 rect and authentic notions of truth and virtue, 
 to those loose and spurious ones by which 
 they are superseded. 
 
 In proof of this statement, I need only ad- 
 duce those phrases in which they are accus- 
 tomed to pronounce the eulogium of their de- 
 ceased associates. 
 
 For example — Is reference made to an un- 
 thinking profligate who has lately been hurried 
 
69 
 
 from the world. His vices are glanced at, 
 and cursorily condemned ; but still it is affirm- 
 ed, that he always meant well^ he had a good 
 heart at the botto?n, and he was nobodifs enemy 
 hut his own. 
 
 And for whom is this apology offered, and 
 this praise indirectly solicited ? For the man, 
 who, if he ever meant any thing, meant no- 
 thing more or better, than to gratify his lusts, 
 pursue his vicious pleasures, drink his wine, 
 shake his dice, shuffle his cards; and thus 
 waste his existence, and destroy his soul. Of 
 such a man it is gravely affirmed, that, — he 
 always meant welL 
 
 And of whom is it said, that he had a good 
 heart? Of the man who rarely manifested, 
 through the whole of his life, any other symp- 
 toms than those which indicate a bad one. 
 His mouth was full of cursing and bitterness ; 
 his humour was choleric and revengeful ; his 
 feet moved quick to shed blood ; there was no 
 Gpnscience in his bospm, and no fear of Go4 
 
70 
 
 before his eyes ; and yet, because he was oc- 
 casionally charitable, and habitually convivial^ 
 no doubt is entertained but that — he had a 
 good heart at the bottom, 
 
 - Lastly, he is said to have been nobody's 
 enemy but his otvn^ who has wasted the earn- 
 ings of an industrious ancestor, and bequeath- 
 ed beggary and shame to his innocent descend- 
 ants. The wretch has distressed his family b}^ 
 his prodigality, and corrupted thousands by 
 his example ; and yet because he has been the 
 dupe of his lusts, and fallen a martyr to his 
 vices, he is pronounced to have been- — nobodifs 
 enemy but his own. 
 
 These instances will serve to throw some 
 light upon the sort of idiom employed by peo- 
 ple of Fashion, and the manner in which they 
 have wrested expressions of no little import- 
 ance from their natural and legitimate sense. 
 
 But before I quit the consideration of their 
 language^ I think it my duty to point out 
 
71 
 
 another peculiarity, of which, to the best of 
 my knowledge, no satisfactory account has 
 yet been given. Whether it arise from the 
 paucity of their words, the confusion of their 
 ideas, or from any other cause distinct from 
 each of these, so it is, that they have but one 
 term, by which they are accustomed to express 
 their strong emotions both of pleasure and 
 pain. On this term you will find them ringing 
 ^perpetual changes j and, strange to say, it is to 
 be heard, under one or other of its gramma- 
 tical inflexions*, in almost every sentence 
 which falls from their lips. The master has 
 recourse to it in scolding his servants, the 
 officer in reprimanding his men. The tra- 
 veller employs it in recounting his adventures, 
 and the man of pleasure in describing his in- 
 trigues. It is heard in the house, and in the 
 
 * If the reader should have a difficulty in discovering 
 the full import of this remark, he is requested to consider 
 that the peculiar term appropriated to swearing is capable 
 of becoming either a verb, a substantive, a participle ad- 
 jective, or an adverb : and he will find that it is used 
 under all these forms by people of Fashion. 
 
n 
 
 field ; in moments of seriousness, and of le-* 
 vity; in expressions of praise, and of blame. 
 In short, it is used on occasions the most dis- 
 similar, under impressions the most contra- 
 dictory, and for purposes the most opposite ; 
 and is, in fact, the sine qua non of every 
 energetic and ^emphatical period. 
 
 Now it happens unfortunately that this ca- 
 thoUcon in Fashionable phraseology is, of air 
 other terms, that to which sober Christians 
 annex the most awful ideas j and from the use 
 of which they as scrupulously abstain, as they 
 do from that of the Great Being whose ven- 
 geance it so tremendously expresses. And it 
 may be worthy of consideration, whether this 
 familiar and unfeeling employment by people 
 of Fashion of a term which imports infernal 
 punishment y does not strengthen those doubts 
 which have been already suggested, of their 
 real belief in a place of future torment. 
 
