That as the Young Ladies are the best companions
of the Young Gentlemen, so the Young Gentlemen should
be the best companions of the Young Ladies; and extending
the comparison from animals (to quote the disrespectful
language of the said Quiz) to inanimate objects, your
Dedicator humbly suggests, that such of your Honourable
sex as purchased the bane should possess themselves
of the antidote, and that those of your Honourable
sex who were not rash enough to take the first, should
lose no time in swallowing the last,-prevention being
in all cases better than cure, as we are informed
upon the authority, not only of general acknowledgment,
but also of traditionary wisdom.
That with reference to the said bane and antidote,
your Dedicator has no further remarks to make, than
are comprised in the printed directions issued with
Doctor Morison’s pills; namely, that whenever
your Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1,
you will be pleased to take fifty of Number 2, without
delay.
And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &c.
We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the
other day, opposite a stranger of such singular appearance
and manner, that he irresistibly attracted our attention.
This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as
good a promise of light whisker as one might wish
to see, and possessed of a very velvet-like, soft-looking
countenance. We do not use the latter term invidiously,
but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump, highly-coloured
cheeks of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather
remarkable for the fresh hue of the lips than for any
marked or striking expression it presented.
His whole face was suffused with a crimson blush,
and bore that downcast, timid, retiring look, which
betokens a man ill at ease with himself.
There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more
than a passing remark, but our attention had been
originally drawn to the bashful young gentleman, on
his first appearance in the drawing-room above-stairs,
into which he was no sooner introduced, than making
his way towards us who were standing in a window,
and wholly neglecting several persons who warmly accosted
him, he seized our hand with visible emotion, and
pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good couple
of minutes, after which he dived in a nervous manner
across the room, oversetting in his way a fine little
girl of six years and a quarter old-and shrouding
himself behind some hangings, was seen no more, until
the eagle eye of the hostess detecting him in his
concealment, on the announcement of dinner, he was
requested to pair off with a lively single lady, of
two or three and thirty.
This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger,
would have gratified us not a little as a token of
his having held us in high respect, and for that reason
been desirous of our acquaintance, if we had not suspected
from the first, that the young gentleman, in making
a desperate effort to get through the ceremony of
introduction, had, in the bewilderment of his ideas,
shaken hands with us at random. This impression
was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of
the bashful young gentleman in question, which we
noted particularly, with the view of ascertaining whether
we were right in our conjecture.
