in a short time this author furnished the
manager with a comedy called _Old Heads and Young Hearts_. Oh! he knew so
much of life, this famous author; he would show what the real state of
society was; and, said I to myself, I will go and judge for myself. I will
see whether the books I have been studying are filled with lies. I will
see how gentlemen speak, and how ladies look and act. Oho! I will put
Reynolds and Morton to the proof. I will put on my European dress. I will
ask the way to the theatre. I will sit in the pit. So shall I be able to
send to Cho-Ling-Kyang, and to the venerated Chang-Feu, an account from my
personal experience of English fashionable life. And so the first person I
saw on the stage was a young gentleman greatly in debt, a studier of the
law, who lives in a building called the Temple, in a room meagrely
furnished, and talks about his intimacy with duchesses, exactly as Dashall
and Tangent had done before. Oh! said I, this is complete proof that the
great Reynolds and great Morton drew from life, and also the great author
of this beautiful play. His name, not the author's name, but the young
gentleman's name, is Littleton Coke, after two sages of the law called
Coke and Littleton; but he makes no money by his profession, and has found
all his great friends desert him when he made application to them for a
loan. Their names are Lord St James and Mister Deuceace. His brother also
writes him a letter, enclosing the blessing of the Reverend Mr Rural, but
no cash. But suddenly comes in Lord Charles Roebuck, the younger son of
the Earl of Pompion, (for in this country all the younger sons of Earls
take the title of "Lord,") and tells Mr Littleton Coke that he is in love
with a lady he lifted out of a carriage that had been upset.

"_Littleton._--Is that all?

"_Roebuck._--Forbid it, Venus! No, with incredible trouble I traced
them. The father, the dragon who guards this Hesperian fruit, is an
old East Indian colonel, as proud as Lucifer, and as hot as his
dominions. I hovered round the house for a week.

"_Littleton._--Successfully?

"_Roebuck._--I saw her once for a second at the back garden-gate.

"_Littleton._--To speak to her?

"_Roebuck._--I hadn't time.

"_Littleton._--No? Oh!

"_Roebuck._--No. So I gave her a kiss.

"_Littleton._--Excellent economy; and her name--

"_Roebuck._--Is Rocket--her father, an eccentric old bul