has the
confidence to say, that there is a mug-house near Long Acre, where you
may every evening hear an exact account of distresses of this kind. One
complains that such a lady's finery is the occasion that his own wife
and daughter appear so long in the same gown. Another, that all the
furniture of her visiting apartment are no more hers than the scenery of
a play are the proper goods of the actress. Nay, at the lower end of the
same table, you may hear a butcher and a poulterer say, that, at their
proper charge, all that family has been maintained since they last came
to town.

The free manner in which people of fashion are discoursed on at such
meetings is but a just reproach for their failures in this kind; but the
melancholy relations of the great necessities tradesmen are driven to,
who support their credit in spite of the faithless promises which
are made them, and the abatement which they suffer when paid by the
extortion of upper servants, is what would stop the most thoughtless man
in the career of his pleasures, if rightly represented to him.

If this matter be not very speedily amended, I shall think fit to print
exact lists of all persons who are not at their own disposal, though
above the age of twenty-one; and as the trader is made bankrupt for
absence from his abode, so shall the gentleman for being at home, if,
when Mr. Morphew calls, he cannot give him an exact account of what
passes in his own family. After this fair warning, no one ought to think
himself hardly dealt with, if I take upon me to pronounce him no longer
master of his estate, wife, or family, than he continues to improve,
cherish, and maintain them upon the basis of his own property, without
incursions upon his neighbour in any of these particulars.

According to that excellent philosopher Epictetus, we are all but acting
parts in a play; and it is not a distinction in itself to be high or
low, but to become the parts we are to perform. I am, by my office,
prompter on this occasion, and shall give those who are a little out in
their parts such soft hints as may help them to proceed, without letting
it be known to the audience they were out; but if they run quite out
of character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more
suitable to their genius. Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from
his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune
shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but nature direct