ts of good
Sense and Struggles of unimproved Reason in the Conversation of a Clown,
with as much Satisfaction as the most shining Periods of the most
finished Orator; and can make a shift to command my Attention at a
_Puppet-Show_ or an _Opera_, as well as at _Hamlet_ or _Othello_. I
always make one of the Company I am in; for though I say little myself,
my Attention to others, and those Nods of Approbation which I never
bestow unmerited, sufficiently shew that I am among them. Whereas WILL.
HONEYCOMB, tho' a Fellow of good Sense, is every Day doing and saying an
hundred Things which he afterwards confesses, with a well-bred
Frankness, were somewhat _mal a propos_, and undesigned.

I chanced the other Day to go into a Coffee-house, where WILL, was
standing in the midst of several Auditors whom he had gathered round
him, and was giving them an Account of the Person and Character of _Moll
Hinton_. My Appearance before him just put him in mind of me, without
making him reflect that I was actually present. So that keeping his Eyes
full upon me, to the great Surprize of his Audience, he broke off his
first Harangue, and proceeded thus:

'Why now there's my Friend (mentioning me by my Name) he is a Fellow
that thinks a great deal, but never opens his Mouth; I warrant you he
is now thrusting his short Face into some Coffee-house about
_'Change_. I was his Bail in the time of the _Popish-Plot_, when he
was taken up for a Jesuit.'

If he had looked on me a little longer, he had certainly described me so
particularly, without ever considering what led him into it, that the
whole Company must necessarily have found me out; for which Reason,
remembering the old Proverb, _Out of Sight out of Mind_, I left the
Room; and upon meeting him an Hour afterwards, was asked by him, with a
great deal of Good-humour, in what Part of the World I had lived, that
he had not seen me these three Days.

Monsieur _Bruyere_ has given us the Character of _an absent_ Man [2],
with a great deal of Humour, which he has pushed to an agreeable
Extravagance; with the Heads of it I shall conclude my present Paper.

'_Menalcas_ (says that excellent Author) comes down in a Morning,
opens his Door to go out, but shuts it again, because he perceives
that he has his Night-cap on; and examining himself further finds that
he is but half-shaved, that he has stuck his Sword on his right Side,
that his Stockings are about his Heels, and that hi