 • It ought not at the same time to be over- 
 looked, that, in this respect, they bear a close 
 
73 
 
 resemblance to the vulgarest part of the com- 
 munity ; and it would furnish a subject of cu- 
 rious investigation why two classes in society, 
 respectively the highest and the lowest, should 
 exhibit so striking an agreement in a material 
 branch of language. I know it has been said 
 that extremes meet ; and the fact before us is 
 so much proof that the remark is just : but 
 that by no means solves the difficulty. For, 
 after all, the question returns upon us, wky 
 such a fact should exist ? I confess, for my 
 own part, I know no answer that can be given 
 to it ; and I very much wish that some one 
 of their number would undertake to explain 
 their real motives for courting a resemblance 
 in one respect with that description of society, 
 from which they make it their pride to differ 
 in every other* 
 
74 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 DRESS AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 JL HERE are in the Dress of this people many- 
 singularities, upon which he who wished to 
 say every thing that could be said, might say a 
 great deal. The peculiarity which a stranger 
 would be most apt to remark, is that of their 
 striving to be as unlike as possible to the rest 
 of the world. This appears, indeed, to be th6 
 parent of almost every other peculiarity ; and 
 certainly gives birth to many changes not a 
 little ridiculous and prejudicial. 
 
 It being a sort of fundamental maxim with 
 them that superiority consists in dissimili- 
 tude, they become engaged in a perpetual 
 competition with the world at large, and to a 
 certain degree with each other. In order to 
 maintain this struggle for pre-eminence, they 
 are compelled to vary the modes and mate- 
 
75 
 
 rials of their dress in all the ways which a 
 fanciful imagination can suggest. It happens, 
 through some strange infatuation, that those 
 who affect to despise the man or woman of 
 Fashion, yet ape their dress and air with the 
 most impertinent and vexatious perseverance. 
 What is to be done in this case ? Similitude 
 is not to be endured. In order therefore to 
 throw out their pursuers, these monopolizers 
 of the mode are compelled to run into such 
 eccentricities as nothing could justify or pal- 
 liate but the distress to which they are re- 
 duced. If, for example, short skirts and 
 low capes are copied by the herd of imitators, 
 the Fashionables seek their remedy ,^in the 
 opposite extreme : their skirts are drawn down 
 to the calves of their legs, and their capes 
 pulled over their ears with as much solemnity 
 and dispatch, as if their existence depended 
 upon the measure. So if full petticoats and 
 high kerchiefs are adopted by the misses of the 
 crowd, the dressing-chambers of Fashion are 
 all bustle and confusion : — ^the limbs are strip- 
 ped, and the bosom laid bare, though the east 
 
76 
 
 wind may be blowing at the time ; and coughs, 
 rheumatisms, and consumptions, be upon the 
 
 wings of every blast. 
 
 This rage for dissimilitude in the affairs of 
 the wardrobe, is allov/ed an indefinite scope. 
 Unfortunately, as far as I can learn, there are 
 no determinate points, beyond which it would 
 be esteemed indecent or imprudent to indulge 
 it. The consequence is, that the groom and 
 the gentkfnan may be often mistaken for each 
 other ; and he who is recognized to-day as a 
 7nan of Fashion, may to-morrow be confounded 
 with one of the people, 
 
 I confess I have always regarded this part 
 of their conduct as an impeachment of their 
 political wisdom. I should have thought, h 
 priori, that a people who are so jealous of their 
 pre-eminence in society, would not have over- 
 looked the degree in which dress contributes 
 to uphold it. Many a Fashionable man must 
 depend for the whole of his estimation, upon 
 the cut of his coat, and the selection of his 
 
77 
 
 wardrobe. A frivolous or preposterous taste 
 may therefore prove fatal to the only sort of re- 
 putation which it was in his power to obtain. 
 But besides, an interchange of dress between 
 people of Fashion and those whom they con- 
 sider their inferiors, may eventually produce 
 very serious mischiefs. The distinctions of 
 rank and condition are manifestly matters of 
 external regulation, and consequently cannot 
 be kept up without a due attention to external 
 appearances. He therefore who makes him- 
 self vulgar or ridiculous, is guilty of an act of 
 self-degradation ; and the fault will be his own, 
 if he is displaced or despised ; since he has 
 renounced that appropriate costume, which pro- 
 claimed at once his station in society, and his 
 determination to maintain it* 
 
 The fair sex appear also on their part to set 
 all limits and restraints at defiance. They seem 
 to feel themselves at perfect liberty to follow 
 the prevailing mode, whatever that mode may 
 be. The consequence is, that modesty is often 
 the last thing considered by the young, and 
 H % 
 
