thy only purpose in speaking, to show your
teeth? Rub them no longer, dear Shoestring: do not premeditate murder:
do not for ever whiten: Oh! that for my quiet and his own they were
rotten. But I will forget him, and give my hand to the courteous Umbra;
he is a fine man indeed, but the soft creature bows below my
apron-string before he takes it; but after the first ceremonies, he is
as familiar as my physician, and his insignificancy makes me half ready
to complain to him of all I would to my doctor. But he is so courteous,
that he carries half the messages of ladies' ails in town to their
midwives and nurses. He understands too the art of medicine as far as to
the cure of a pimple or a rash. On occasions of the like importance, he
is the most assiduous of all men living, in consulting and searching
precedents from family to family; and then he speaks of his
obsequiousness and diligence in the style of real services. If you sneer
at him, and thank him for his great friendship, he bows, and says,
"Madam, all the good offices in my power, while I have any knowledge or
credit, shall be at your service." The consideration of so shallow a
being, and the intent application with which he pursues trifles, has
made me carefully reflect upon that sort of men we usually call an
Impertinent: and I am, upon mature deliberation, so far from being
offended with him, that I am really obliged to him; for though he will
take you aside, and talk half an hour to you upon matters wholly
insignificant with the most solemn air, yet I consider, that these
things are of weight in his imagination, and he thinks he is
communicating what is for my service. If therefore it be a just rule to
judge of a man by his intention, according to the equity of good
breeding, he that is impertinently kind or wise, to do you service,
ought in return to have a proportionable place both in your affection
and esteem; so that the courteous Umbra deserves the favour of all his
acquaintance; for though he never served them, he is ever willing to do
it, and believes he does it. But as impotent kindness is to be returned
with all our abilities to oblige, so impotent malice is to be treated
with all our force to depress it. For this reason Flyblow (who is
received in all the families in town through the degeneracy and iniquity
of their manners) is to be treated like a knave, though he is one of the
weakest of fools: he has by rote, and at second-hand, all that can be
sa