 Streets, Shops, and
Coffee-houses: Nor are they shewn, like the upper Rank of Animals, for so much a
Piece. In short, this is a Sight to which no Persons are admitted, without one
or other of these Qualifications, viz. either Birth or Fortune; or what is
equivalent to both, the honourable Profession of a Gamester. And very unluckily
for the World, Persons so qualified, very seldom care to take upon themselves
the bad Trade of Writing; which is generally entered upon by the lower and
poorer Sort, as it is a Trade which many think requires no Kind of Stock to set
up with.
    Hence those strange Monsters in Lace and Embroidery, in Silks and Brocades,
with vast Wigs and Hoops; which, under the Name of Lords and Ladies, strut the
Stage, to the great Delight of Attornies and their Clerks in the Pit, and of the
Citizens and their Apprentices in the Galleries; and which are no more to be
found in real Life, than the Centaur, the Chimera, or any other Creature of mere
Fiction. But to let my Reader into a Secret, this Knowledge of upper Life,
though very necessary for preventing Mistakes, is no very great Resource to a
Writer whose Province is Comedy, or that Kind of Novels, which, like this I am
writing, is of the comic Class.
    What Mr. Pope says of Women is very applicable to most in this Station, who
are indeed so entirely made up of Form and Affectation, that they have no
Character at all, at least, none which appears. I will venture to say the
highest Life is much the dullest, and affords very little Humour or
Entertainment. The various Callings in lower Spheres produce the great Variety
of humorous Characters; whereas here, except among the few who are engaged in
the Pursuit of Ambition, and the fewer still who have a Relish for Pleasure, all
is Vanity and servile Imitation. Dressing and Cards, eating and drinking, bowing
and curtesying, make up the Business of their Lives.
    Some there are however of this Rank, upon whom Passion exercises its
Tyranny, and hurries them far beyond the Bounds which Decorum prescribes; of
these, the Ladies are as much distinguished by their noble Intrepidity, and a
certain superior Contempt of Reputation, from the frail ones of meaner Degree,
as a virtuous Woman of Quality is by the Elegance and Delicacy of her Sentiments
from the honest Wife of a Yeoman or Shopkeeper. Lady Bellaston was of this
intrepid Character; but let not my Country Readers conclude from her, that this
is the general