78 
 
 propriety as completely neglected by the old. 
 And this latter circumstance may serve to ac- 
 count in some measure for the little respect 
 which is said to be paid to age in the Fashion- 
 able World. To judge from the histories of all 
 nations, it seems impossible that length of 
 years, if accompanied with those characteristics 
 which denote and become it, should not excite 
 spontaneous veneration. But if the shrivelled 
 arm must be bound in ribbands and bracelets, 
 if the withered limbs must be wrapped in mus- 
 lins and gauzes, and the wrinkled face be de- 
 corated with ringlets and furbelows, the silly 
 veteran waves the privilege of her years ; and 
 since she disgusts the grave, without charming 
 the gay, she must not be surprised if she 
 jneets with respect from neither. 
 
 A fondness for amusements is one of the 
 strongest characteristics of this people. They 
 may almost be said to live for little else. They 
 pass the whole of that short day which they 
 allow themselves, in making arrangements for 
 spending the ensuing night. Indeed, their 
 
'9 
 
 preference of night to day is such, that they 
 seem to consider the latter as having no other 
 value than as it leads to the former, and affords 
 an opportunity of preparing for its enjoyment. 
 And hence I suppose it is, that such multitudes 
 among them dine by candle-light, and go to bed 
 by day-light. 
 
 This passion for diversions renders the 
 Sunday particularly irksome to persons of any 
 sort of ton in the Fashionable World. A dose 
 of piety in the morning is well enough, though 
 it is somewhat inconvenient to take it quite 
 so early; but then it wants an opera, or a 
 play, or a dance, to carry it off. There are 
 indeed, some esprit-forts among the ladies, 
 who are trying with no little success to redeem 
 a portion of the sabbath from the insufferable 
 bondage of the Bible and the sermon-book ; 
 and to naturalize that continental distribution 
 of the day, which gives the morning to devo- 
 tion, and the evening to dissipation. It is 
 but justice to the gentlemen to say, that they 
 discover no backwardness in supporting amea- 
 
80 
 
 sure so consonant to all their wishes. It is 
 therefore not impossible that some considera- 
 ble changes in this respect may soon be brought 
 about. That good-humoured legislature which 
 has allowed a Sunday newspaper, will per- 
 haps not always refuse a Sunday opera or 
 play. People of Fashion will then no longer 
 have to torture their invention for expedients 
 to supply the absence of their diurnal diver- 
 sions. They may then let their tradesmen go 
 quietly to their parish-churches, instead of 
 sending for them to wear away the sabbath 
 hours in some supervacaneous employment. 
 In short, Sunday may be set at liberty from 
 its primitive bondage, and exhibit as happy 
 an union of morning solemnity and evening 
 licentiousness as it has ever displayed among 
 the dissolute adherents of Fashionable Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 But to return — The rage ^ for amusements 
 is so strong in this people, that it seems to 
 
 * A distinguished Prelate, who gained the ear of the 
 Fashionable World to a degree beyond all former example, 
 has adverted to this " rage for amusement" with such 
 
SI 
 
 supersede all exercise of judgment in the choice 
 and the conduct of them. To go every where, 
 see every thing, and know every body, are, in 
 their estimation, objects of such importance, 
 that, in order to accomplish them, they put 
 themselves to the greatest inconveniences, and 
 
 apostolical earnestness at the close of a lecture delivered to 
 perhaps the greatest number of Fashionable people that 
 ever assembled for a similar purpose within the walls of a 
 church, that I shall avail myself of the passage, as well to 
 confirm my statement as t© embellish my pages. 
 
 ** When I consider that the time of the year is now ap- 
 proaching in which the gaieties and amusements of this 
 vast- metropolis are generally engaged in with incredible 
 alacrity and ardor, and multitudes are pouring in from every 
 part of the kingdom to take their share in them ; and when 
 I recollect further that at this very period in the last year a 
 degree of extravagance and wildness of pleasure took place, 
 which gave pain to every serious mind, and was almost 
 unexampled in any former times, I am not, I confess, 
 without some apprehensions that the same scenes of levity 
 and dissipation may again recur ^ and that some of those 
 who now hear me (of the youngest part more especially) 
 may be drawn too far into this Fashionable vortex, and lose 
 in that giddy tumult of diversion all I'emembrance of what 
 has passed in this sacred place." 
 
