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Page 13
CHAPTER TEN
A DISCOVERY OF SOME MATTERS CONCERNING THE CHASTE LAETITIA WHICH
MUST WONDERFULLY SURPRISE, AND PERHAPS AFFECT, OUR READER.
Mr. Wild was no sooner departed than the fair conqueress, opening
the door of a closet, called forth a young gentleman whom she had
there enclosed at the approach of the other. The name of this
gallant was Tom Smirk. He was clerk to an attorney, and was indeed
the greatest beau and the greatest favourite of the ladies at the
end of the town where he lived. As we take dress to be the
characteristic or efficient quality of a beau, we shall, instead
of giving any character of this young gentleman, content ourselves
with describing his dress only to our readers. He wore, then, a
pair of white stockings on his legs, and pumps on his feet: his
buckles were a large piece of pinchbeck plate, which almost
covered his whole foot. His breeches were of red plush, which
hardly reached his knees; his waistcoat was a white dimity, richly
embroidered with yellow silk, over which he wore a blue plush coat
with metal buttons, a smart sleeve, and a cape reaching half way
down his back. His wig was of a brown colour, covering almost half
his pate, on which was hung on one side a little laced hat, but
cocked with great smartness. Such was the accomplished Smirk, who,
at his issuing forth from the closet, was received with open arms
by the amiable Laetitia. She addressed him by the tender name of
dear Tommy, and told him she had dismissed the odious creature
whom her father intended for her husband, and had now nothing to
interrupt her happiness with him.
Here, reader, thou must pardon us if we stop a while to lament the
capriciousness of Nature in forming this charming part of the
creation designed to complete the happiness of man; with their
soft innocence to allay his ferocity, with their sprightliness to
soothe his cares, and with their constant friendship to relieve
all the troubles and disappointments which can happen to him.
Seeing then that these are the blessings chiefly sought after and
generally found in every wife, how must we lament that disposition
in these lovely creatures which leads them to prefer in their
favour those individuals of the other sex who do not seem intended
by nature as so great a masterpiece! For surely, however useful
they may be in the creation, as we are taught that nothing, not
even a louse, is made in vain, yet these beaus, even that most
splendid and honoured part which in this our island nature loves
to distinguish in red, are not, as some think, the noblest work of
the Creator. For my own part, let any man chuse to himself two
beaus, let them be captains or colonels, as well-dressed men as
ever lived, I would venture to oppose a single Sir Isaac Newton, a
Shakespear, a Milton, or perhaps some few others, to both these
beaus; nay, and I very much doubt whether it had not been better
for the world in general that neither of these beaus had ever been
born than that it should have wanted the benefit arising to it
from the labour of any one of those persons.
If this be true, how melancholy must be the consideration that any
single beau, especially if he have but half a yard of ribbon in
his hat, shall weigh heavier in the scale of female affection than
twenty Sir Isaac Newtons! How must our reader, who perhaps had
wisely accounted for the resistance which the chaste Laetitia had
made to the violent addresses of the ravished (or rather
ravishing) Wild from that lady's impregnable virtue--how must he
blush, I say, to perceive her quit the strictness of her carriage,
and abandon herself to those loose freedoms which she indulged to
Smirk! But alas! when we discover all, as to preserve the fidelity
of our history we must, when we relate that every familiarity had
past between them, and that the FAIR Laetitia (for we must, in
this single instance, imitate Virgil when he drops the pius and
the pater, and drop our favourite epithet of chaste), the FAIR
Laetitia had, I say, made Smirk as happy as Wild desired to be,
what must then be our reader's confusion! We will, therefore, draw
a curtain over this scene, from that philogyny which is in us, and
proceed to matters which, instead of dishonouring the human
species, will greatly raise and ennoble it.
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