The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899.

The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899.
why he should not make use of their favour, and set himself in the first degree of conversation.  Therefore he is very successfully loud among the wits, familiar among the ladies, and dissolute among the rakes.  Thus he is admitted in one place, because he is so in another; and every man treats Brunett well, not out of his particular esteem for him, but in respect to the opinion of others.  It is to me a solid pleasure to see the world thus mistaken on the good-natured side; for it is ten to one but the colonel mounts into a general officer, marries a fine lady, and is master of a good estate, before they come to explain upon him.  What gives most delight to me in this observation, is, that all this arises from pure nature, and the colonel can account for his success no more than those by whom he succeeds.  For these causes and considerations, I pronounce him a true woman’s man, and in the first degree, “a very pretty fellow.”  The next to a man of this universal genius, is one who is peculiarly formed for the service of the ladies, and his merit chiefly is to be of no consequence.  I am indeed a little in doubt, whether he ought not rather to be called a “very happy,” than a “very pretty” fellow?  For he is admitted at all hours:  all he says or does, which would offend in another, are passed over in him; and all actions and speeches which please, doubly please if they come from him:  no one wonders or takes notice when he is wrong; but all admire him when he is in the right.  By the way it is fit to remark, that there are people of better sense than these, who endeavour at this character; but they are out of nature; and though, with some industry, they get the characters of fools, they cannot arrive to be “very,” seldom to be merely “pretty fellows.”  But where nature has formed a person for this station amongst men, he is gifted with a peculiar genius for success, and his very errors and absurdities contribute to it; this felicity attending him to his life’s end.  For it being in a manner necessary that he should be of no consequence, he is as well in old age as youth; and I know a man, whose son has been some years a pretty fellow, who is himself at this hour a “very” pretty fellow.  One must move tenderly in this place, for we are now in the ladies’ lodgings, and speaking of such as are supported by their influence and favour; against which there is not, neither ought there to be, any dispute or observation.  But when we come into more free air, one may talk a little more at large.  Give me leave then to mention three, whom I do not doubt but we shall see make considerable figures; and these are such as, for their Bacchanalian performances, must be admitted into this order.  They are three brothers lately landed from Holland:  as yet, indeed, they have not made their public entry, but lodge and converse at Wapping.  They have merited already on the waterside particular titles:  the first is called Hogshead; the second Culverin; and the third Musket.  This fraternity is preparing
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The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.