Nature will not allow them to remain longer
in bed. They begin the day without motive or purpose, and close it after
having performed the same unvaried round as the most thoroughbred
domestic animal that ever dwelt in manse or manor-house. If you ask them
at three o'clock where they are to dine, they cannot tell you; but about
the wonted dinner-hour, batches of these forlorn bachelors find
themselves diurnally congregated, as if by instinct, around a cozy table
in some snug coffee-house, where, after inspecting the contents of the
bill of fare, they discuss the news of the day, reserving the scandal, by
way of dessert, for their wine. Day after day their respective political
opinions give rise to keen encounters, but without producing the
slightest shade of change in any of their old ingrained and particular
sentiments.

Some of their haunts, I mean those frequented by the elderly race, are
shabby enough in their appearance and circumstances, except perhaps in
the quality of the wine. Everything in them is regulated by an ancient
and precise economy, and you perceive, at the first glance, that all is
calculated on the principle of the house giving as much for the money as
it can possibly afford, without infringing those little etiquettes which
persons of gentlemanly habits regard as essentials. At half price the
junior members of these unorganised or natural clubs retire to the
theatres, while the elder brethren mend their potations till it is time
to go home. This seems a very comfortless way of life, but I have no
doubt it is the preferred result of a long experience of the world, and
that the parties, upon the whole, find it superior, according to their
early formed habits of dissipation and gaiety, to the sedate but not more
regular course of a domestic circle.

The chief pleasure, however, of living on the town, consists in
accidentally falling in with persons whom it might be otherwise difficult
to meet in private life. I have several times enjoyed this. The other
day I fell in with an old gentleman, evidently a man of some consequence,
for he came to the coffee-house in his own carriage. It happened that we
were the only guests, and he proposed that we should therefore dine
together. In the course of conversation it came out, that he had been
familiarly acquainted with Garrick, and had frequented the Literary Club
in the days of Johnson and Goldsmith. In his youth, I conceive, he must
have been an am