Your obliged humble Servant,
Will. Fashion.’
[A like [3]] Impertinence is also very troublesome
to the superior and more intelligent Part of the fair
Sex. It is, it seems, a great Inconvenience,
that those of the meanest Capacities will pretend to
make Visits, tho’ indeed they are qualify’d
rather to add to the Furniture of the House (by filling
an empty Chair) than to the Conversation they come
into when they visit. A Friend of mine hopes for
Redress in this Case, by the Publication of her Letter
in my Paper; which she thinks those she would be rid
of will take to themselves. It seems to be written
with an Eye to one of those pert giddy unthinking
Girls, who, upon the Recommendation only of an agreeable
Person and a fashionable Air, take themselves to be
upon a Level with Women of the greatest Merit.
Madam,
’I take this Way to acquaint you
with what common Rules and Forms would never permit
me to tell you otherwise; to wit, that you and I,
tho’ Equals in Quality and Fortune, are by
no Means suitable Companions. You are, ’tis
true, very pretty, can dance, and make a very good
Figure in a publick Assembly; but alass, Madam, you
must go no further; Distance and Silence are your
best Recommendations; therefore let me beg of you
never to make me any more Visits. You come in
a literal Sense to see one, for you have nothing to
say. I do not say this that I would by any
Means lose your Acquaintance; but I would keep it
up with the Strictest Forms of good Breeding.
Let us pay Visits, but never see one another:
If you will be so good as to deny your self always
to me, I shall return the Obligation by giving the
same Orders to my Servants. When Accident makes
us meet at a third Place, we may mutually lament
the Misfortune of never finding one another at home,
go in the same Party to a Benefit-Play, and smile at
each other and put down Glasses as we pass in our
Coaches. Thus we may enjoy as much of each
others Friendship as we are capable: For there
are some People who are to be known only by Sight,
with which sort of Friendship I hope you will always
honour,
Madam,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
Mary Tuesday.
P.S. I subscribe my self by the Name
of the Day I keep, that my
supernumerary Friends may know who I am.
[Footnote 1: these People]
[Footnote 2: Clinch of Barnet, whose place of
performance was at the corner of Bartholomew Lane,
behind the Royal Exchange, imitated, according to
his own advertisement,
’the Horses, the Huntsmen and a
Pack of Hounds, a Sham Doctor, an old
Woman, the Bells, the Flute, the Double
Curtell (or bassoon) and the
Organ,—all with his own Natural
Voice, to the greatest perfection.’
The price of admission was a shilling.]
[Footnote 3: This]
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