| Citation |
PEP.783.069
21 Oct 1783:2431 (9/1010)
The Englishman's Catechism.
Q. What is fashion?
A. An agreeable tyrant.
Q. What is its progress?
A. It begins with the vain, is improved by the silly, and
stops with the wise.
Q. What does it regulate?
A. The dresses of the ladies, the philosophical, religious,
and political tenets of the men; the hours of meals, and the
value of toys; it determines which is the best stage dancer,
the best physician, the best milaner, the most heavenly
opera, the soundest lawyer, and the finest woman of
pleasure.
Q. What is the present taste?
A. It consists in preferring foreign kickshaws to English
beef and pudding; dying away at an Italian opera, or having
a capacity sufficiently exalted to catch in a short time the
favorite airs of Artaxerxes, or the Maid of the Mill.
. . . [5 sets of Questions and Answers]
Q. What privileges doth custom allow?
A. Many.-- To fine women the privilege of talking nonsense;
to favorite actors the privilege of behaving indecently to
the public, and to stale maids the privilege of uttering
nothing but scandal.
. . . [5 sets of Questions and Answers]
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