Fellow, in disappointing so many Places as he was invited to elsewhere.  It is the Fop’s Vanity to name Houses of better Chear, and to acquaint you that he chose yours out of ten Dinners which he was obliged to be at that Day.  The last Time I had the Fortune to eat with him, he was imagining how very fat he should have been had he eaten all he had ever been invited to.  But it is impertinent to dwell upon the Manners of such a Wretch as obliges all whom he disappoints, though his Circumstances constrain them to be civil to him.  But there are those that every one would be glad to see, who fall into the same detestable Habit.  It is a merciless thing that any one can be at Ease, and suppose a Set of People who have a Kindness for him, at that Moment waiting out of Respect to him, and refusing to taste their Food or Conversation with the utmost Impatience.  One of these Promisers sometimes shall make his Excuses for not coming at all, so late that half the Company have only to lament, that they have neglected Matters of Moment to meet him whom they find a Trifler.  They immediately repent of the Value they had for him; and such Treatment repeated, makes Company never depend upon his Promise any more; so that he often comes at the Middle of a Meal, where he is secretly slighted by the Persons with whom he eats, and cursed by the Servants, whose Dinner is delayed by his prolonging their Master’s Entertainment.  It is wonderful, that Men guilty this Way, could never have observed, that the whiling Time, the gathering together, and waiting a little before Dinner, is the most awkwardly passed away of any Part in the four and twenty Hours.  If they did think at all, they would reflect upon their Guilt, in lengthning such a Suspension of agreeable Life.  The constant offending this Way, has, in a Degree, an Effect upon the Honesty of his Mind who is guilty of it, as common Swearing is a kind of habitual Perjury:  It makes the Soul unattentive to what an Oath is, even while it utters it at the Lips. Phocion beholding a wordy Orator while he was making a magnificent Speech to the People full of vain Promises, Methinks, said he, I am now fixing my Eyes upon a Cypress Tree, it has all the Pomp and Beauty imaginable in its Branches, Leaves, and Height, but alas it bears no Fruit.

Though the Expectation which is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on.  I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho’ they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by their Vivacities; but indeed I cannot let heedless Promisers, though in the most minute Circumstances, pass with so slight a Censure.  If a Man should take a Resolution to pay only Sums above an hundred Pounds, and yet contract with different People Debts of five and ten, how long can we suppose he will keep his Credit?  This Man will as long support his good Name in Business, as he will in Conversation, who without Difficulty makes Assignations which he is indifferent whether he keeps or not.