me to your friends and relations?" She answered, "He has been
thus but a fortnight." I am the most serious man in the world to look
at, and yet could not forbear laughing out. "Why, madam, in case of
infirmity, which proceeds only from age, the law gives no remedy."
"Sir," said she, "I find you have no more learning than Dr. Case;[237]
and I am told of a young man, not five and twenty, just come from
Oxford, to whom I will communicate this whole matter, and doubt not but
he will appear to have seven times more useful and satisfactory
knowledge than you and all your boasted family." Thus I have entirely
lost my client: but if this tedious narrative preserves Pastorella from
the intended marriage with one twenty years her senior--To save a fine
lady, I am contented to have my learning decried, and my predictions
bound up with Poor Robin's Almanacks.

Will's Coffee-house, May 25.

This evening was acted, "The Recruiting Officer,"[238] in which Mr.
Estcourt's[239] proper sense and observation is what supports the play.
There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Sergeant Kite; but
it is admirably supplied by his action. If I have skill to judge, that
man is an excellent actor; but the crowd of the audience are fitter for
representations at Mayfair, than a theatre royal. Yet that fair is now
broke,[240] as well as the theatre is breaking: but it is allowed still
to sell animals there. Therefore, if any lady or gentleman have occasion
for a tame elephant, let them inquire of Mr. Pinkethman, who has one to
dispose of at a reasonable rate.[241] The downfall of Mayfair has quite
sunk the price of this noble creature, as well as of many other
curiosities of nature. A tiger will sell almost as cheap as an ox; and I
am credibly informed, a man may purchase a cat with three legs, for very
near the value of one with four. I hear likewise, that there is a great
desolation among the gentlemen and ladies who were the ornaments of the
town, and used to shine in plumes and diadems; the heroes being most of
them pressed, and the queens beating hemp. Mrs. Sarabrand, so famous for
her ingenious puppet-show, has set up a shop in the Exchange,[242] where
she sells her little troop under the term of jointed babies.[243] I
could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that
rake-hell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much
scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She
to