 £p, Porteus on Si> Mattheiv, vol, ii. Lect. 18,/), 161, 
 
82 
 
 commit the very grossest absurdities. Hence 
 they will rush in crowds to shine where they 
 cannot be seen, to dance where they cannot 
 move, and to converse with friends whom 
 they cannot approach ; and what is more, 
 though they cannot breathe for the pressure, 
 and can scarcely live for the heat, yet they call 
 this — enjoyment. 
 
 Nor does this passion suffer any material 
 abatement by the progress of time. Many ve- 
 terans visit, to the last, the haunts of polite 
 dissipation; they lend their countenance to 
 those dramas of vanity in which they can no 
 longer act a part ; and show their incurable at- 
 tachment to the pleasures of this world, by 
 their unwillingness to decline them. The in- 
 firmities which attend upon the close of life 
 are certainly designed to produce other habits ; 
 and it should seem that when every thing 
 announces an approaching dissolution, the 
 amusements of the drawing-room might give 
 place to the employments of the closet. Per- 
 sons, however, of this description are of an« 
 
83 
 
 other mind; and as every difficulty on the 
 score of teeth, hoariness, and wrinkles, can be 
 removed by the happy expedients of ivory, 
 hair-caps, and cosmetics, there is certainly no 
 physical objection to their continuing among 
 their Fashionable acquaintance, till they are 
 wanted in another world. 
 
 I cannot illustrate this part of my subject 
 better than by presenting my readers with the 
 following Ode on the Spring, written by a 
 man of Fashion j it expresses, with so much 
 exactness, the sentiments and taste of that 
 extraordinary people, that it will stand in the 
 place of a thousand observations upon their 
 character. 
 
84 
 ODE ON THE SPRING. 
 
 BY A MAN OF FASHION. 
 
 LO ! where the party-giving dames, 
 
 Fair Fashion's train appear ; 
 Disclose the long-expected games, 
 
 And wake the modish year : 
 The opera-warbler pours her throat, 
 Responsive to the actor's note, 
 
 The dear-bought harmony of Spring; 
 While, beaming pleasure as they fly. 
 Bright flambeaus through the murky sky 
 
 Their welcome fragrance fling. 
 II. 
 Where'er the rout's full myriads close 
 
 The staircase and the door. 
 Where'er thick files of belles and beaus 
 
 Perspire through ev'ry pore : 
 Beside some faro-table's brink, 
 With me the Muse shall stand ar>d think, 
 
 (Hemm'd sweetly in by squeeze of state,) 
 How vast the comfort of the crowd, 
 How condescending are the proud, 
 
 How happy are the great ! 
 
85 
 III. 
 
 Still is the toiling hand of Care, 
 
 The drays and hacks repose ; 
 But, hark, how through the vacant air 
 
 The rattling clamour glows 1 
 The wanton Miss and rakish Blade, 
 Eager to join the masquerade, 
 Through streets and squares pursue their fun; 
 Home in the dusk some bashful skim ; 
 Some, ling'ring late, their motely trim 
 
 Exhibit to the sun. 
 
 IV. 
 
 « 
 
 To Dissipation's playful eye, 
 
 Such is the life for man ; 
 And they that halt, and they that fly, 
 
 Should have no other plan : 
 Alike the busy and the gay 
 Should sport all night till break of day. 
 
 In Fashion's varying colours drest ; 
 Till seiz'd for debt through rude mischance, 
 Or chill'd by age, they leave the dance, 
 
 In jail or dust— .to rest. 
 
86 
 
 Methinks I hear in accents low* 
 
 Some sober quiz reply, 
 Poor child of Folly I what art thou ? 
 
 A Bond Street butterfly ! 
 Thy choice nor Health nor Nature greets, 
 No taste hast thou of vernal sweets, 
 
 Enslav'd by noise, and dress, and play z 
 Ere thou art to the country flown, 
 The sun will scorch, the Spring be gone, 
 
 Then learc the town in May. 
 
37 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE ESTIMATED. 
 
 I TRUST my reader is by this time sufficiently 
 Acquainted with the general outline of Fashion- 
 able life ; it would only be accumulating ob- 
 servations unnecessarily to enter farther into 
 the subject ; I shall therefore devote the pre- 
 sent chapter to a brief investigation of the state 
 of happiness among a people who, it must be 
 observed, claim to be considered — ^the happiest 
 of their species. 
 
