8 7 FASHION, FORTUNE, AND MERIT; A FABLE. Now from the window, or the area, Peep'd forth a fervant, Tom or Mary, Cry'd, "D---n him, let him knock again; : Merit, as standing at the gate, "I'll blefs the hand that help'd poor Merit." "Mr. -what's your name? I'm forry, "At prefent I'm in fuch a hurry; "And cafh now is not in the way, "Befide, my fifter Fashion there "Wants more than I have got to spare: "When she is ferv'd, I'll think---and then- "Another day pray call again. "Here, Tom!-your fervant; bring the chair in; "To Lady Niggle's hafte away; Foily and Fashion must be ferv'd, While Merit is too often starv'd.' ANTHONY PASQUIN. PUPPYISM 1 PUPPYISM confidered. HERE are puppies who have no canine appetites, who drink more than they eat, and fleep more than they live. There are puppies from the ducal coronet down to the fhoeblack; puppies of every complexion, fize, ftature, and denomination. There are puppies in crape, as well as in ermine; , tie-wigs, as well as knockers neither of the benches excludes them. They may be feen in the upper and the lower roms; in Westminster-Hall, and in Bridewell. They are generally cherished by the ladies, who confider them as innocent animals, and treat them like lap-dogs. They are admitted to female (for there are male) toilets, and are looked upon fo infignificant, that they are not noticed; a waiting-maid is viewed with more cir. cumfpection; and a hair-dretler is an animal of fuperior import : a dentift is a king; and a dancing-mafter an emperor compared to a dangling puppy. In the fenate a puppy may be diflinguifhed by the choice of hard words without any meaning, conftantly speaking to every queftion, without understanding it; addreffing the chair, with out any addrefs; joining the Treafury-bench, and dividing with the majority, right or wrong; exclaiming against the licentioufnels of the prefs, and the infolence of public writers, without having read them. In the pulpit, the ftroking of a white hand, and admiring it with a ring in the middle of a fermon; a bag-front dreffed head of hair; a fimpering ogle, an affected lifp, and a circling gaze for admiration, particularly from the ladies, all denote the puppy. At the bar an affected pronunciation, and lugging in my lud and autority, without any fort of authority; brow-beating witneffes, whofe ignorance and embarrassment prevent them from acquitting themfelves with propriety; afking improper queftions, and training the meaning of anfwers, all argue the puppy. In medicine, a glaring chariot, a prepofterous large bag (for phyfic has thrown afide even the appearance of knowledge), a pedantic felection of medical phrafes, a dogmatic decifion, an evafive replication, determine the puppy. From this fpecimen, the reader will be enabled to form fome idea of puppyifm, in, molt fituations. He will eafily trace the puppy macaroni, the puppy-favoir-vivre, the puppy-fport fman, the puppy-fox-hunter, the puppy-critic, the puppy-connoiffeur, the puppy intriguer, the puppy-toad-eater, the puppy-hero of his own ftory, the puppy-poet, and even the puppy-writer. That I may not be claffed under the laft, by wearying the C patience 10 THE ILL-FATED PAIR. patience of the reader, I fhall here terminate this effay, and declare myself a fworn foe to puppyifm in every class and station of life. HOMO. The ILL-FATED PAIR. A Moral Tale. T is obfervable that the farther we remove from great cities, the nearer, generally speaking, do we approach to those fcenes of guiltlefs happiness which are at once the fruit and the reward of genuine love; that love which, implanted by Heaven, and cherished by Virtue, forms to fufceptible minds a paradife, if a paradife there be on earth. In fuch peaceful retreats, to the eternal difgrace of diffipated grandeur, the heroic principles of honour are alone confidered as the glory of man, while the ingenuous ones of virtuous fenfibility form the bafis of every thing that is held amiable in woman. Ah, hapless Florio! haplefs Lucilla! why, born and educated as ye both were in the bofom of Truth and Innocence, why, alas! were ye destined to prove to an abandoned world, that it is not here but hereafter that Truth and Innocence are to look for either favour or protection? In the ftory of this ill-fated pair, a story which is already too well known to many families in thefe kingdoms, there are few incidents; but every incident feems in fome fenfe to convey with it a moral; and few as they are, they fhall be related with fidelity. Florio was a young and moft accomplished officer, in one of our marching regiments, Soon after the commencement of the American war, when every nerve was exerted, but exerted in vain, to rear the standard of triumph over our revolted colonies, it was his lot to be ordered into Wales, as the commander of a little recruiting party; and it was his lot alfo to be stationed in a town little diftant from the abode of the fair Lucilla, the only daughter of a gentleman of the very first confequence in the county of It was at a private ball that they first met; and if ever a love at first fight could be juftified by the laws of either prudery or prudence, it feems to be in the cafe of Florio and Lucilla. Formed as it were by nature for each other, their eyes no fooner met than whole volumes of love were mutually, but