Wit certainly they
have nothing to do with. To give them their due, they soar a step
higher than their predecessors, and may be called men of wisdom and
vertu (take heed you do not read virtue). Thus at an age when the
gentlemen above mentioned employ their time in toasting the charms
of a woman, or in making sonnets in her praise; in giving their
opinion of a play at the theatre, or of a poem at Will's or
Button's; these gentlemen are considering the methods to bribe a
corporation, or meditating speeches for the House of Commons, or
rather for the magazines. But the science of gaming is that which
above all others employs their thoughts. These are the studies of
their graver hours, while for their amusements they have the vast
circle of connoisseurship, painting, music, statuary, and natural
philosophy, or rather unnatural, which deals in the wonderful, and
knows nothing of Nature, except her monsters and imperfections.
When Jones had spent the whole day in vain inquiries after Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, he returned at last disconsolate to his apartment.
Here, while he was venting his grief in private, he heard a violent
uproar below-stairs; and soon after a female voice begged him for
heaven's sake to come and prevent murder. Jones, who was never
backward on any occasion to help the distressed, immediately ran
downstairs; when stepping into the dining-room, whence all the noise
issued, he beheld the young gentleman of wisdom and vertu just
before mentioned, pinned close to the wall by his footman, and a young
woman standing by, wringing her hands, and crying out, "He will be
murdered! he will be murdered!" and, indeed, the poor gentleman seemed
in some danger of being choaked, when Jones flew hastily to his
assistance, and rescued him, just as he was breathing his last, from
the unmerciful clutches of the enemy.
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