 Happiness is, as moralists agree, a relative 
 expression ; and indicates the excess of the 
 aggregate of good over that of evil in any 
 given condition. The foundation of happiness 
 therefore must be traced to the ideas which 
 those upon whose condition the question turns 
 are accustomed to entertain, of good and evil. 
 §0 that if we wished to ascertain the amount 
 
88 
 
 of happiness in a life of Fashion, we must 
 make our calculation out of those things 
 which constitute respectively good and evil in 
 a Fashionable estimation. I have had occa- 
 sion to observe before, that a Fashionable life 
 is a life of sense ; consequently all the sources 
 of happiness in such a condition must be 
 confined to the pleasures of sense. Now, it 
 must be considered that the pains of sense are 
 at least as numerous as its pleasures j and 
 that, by a law of Providence subject to very 
 few exceptions, those who will have the one, 
 must take their proportion of the other with 
 them. 
 
 This observation is abundantly confirmed 
 by what occurs in the experience of the parties 
 under consideration. The pleasures which 
 men of Fashion derive from the gratification 
 of their animal appetites at the table, the 
 gaming-house, and the brothel, have a very 
 ample set-ofF in the inconveniences which they 
 suffer from arthritic, nervous, and a thousand 
 other painful and retributive complaints. Nor 
 
89 
 
 are the gay and dissipated of the other sex ex- 
 empted from the same contingency of con- 
 stitutional sufFeriug. Beside the common lot 
 of human nature, they have a class of evils of 
 their own procuring; and, by excesses as 
 imprudent as they are immoral, they bring 
 upon themselves a variety of diseases for which 
 neither a name nor a remedy can be found. 
 There are those, it is true, who avoid much 
 of this inconvenience by mixing some dis- 
 cretion with their folly, and setting some 
 bounds to their favourite gratifications : but 
 then it is to be remembered, that these are re- 
 straints which render persons of licentious 
 minds singularly uneasy ; and they may there- 
 fore be considered as administering to pain, 
 nearly in proportion as they abridge indul- 
 gence. 
 
 But supposing that we were to throw these 
 severer items out of the calculation ; there 
 would still remain evils enough in a Fashion- 
 able condition, to keep the scale from prepon- 
 derating on the side of pleasure. To shine in 
 I 2 
 
90 
 
 a ball-room is, no doubt, a high satisfac- 
 tion ; but then to be outshone by another 
 (which is just as likely to happen,) is at least 
 as great a mortification : to be invited to many 
 modish parties, is really delightful j but then 
 to know those who are invited to more than 
 ourselves, is certainly ve^^atious: to find 
 one's-self surrounded by people of the first 
 Fashion, is charming j but then to be dying 
 with heat all the time, is something in the 
 other scale : to wear a coat or a head-dress of 
 the newest invention, is indeed a pleasure of 
 the highest order j but then to see by accident 
 articles of the same mode on the back of a 
 man-milliner, or the head of a lady's maid, is 
 a species of vexation not easily endured. An 
 opera, a play, a party, a night passed at a 
 dance, or at a cassino, or a faro-table, are all 
 events, to be sure, of the happiest occurrence ; 
 but then to be disappointed of one^ makes a 
 deeper impression on the side of pain, than to 
 be gratified with three^ does on that of plea- 
 sure : and disappointments will happen where 
 many objects are pursued, and where the con- 
 
91 
 
 ourrence of many instruments is necessary to 
 their accomplishment. A drunken coach- 
 man, a broken pannel, a sick horse, a saucy 
 footman, a mistaken message, a dull play, 
 indifferent company, a headach, a heartburn, 
 an epidemical disease, or the dread of it, a 
 death in the family, Sunday, Fast-day, Pas- 
 sion-week, and a thousand other provoking 
 casualties, either deprive these entertainments 
 of their power of pleasing, or even set them 
 wholly aside. I should only weary my reader 
 were I to lay before him in detail half the 
 catalogue of those minor distresses which em- 
 barrass the career of a modish life : he must 
 hojvever perceive, from the little which has 
 been said, that every pleasure has its counter- 
 vailing pain ; and that every sacrifice to diver- 
 sion and splendour has its correspondent chas*- 
 tisement in vexation and disgrace. 
 
