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cess, and accordingly I have been using the means. The lady whom I mentioned above is very decent all the week, but, according to our country fashion, dresses best on a Sunday; and so I spend an hour every Sunday morning in looking upon a sort of habit which they call a brocade, which she generally wears on that day. But I have still some dreadful apprehensions of seeing you dressed, and I hope you will mercifully provide against them. I am charmed with the thoughts of spending another day with my cousin Robson; but then you tell me, I must furnish myself with something to make my company agreeable. Alas! madam, you quite mistake my abilities. My modesty and other imperfections instruct me to be on the obscure side; and at best you know there is very little gallantry to be expected from a scholar. I have not had an opportunity of making many observations upon the female world: but I am ready to imagine, from the little I have seen, that a man may have read all Aristotle's works, except his masterpiece, and all Plato's, but his pun upon kissing, and yet not be at all fit to entertain a room full of ladies. However, there is a book called the Lady's Cabinet Opened, and another Callipædia, which, it seems, they are extremely fond of; and I design to set apart a whole week before the vacation for the perusal of them. But I am afraid they will not carry me completely through; and so I think to wait upon you and mamma the first week that I come to town; then, madam, you will fix the time of

my meeting with my cousins, and give me some instructions how to entertain them: which will be received with the utmost respect and observance by

Madam,

Your most dutiful Nephew, and

obedient humble Servant,

P. DODDRIDGE.

P.S. My homily upon Love is not yet finished so far from that, it is not yet begun. I am very sorry that you would not favour me with your thoughts upon a subject to which it is impossible you should be a stranger. I am forced to go about it without any manner of female assistance, and so I am afraid I shall make but little of it. However, I shall go to work in a few days, and hope when I come to London that it will be ready to kiss your fair hands. My humble duty to mamma; service to my sister and cousin Robson. You tell me, they have been nearer Death than Marriage. Poor ladies! I am extremely glad they are recovered; and hope that they were spared in mercy to the rising generation. I remember I viewed their eyes with a great deal of attention, and could not discover any danger of death to themselves, though there might be a great deal to those that gazed at them without very philosophical precaution. When I see them again I will take them under more exact examination. In the mean time, madam, take care of your own eyes, which seem calculated to do a world of mischief.

TO MR. WHITTINGHAM.

April 17, 1722. Ir is a sign I have a great respect for Mr. Whittingham that I am sitting down to answer his letter when I have such a world of business upon my hands; for to tell you, what perhaps you will hardly believe, I am this week to discharge the two very different functions of a preacher and a player! Certainly, if I would support either of these characters, I ought to begin with a very pathetical declamation against your Worship, for staying six months before you answered my last. However, considering that you are so very penitent, and promise to be so good for the future, We here send you Our pardon under Our hand and seal! or, to speak more decently, I am so fond of your correspondence, that I am willing to resume it at any rate.

One thing I must premise before we proceed any further, and that is, that I make it a bargain with all my friends not to criticise upon my writings, as I generally write pretty long letters, and having a great deal of other business, I am forced to scribble very fast.

If Mr. Wood has not forgotten me, I desire that you would give my service to him the next time you write or see him, and would say that I am extremely pleased with the thoughts of seeing him at Whitsuntide; and should take it as a particular favour, if he could contrive his business so

as to have time to spend a day or two with me at Hampstead.

I think this is all the answer your few lines require. But I fancy there is a line in the beginning of this letter, which requires a chapter extraordinary. You certainly want to know what I mean by preaching and playing! so I will tell you. Our class is at present engaged in a sort of anti-parsonic exercise. We cannot call ourselves parsons, (and so, by the way, you need not direct your next to the Rev. Mr. Philip Doddridge), but we are a sort of pulpiters, and one or another of us every week appear in that exalted station. We are not yet commenced Bachelors of Divinity, and so are forced to confine ourselves only to such subjects as are discoverable by the light of nature; and, instead of scripture, are obliged to make use of citations from the heathen poets and philosophers, to illustrate, confirm, or embellish our discourses. You will say, this is not much to the edification of old women. But that is no great matter, for we seldom have any other auditory than our own academy and family.

But I suppose you are more concerned about plays than sermons, and so we will proceed to ours. I profess I wish you could come and see it, as I am sure it would give you a great deal of diversion. It is your favourite Tamerlane; but so altered that I believe you would hardly know it. In the first place, if you will pardon an expression of Mr. Dryden's, the principal parts of it are castrated for want of women. As for women, that are women indeed, we have none in

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the town, perhaps I may say in the county, that are fit to make their appearance upon such an occasion as this. It is true, there are two or three of our own company that have pretty faces and shrill voices, and so might do tolerably well; but then it is not convenient to assume the female habit, as our directors gravely express it, "because it is a thing of ill repute." Compare Deut. xxii. 5.

As for the dresses of our men, we can borrow none abroad, and we have none at home which at all suit our characters. The Emperor acts in his nightgown, and Zama and the Prince of Tanais, in Miss Jennings's petticoats. I was advising our heroes to borrow tin pudding-pans for helmets; but they chose tinsel crowns as less odoriferous and more ornamental. But, upon the whole, none appears so well as a Turkish Dervise, who is, very fortunately, provided with a black robe and a band; but for his dagger, he is forced to use our great carving-knife. For my own part, I have no marks of a dread sovereign but a very large pair of whiskers, which, when I make them myself, reach to my eyes; and, for my guards-one of them is armed with a broken gun, and the other with a broomstick, so sharpened at one end that, by the help of a very strong imagination, it may represent a javelin. Such splendid decorations as these cannot but be a very great assistance to us in performing our parts. You may guess at our skill, when I tell you that most of us are entire strangers to theatrical airs, and that I am the only person that ever saw a tragedy.

But I think I grow a little voluminous, and shall

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