with business, any farther than to go down to Weftminfter one feffions to vote for a bill, and the next to repeal it. Nor do they trouble themselves with literary debates, as at the Bedford. Learning is beneath the notice of a man of quality. They employ themselves more fashionably at whist for the trifle of a thousand pounds the rubber, or by making bets on the lye of the day. FROM this very genteel place the reader must not be furprifed, if I fhould convey him to a cellar, or a common porter-house. For as it is my province to delineate and remark on mankind in general, whoever becomes my difciple must not refuse to follow me from the Star and Garter to the Goofe and Gridiron, and be content to climb after me up to an author's garret, or give me leave to introduce him to a route. In my prefent curfory view of The Town I have, indeed, confined myself principally to coffee-houses; though I conftantly vifit all places, that afford any matter for fpeculation. I am a Scotchman at Forreft's, a Frenchman at Slaughter's, and at the Cocoa-Tree I am— -an ENGLISHMAN. At the Robin Hood I am a politician, a logician, a geometrician, a physician, a metaphyfician, a casuist, a moralist, a theologist, a mythologist, or any thing but an Atheift. Wherever the WORLD WORLD is, I am. You will therefore hear of me fometimes at the theatres, fometimes perhaps at the opera: Nor fhall I think the exhibitions of Sadler's Wells, or the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, beneath my notice; but may one day of other give a differtation upon Tumbling, or (if they should again become popular) a critique on Dogs and Monkeys. THOUGH the Town is the walk I fhall generally appear in, let it not be imagined, that vice and folly will shoot up unnoticed in the country. My coufin VILLAGE has undertaken that province, and will fend me the fresheft advices of every fault or foible that takes root there. But as it is my chief ambition to please and inftruct the ladies, I fhall embrace every opportunity of devoting my labours to their service: and I may with justice congratulate myself upon the happinefs of living in an age, when the female part of the world are fo ftudious to find employment for a CENSOR. THE character of Mr. Town is, I flatter myself, too well known to need an explanation. How far, and in what fenfe, I propose to be a CONNOISSEUR, the reader will gather from my general motto: B 5 Non Nec malè necne Lepos faltet; fed quod magis ad nos Pertinet, et nefcire malum eft, agitamus. HOR. Who better knows to build, and who to dance, As CRITIC and CENSOR-GENERAL, I shall take the liberty to animadvert on every thing, that appears to me vicious or ridiculous; always endeavouring" to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour મંદ up to Nature, to fhew Virtue her own feature, "Scorn her own image, and the very Age and body of the Time his form and preffure. Τ NUMB. NUMB. II. Thursday, February 7, 1754. Commiffa quod auctio vendit Stantibus, oenophorum, tripodes, armaria, ciftas. Maim'd ftatues, rufty medals, marbles old, Juv. HAVE already received letters from several concern at my disappointing the warm hopes they had conceived of my undertaking from the title of my paper. They tell me, that by deferting the paths of Virtù, I at once neglect the public intereft and my own; that by fupporting the character of CONNOISSEUR in its ufual fenfe, I might have obtained very confiderable falaries from the principal auction-rooms, toy-shops, and repofitories; and might befides very plaufibly have recommended myself as the propereft perfon in the world, to be keeper of Sir Hans Sloane's Museum. I CANNOT be infenfible of the importance of this capital bufinefs of Tafte, and how much reputation as well as profit would accrue to my labours, by confining them to the minutest refearches into nature and art, and poring over the ruft of antiquity. I very well know, that the discovery of a new Zoophyte, or fpecies of the Polype, would be as valuable as that of the Longitude. The cabinets of the curious would furnifh out matter for my effays, more inftructing than all the learned lumber of a Vatican. Of what consequence would it be, to point out the diftinctions of originals from copies fo precisely, that the paltry scratchings of a modern may never hereafter be palmed on a Connoisseur for the labours of a Rembrandt! I fhould command applaufe from the adorers of antiquity, were I to demonftrate, that merit never exifted but in the fchools of the old painters, never flourished but in the warm climate of Italy: And how fhould I rife in the esteem of my countrymen, by chastising the arrogance of an Englishman in prefuming to determine the Analyfis of Beauty! AT other times I might take occasion to shew my fagacity in conjectures on rusty coins and illegible marbles. What profound erudition is contained in an half-obliterated antique piece of copper! TRAJ. IMP. P. VII. COSS. MAX. *** TREB. V. P. P. S. C.; and how merveillous, mok courteous and ryghte worthge 1 |