 Hitherto those principles have been assumed 
 as the basis of calculation, upon which people 
 of Fashion have some advantages in their 
 favour ; but there is another ground upon 
 
9^ 
 
 which (to say the whole truth) it ought to be 
 put, and on which all the advantages are 
 against them. ]\Ian (it is notorious) is a re- 
 fleeting being ; and, do what he will, he mu^t 
 reflect. He may choose an habitual career of 
 sense; but still he must have, whether he 
 seek or shun them, mofnents of Reflection,, 
 This is, I admit, extremely inconvenient, but 
 then it is without a remedy. My business, 
 however, is- not to impugn, or vindicate the 
 existence of such a principle ; but to show its 
 bearings upon such a life as people of Fashion 
 must necessarily lead. Not to enter into par- 
 ticulars, what can constitute a heavier afflic- 
 tion than for a man of Fashion (or, which is 
 the same thing, a man of the world) to be 
 obliged to thinly over again the events of his 
 licentious career; to be persecuted with re- 
 collecting the property he has squandered, 
 the wine he has drunk, the seduction he has 
 practised, and the duels he has fought? These 
 things were well enough at the time, they 
 had their humour and their reputation, and 
 they were not without their pleasure : but 
 
93 
 
 then they were designed to be acted^ and not 
 rejected upon. The woman of Fashion is 
 under the same law, and is therefore exposed 
 to the same mental torments. She, too, 
 must trace back, (though she would give the 
 world to be excused) the steps she has trodden 
 in the enchanting walks of dissipation. She 
 must live over again every portion of a life 
 which, though too fascinating to be declinedj 
 is yet too shocking to be thought of. Her 
 memory, too, must be haunted with frightful 
 scenes, which remind her, at the expense of 
 how much health, and property, and time, 
 and virtue, she has sustained the figure 
 which made her so talked of, and the gaities 
 v/hich rendered her so happy. Now these 
 are real afflictions ; and that Reflection from 
 which they result is, not without reason, felt 
 and acknowledged as the scourge of their ex- 
 istence, by the ingenuous part at least of the 
 Fashionable World. 
 
 Many expedients have indeed been suggested 
 for laying this busy principle asleep, and many 
 
94 
 
 plans struck out for rendering its pangs sup^ 
 portable ; but hitherto without success. For, 
 though it has been proposed to laugh it away, 
 dance it away, drink , it away, or travel it 
 away; yet not one of these projects has an-, 
 swered the end : and Fashionable casuists are 
 as far as ever from finding out a remedy of 
 sufficient potency, to cure, or even abate, in 
 any material degree, the pains of Reflection, 
 
 And here I cannot but remark how griev- 
 ously the seat of this disease (for such it is 
 considered) has been mistaken, by those who 
 have so lightly undertaken to prescribe for its 
 removal. They have manifestly considered 
 it as a disorder of the nerves ; and hence all 
 the remedies which they have recommended 
 are calculated to promote, either by change of 
 scene, or by some other mechanical impulse, 
 a brisker circulation of the animal spirits. The 
 ill success with which each has been attended, 
 sufficiently proclaims the fallacy upon which 
 they all are founded. If Reflection had been 
 pxAy a nervous disturbance, if it had arisen 
 
&5 
 
 out of any disarrangement of the animal eco* 
 nomy, some at least of the Fashionable nos- 
 trums would have dispersed the complaint: 
 whereas it is notorious, that, under every regi- 
 men which has been tried, while the stronger 
 symptoms have disappeared, yet the disorder 
 has remained in the system; and neither Bath, 
 nor Weymouth, nor Tunbridge, nor Town, 
 has ever effected a cure. 
 
 The plain truth is (whatever may be insi- 
 nuated to the contrary by these Medecins <J- 
 la-mode, J that the disease is altogether moral; 
 and, consequently, the seat of it is not in the 
 nerves, but in the Conscience* There is, in 
 fact, nothing new in the complaint; it is in* 
 separably connected with a Fashionable career; 
 and has been more or less the scourge of all, 
 in every age, who have declined the duties 
 which they owe " to God and their inferiors," 
 I take it to have been a malady of the very 
 same description which afflicted Herod in his 
 communication with thd Baptist, and which 
 made Fehx tremble under the reasoning of 
 Paul* It i^s not a litde remarkable, that both 
 
96 
 
 these men of Fashion (for such no doubt they 
 were) fell into the error which has been con- 
 demned, in the treatment of their disease; 
 and each, there is reason to believe, carried it 
 with him to his grave. 
 
 If my reader now adverts to the particulars 
 which have been stated, he will be compelled 
 to draw conclusions not a little humbling to 
 the lofty pretensions of a Fashionable life. In 
 few states of society under its present imper- 
 fection, is happiness very high : and it might 
 not perhaps be very easy to assign the particu- 
 lar condition which embraces it in the greatest 
 proportion. But surely after the discoveries 
 which this discussion has made, we run no 
 risk in affirming, that a life of Fashion is not 
 that condition. The lot of mankind would 
 be wretched indeed, if those were the happiest 
 of the species^ who without exemption from 
 the pains of sense, are excluded from the plea- 
 sures of Reflection : and who, as the price of 
 enjoyments derived from the one^ become sub- 
 ject to the chastisement of both. 
 