infenfibly, expreffed by them. The little God had inftantaneously transfixed both their bofoms with one of his moft refiftlefs arrows; and well might they each have faid, as Romeo did in a fimila fituation, "I'look'd, A MORAL TALE. "I look'd, and gaz'd, and never mifs'd my heart, Like Romeo, alas! they were alfo doomed to experience that "Fathers have flinty hearts." Lucilla, who long had been denied the fweets of maternal tendernefs and indulgence, lived under the roof of a father who loved her dearly. Frequently in his hours of good-humoured fondnefs would he call her his angel, his goddefs; but in fact the only idols he cordially worshipped, were his guineas, his acres, and the genealogical table of a family as old as that of the famed Cadwallader, and doubtlefs, though he fcrupled not to pronounce himself a lineal defcendant from it, to the full as vifionary alfo. Avarice and pride! What a coalition of paffions in the breaft of a parent, who feemed no longer to know any real felicity but in the fordid or felf-confequential gratification of them! They were indeed an infuperable bar to the hopes of our lovers; for Florio had little to boaft on the score of pedigree, and still lefs on that of fortune. Lucilla was no ftranger; and they ferved only to increase her tenderness for Florio; though, at the fame time, fhe was aware, that, with her father's confent, fhe never fhould have the happiness to call him Husband. Florio, in the mean while, was a daily vifitor of the old gentleman, with whom he fo highly ingratiated himself, that he could have obtained from him almost any gift, but the only one for which his foul panted, the gift of his daughter. In this gift a fuppofed contamination of the blood of an ancient Briton would have been included: and too well did our lover know, that, fhould he dare to utter to him a fingle fyllable on the subject of a matrimonial connection, he would never more be permitted to enjoy even a fight of his adored Lucilla. However, many weeks were not fuffered to elapfe before the feelings of both Florio and Lucilla were put to a cruel test, in confequence of the arrival of an exprefs, commanding the young officer immediately to join his regiment, in order to embark for America. America! Fatal was the found, when it reached the ears of Lucilla, and awfully ominous was it to the fond, the darling youth of her innocent affections. What was to be done? Lucilla could not live but in the prefence of her Florio; and the idea of leaving behind him his Lucilla was worse than ten thousand deaths to our enamoured hero. Circumftanced as they were, from the base, or, at beft, the abfurd and worldly, prejudices of a parent, whose breast had long C 2 been 12 THE ILL-FATED PAIR. been infenfible to all the foft emotions that flow from love, they confulted their hearts, and determined to follow love's dictates; that is, plainly to express it, to elope, and feek for happiness in each other, even at earth's utmoit verge, thould fate conduct them thither. Lucilla, on the eve of her departure, wrote a letter to her father, conjuring him, in the most endearing terms of filial duty and tenderness, not to reproach her for an action, which, as being unavoidable, the trufted was in itself blameless; an action, which would be no wife painful to herfelf, farther than as it might alarm a rigid but affectionate parent for the fafety of a beloved child; on which head, however, he might rest perfectly eafy, fince, having committed herself to the protection of a man of virtue, her own virtue, as hitherto, would, and should, remain inviolate. By fome means, an anonymous copy of this letter found it's way into the London Papers; and fo elegantly, yet mysteriously, was it worded, that in every polite circle it became the topic of admiration, conjecture, and inquiry. The event, to which it alluded, happened near the close of the year 1776; about this period a number of advertisements ap peared in the daily prints, foliciting (under the initials of D. W.) the return of a certain fair fugitive, and urging her again to take fhelter under the wings of a father, who was diftracted from the lofs of her, and who could not defcend to the grave in peace, till, beholding once more his child, he might have it in his power to gratify her utmoft with by uniting her with a parental benedic tion to the man of her heart. Would to Heaven that he had thus expreffed himself fooner! Long had he known, or, at least, blind muft he have been, had he not perceived, that the mutual paffion of Florio and Lucillą was uncontroulable as it was unbounded; and now was it referved for him to feel, bitterly to feel, that in obstructing their happiness, he had literally undermined his own. His advertisements, like many other notices of the kind, ap peared too late; and already were our lovers fafely landed at New York (where Hymen finally fealed their vows) before the wretched father, fenfible of his folly, endeavoured to terminate the memory of an irreparable misfortune, by terminating the daily repetition of it. f "Wretched father," has it been faid? Alas! amiable Lucilla, ere long fhall we find, that even thou (fpotless as was thy foul, fpotlefs as was the foul of thy hufband) wert born alfo to be wretched; and that, barely capable of evading the wiles of Guilt, |