wearers; and
the lump of these may, I think, be very aptly divided into the common
distinction of high and low. Dulness and barrenness of thought is the
original of it in both these sects, and they differ only in
constitution: the low is generally a phlegmatic, and the high a choleric
coxcomb. The man of phlegm is sensible of the emptiness of his
discourse, and will tell you, that "I'fackins," such a thing is true: or
if you warm him a little, he may run into passion, and cry,
"Odsbodikins," you do not say right. But the high affects a sublimity in
dulness, and invokes hell and damnation at the breaking of a glass, or
the slowness of a drawer.

I was the other day trudging along Fleet Street on foot, and an old army
friend came up with me. We were both going towards Westminster, and
finding the streets were so crowded that we could not keep together, we
resolved to club for a coach. This gentleman I knew to be the first of
the order of the choleric. I must confess (were there no crime in it),
nothing could be more diverting than the impertinence of the high juror:
for whether there is remedy or not against what offends him, still he
is to show he is offended; and he must sure not omit to be
magnificently passionate, by falling on all things in his way. We were
stopped by a train of coaches at Temple Bar. "What the devil!" says my
companion, "cannot you drive on, coachman? D----n you all, for a set of
sons of whores, you will stop here to be paid by the hour! There is not
such a set of confounded dogs as the coachmen unhanged! But these
rascally Cits---- 'Ounds, why should not there be a tax to make these
dogs widen their gates? Oh! but the hell-hounds move at last." "Ay,"
said I, "I knew you would make them whip on if once they heard you."
"No," says he; "but would it not fret a man to the devil, to pay for
being carried slower than he can walk? Lookee, there is for ever a stop
at this hole by St. Clement's Church. Blood, you dog!--Harkee,
sirrah,--why, and be d----d to you, do not you drive over that fellow?
Thunder, furies, and damnation! I'll cut your ears off, you fellow
before there. Come hither, you dog you, and let me wring your neck round
your shoulders." We had a repetition of the same eloquence at the
Cockpit,[108] and the turning into Palace Yard.

This gave me a perfect image of the insignificancy of the creatures who
practise this enormity; and made me conclude, that it is ever want of
sense makes a man g