97 
 
 CHAP. viir. 
 
 DEFECT OF THE SYSTEM ^PLANS OF REFORM 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 A SYSTEM which does so little for the happi- 
 ness of its members, as that which has been 
 unfolded in the course of this work, must 
 have some radical defect ; and it is worthy of 
 consideration, whether some steps should not 
 be speedily taken, in order to discover the 
 nature of that defect, and to provide a compe- 
 tent remedy for it. 
 
 I am perfectly aware, that it would be most 
 decorous, to let such a measure of inquiry 
 originate in the community to whom it pri- 
 marily relates ; and if I thought there was any 
 chance of the affair being taken up by the 
 body, I should satisfy myself with having 
 intimated the necessity of such a procedure, 
 
98 
 
 and leave the people of Fashion to reform 
 themselves. 
 
 But I will honestly confess, that I see not 
 at present any prospect of such an event. It 
 has not, so far as I can understand, been 
 hinted in those assemblies which legislate for 
 the body, that the system of Fashion requires 
 any revision : nor can I discover, among the 
 projected arrangements for future seasons, any 
 thing like a committee of reform. There is, 
 on the contrary, every reason to believe, that 
 desigrfe of a very different nature occupy the 
 minds of those who influence the community. 
 I very much mistake if it is not their intention, 
 to carry the system more extensively into 
 effect; to make still further conquests upon 
 the puny domains of Wisdom and Virtue j and 
 to evince, by new modes of dissipation and 
 new excuses for adopting them, the endless 
 perfectibility of Folly and Vice. Under such 
 circumstances, it will scarcely be imputed to 
 me as a trespass upon their privileges, if I 
 venture to perform that office for them, 
 
99 
 
 which they are never likely to do for them- 
 selves. 
 
 I scruple not then to affirm, that incon- 
 sistency is the radical fault of the Fashion- 
 able system. This truth is demonstrated by 
 every thing that has been said upon their 
 polity and laws, their religion and morals, 
 their plans of education, and their institutes of 
 life* Under every view which has been taken 
 of this people, they have exhibited appearances 
 truly paradoxical j and been found involved, 
 from the beginning to the end of their career, 
 in the most palpable and extraordinary con- 
 tradictions. The fact indeed is, as their 
 history has shown, that the principles upon 
 which they act, are essentially at variance with 
 each other ; and the effect which these prin- 
 ciples have upon their conduct and their feel- 
 ings, is only such as might be expected, from 
 an everlasting struggle for mastery among 
 them. The hand of this people is given 
 to Self-denial, but their heart to Sensuality ; 
 and the manner in which they are obliged to 
 f equivocate with both, will not allow them the 
 
100 
 
 complete enjoyment of either. The Hbertinism 
 they practise shows them nothing but this 
 world, the piety they profess hides every thing 
 from them but the world to come : thus alter- 
 nately impelled and restrained, deluded and 
 undeceived, they follow what they love, and 
 condemn what they follow ; neither blind 
 enough to be wholly led, nor discerning 
 enough to see their path ; — with too much 
 religion to let them be happy here, and too 
 little to make them so hereafter. 
 
 Now I see but two ways by which this 
 INCONSISTENCY cau be removed; and as I 
 wish to make my work of some use to the 
 people of whom it treats, I shall briefly pro- 
 pose them in their order. 
 
 1. . The Jirst plan of melioration which I 
 would submit to the Fashionable World, is 
 that of renouncing the Christian religion. In 
 recommending this step, I proceed upon a 
 supposition, that the government and laws and 
 manners which now prevail, must at all events 
 
