| Citation |
NYGWPB.767.001
1 Jan 1767:11,12 (1252)
From the Whitehall-Evening Post. [1 line in Latin by
Horace.] Foreigners say, and I believe with some reason,
that we are the most inconsistent nation on earth. . . [1/3
column essay on vanity of people's activities.] . . . Thus
are the times and every thing (as Shakespear says) out of
joint.
As to plays, the world, and human life, have indeed been
often justly compared to a stage-play:--but it is a play,
where scarce any one acts their real part, or is in
character: and life may, I think, be compared more justly to
an absurd ill-regulated set of actors, who are all
determined not to act in the play the parts allowed them,
which would become and be fit for them; but every one will
play a part above him, or below him. Thus almost every one,
in life, chuses to appear out of character, and in a part
which fits aukwardly and ridiculously upon him.
You have tradesmen running man with poetry: Smiths
hammering out verses, most elaborately; linnen drapers
measuring out metre by the yard; and vintners intoxicating
themselves with helicon--even rhyming shoe-makers: alderman,
who are infatuated with Italian music; and one of them, I
know particularly, who (though almost def) spends most of
his time in mending old battered damaged fiddles. In short,
scarce any man now-a-days seems to act, or even appear, in
character, or in the proper sphere that becomes him. . . [11
lines] Every man seems to wish to be in a sort of disguise,
to make life a continued masquerade, as well as a farce or
play; and not to be thought, or known to be, what he really
is.
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