a moderate degree of understanding. For, an old wealthy
bachelor, being perpetually surrounded with a set of flatterers,
cousins, poor dependents, and would-be heirs, who for their own views
submit to his perverseness and caprice, becomes insensibly infected with
this scolding malady, which generally proves incurable, and renders him
disagreeable to his friends, and a fit subject for ridicule to his
enemies.

As to the incurable scribblers, (of which society I have the honour to
be a member,) they probably are innumerable; and, of consequence, it
will be absolutely impossible to provide for one-tenth part of their
fraternity. However, as this set of incurables are generally more
plagued with poverty than any other, it will be a double charity to
admit them on the foundation; a charity to the world, to whom they are a
common pest and nuisance; and a charity to themselves, to relieve them
from want, contempt, kicking, and several other accidents of that
nature, to which they are continually liable.

Grub-street itself would then have reason to rejoice, to see so many of
its half-starved manufacturers amply provided for; and the whole tribe
of meagre incurables would probably shout for joy, at being delivered
from the tyranny and garrets of printers, publishers, and booksellers.

What a mixed multitude of ballad-writers, ode-makers, translators,
farce-compounders, opera-mongers, biographers, pamphleteers, and
journalists, would appear crowding to the hospital; not unlike the
brutes resorting to the ark before the deluge! And what an universal
satisfaction would such a sight afford to all, except pastry-cooks,
grocers, chandlers, and tobacco-retailers, to whom alone the writings of
those incurables were anyway profitable!

I have often been amazed to observe, what a variety of incurable
coxcombs are to be met with between St. James's and Limehouse, at every
hour of the day; as numerous as Welsh parsons, and equally contemptible.
How they swarm in all coffeehouses, theatres, public walks, and private
assemblies; how they are incessantly employed in cultivating intrigues,
and every kind of irrational pleasure; how industrious they seem to
mimic the appearance of monkeys, as monkeys are emulous to imitate the
gestures of men: And from such observations, I concluded, that to
confine the greatest part of those incurables, who are so many living
burlesques of human nature, would be of eminent service to this nation;
and I am