101 
 
 be retained: and upon such a supposition, 
 I contend, that renouncing the Christian reli- 
 gion is a measure of indispensable necessity. 
 For surely if duels must be fought, what can 
 be so preposterous as to swear allegiance to a 
 law which says, " Thou shall not killP^ If 
 injuries must not be forgiven, where is the 
 propriety of -employing a prayer in which the 
 petitioner declares, that he does forgive them ? 
 If the passions are to be gratified^ what end is 
 answered by doing homage to those Scriptures 
 which so peremptorily declare, that they must 
 be mortified? In a word, if swearing, prevari- 
 cation, and sensuality ; if a neglect of " the 
 duties to God and inferiors," be necessary, or 
 even allowable parts of a Fashionable charac- 
 ter ; where is the policy, the virtue, or even 
 the decency, of connecting it with a religion, 
 which stamps these several qualities with the 
 deepest guilt, and threatens them with the 
 severest retribution ? If a religion of some sort 
 be absolutely necessary, let such an one be 
 chosen as may possess a correspondence with 
 the other parts of the system: let it be % 
 
 K % 
 
religion in which pride, and resentment, and 
 lust, may have their necessary scope ; a reli- 
 gion, in short, in which the God of this world 
 may be the idol, and the men of this world 
 the worshippers. Such an arrangement will 
 go a great way towards establishing consist" 
 ency : it will dissolve an union from which 
 both parties are sufferers ; and liberate at once 
 the people of Fashion from a profession which 
 involves them in contradiction, and Christia- 
 nity from a connexion which covers her with 
 disgrace. 
 
 2. If, on the contrary, it should be thought 
 material (as I trust it will) to retain Chris^ 
 tianity at all events^ the plan of reform must 
 be exactly inverted; and the sacrifices taken 
 from those laws, and maxims, and habits, 
 which interfere with the spirit and the injunc- 
 tions of that holy religion. It is altogether 
 out of the character of Christianity to act a 
 subservient or an accommodating part. Her 
 nature, her office, and her object, are all deci- 
 dedly adverse to that base alliance into which it 
 
103 
 
 has been attempted to degrade her. Pure and 
 spotless as her native skies, she delights in 
 hohness ; because God, from whose bosom 
 she came, is holy. Girt with power, and de- 
 signed for dominion, she claims the heart as 
 her throne, and all the affections as the mi- 
 nisters of her will : nor does she consider her 
 ©bject accomplished until she has cast down 
 every lofty imagination, extinguished every 
 rebellious lust, and brought into captivity 
 every thought to the obedience of Christ. It 
 is obvious, therefore, that, if she is to be re- 
 tained at all, it must be upon her own 
 terms ; and those terms will manifestly re- 
 quire an utter renunciation of every measure 
 which, under the former plan, it was pro- 
 posed to retain. Duels must now no longer 
 be fought, nor injuries resentfully pursued, 
 nor licentious passions deliberately gratified. 
 Swearing must be banished from the lips, pre- 
 varication from the thoughts, sensuality from 
 the heart ; and that law be expunged which 
 dispenses with " the duties to God and infe- 
 riors," in order to make way for that immuta- 
 ble statute which enjoins them. 
 
104 
 
 It must not be dissembled, that, in the pro* 
 grass of such a reform, certain inconveniences 
 will be necessarily encountered ; but these will 
 be speedily compensated by an influx of real 
 and permanent advantages. The pangs which 
 accompanied the " death unto sin," will be 
 soon forgotten in the pleasures which result 
 from a " life unto righteousness ;" and the 
 peace and hope which abound in the way, will 
 efface the recollection of those agonistic efforts 
 by wh^ch it was entered. 
 
 In the mean time all things will be done 
 with decency and order. The whole economy 
 of life and conduct will be scrupulously con- 
 sulted ; and sueh arrangements introduced as 
 will make the several parts and details corres- 
 pond and harmonize with each other. Duty 
 and recreation will have their proper characters, 
 and times, and places, and limits. Every thing, 
 in short, will be preserved in the system which 
 can facilitate intercourse without impairing 
 virtue; and nothing be struck out but what 
 administers to vanity, duplicity, and vice. 
 
105 
 
 Whether changes of such magnitude as 
 those which I have described, will ever take 
 place upon an extensive scale, I cannot pretend 
 to conjecture ; but certain I am, that, if ever 
 they should, not only the Fashionable World, 
 but society at large, will be very much the 
 better for them. Greatly as I wish " the Re- 
 formation of manners," and " the Suppres- 
 sion of Vice," I see insuperable obstacles to 
 each of these events, while rank, and station, 
 and wealth, throw their mighty influence into 
 the opposite scale. Then — and not till then — > 
 will Christianity receive the homage she de- 
 serves, and produce the blessings she has 
 promised — when " the makers of our man- 
 ners" shall submit to her authority ; and the 
 PEOPLE of Fashion become the people of 
 God. 
 
 JINIS. 
 
J. OSBORN, 
 
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