open their
lips, {50}but are frightened even if she frowns. Old bachelors, in this,
resemble your pretenders to atheism, who make a mock in public of
what in private they tremble at and fall down to. When they become
superannuated, they set up for suitors, they ogle through spectacles,
and sing love songs to ladies with catarrhs by way of symphonies,
and they address a young lady with, "Come, my dear, I'll put on my
spectacles and pin your handkerchief for you; I'll sing you a love song;
'How can you, lovely Nancy!'" &c. [_Laughs aloud._] How droll to hear
the dotards aping youth, And talk of love's delights without a tooth!
[_Gives the head off._]

{51}It is something odd that ladies shall have their charms all abroad
in this manner [_takes the head_], and the very next moment this shall
come souse over their _heads_, like an extinguisher. [_Pulls the calash
over._] This is a hood in high taste at the upper end of the town; and
this [_takes the head_] a hood in high taste at the lower end of the
town. Not more different are these two heads in their dresses than
they are in their manner of conversation: this makes use of a delicate
dialect, it being thought polite pronunciation to say instead of cannot,
_ca'ant_; must not _ma'ant_; shall not, _sha'ant_, This clipping
of letters would be extremely detrimental to the current coin of
conversation, did not these good dames make ample amends by adding
supernumerary syllables when they talk of _break-fastes_, and
_toastesses_, and running their heads against the postasses to avoid
the wild _beastesses_. These female orators, brought up at the bar
of Billingsgate, have a peculiar way of expressing themselves, which,
however indelicate it may seem to more civilized ears, is exactly
conformable to the way of ancient oratory. The difference between
ancient and modern oratory consists in saying something or nothing to
the purpose. Some people talk without saying any thing; some people
{52}don't care what they say; some married men would be glad to have
nothing to say to their wives; and some husbands would be full as glad
if their wives had not any thing to say to them. [_ Gives the head
off._] Ancient oratory is the gift of just persuasion; modern oratory
the knack of putting words, not things, together; for speech-makers now
are estimated, not by the merit, but by the length of their harangues;
they are minuted as we do galloping horses, and their goodness rated
according as th