The SCHOOL of IMPUDENCE:

Or, an ADVENTURE at RANELAGH GARDENS

SIR,

'T

:

To the STUDEN T.

Oxford, April 25, 1750.

WOULD be in vain to attempt, while I'm writing to a person in the fame town with myself, to make him believe the letter came from elsewhere.

You

will know me for a fellow Student: but you will presently know me too for a man, who am fo only because I think it one of the most eligible lives in the world. You will eafily guefs, by my free way of communicating a very late tranfaction, that I am, tho' living in the University, wholly independant on its power: and perhaps I do it more real honour by this voluntary attachment, than many of you gentlemen who are very obedient to its rules, because you dare not tranfgrefs them.

I have study'd among you many years: I have endeavour'd to forming life on the plan of several the greatest, the wifeft, and confequently the happieft men in the world, who are among you: I have made fome advances by their example toward many of the nobler attainments of the mind; but by a late very memorable incident, I found to my no little difappointment, that I still wanted one of the most useful qualifications of life, and yet one that I fee no way of getting at in Oxford; I mean, IMPUDEnce.

London foon recommended itself to me as the great school for ftudying this happy accomplishment in. I immediately got thither; and on enquiring among the choice fpirits of the age that affemble nightly at the Bedford coffee-houfe, who was the greateft proficient in this free and noble science, I was by one recommended to Crator HENLY, by a second to Doctor HELLENIUS, by a third to Squire FooTE, by a fourth

fourth to the perfon to whom a late pamphlet was addrefs'd by a title fo pat to my defign, To the most impudent man living. I found such a diversity of opinions, that it was not eafy for a ftranger to know what to fix upon. In fine, I refolved to leave to my own difcernment the fettling a point I found other people not at all ready to agree about, and determin'd not to be led by reports or appearances, but to vifit the reforts of the gay and the great, and to felect out my man not by his character but by his actions.

I vifited that scene of all delights RANELAGH. I enter'd the room before it was half full, and had not gone a third of the circle, when the air and deportment of half a dozen parties of females that I met with, heighten'd by the hap py contrast of the milkfop looks and mincing steps of the pretty gentlemen who conftituted the beau monde in breeches, had almoft determin'd me that my bufinefs was to engage myself to a profeffor of that sex. I was coming apace to the refolution, when the infamoufly famous FACIO (a fellow whom nature has contriv'd to make half a fool, half a madman, and half a lord) enter'd the room, dangling under his arm the scarce lefs eminent Mrs. REPARTEE.

Tho' I had not the spirit of divination enough in me to know the characters of thefe two egregious perfonages at fight, I difcern'd however at the inftant, that if I fhould determine on a female profeffor in the branch of knowledge I was about to study, Mrs. REPARTEE was the woman to be chofen from the world for the office: but I thought I as foom difcover'd in her companion an invincible argument against the making fuch a choice. Alas! Fronti nulla fides is too true, as you will find by the fequel,

FACIO is a man who puts even impudence itself out of countenance: he appears to have been born for the noble purpose of doing every thing he ought to be afham'd of; and, to explain a little further upon the character I have already given you of him, nature has furnish'd him with folly enough to think any thing, rafhnefs enough to fpeak every thing he thinks,

thinks, and a rank in life that fecures him from having his bones broken.

I follow'd him twice round the room: I ador'd the grace with which he affronted every man he met, and put every woman that came in his way out of countenance. Happy, thrice happy, thought I, is the man poffefs'd of fuch talents! But alas! I little imagin'd that people were born with the feeds of this great quality in them, as they are with that of poetry: much less that myself, who was come a Jong journey to learn what I now found was an innate incommunicable property of the foul, poffefs'd the feeds of it in my own breaft in as great a degree, as any of the greatest worthies in it could possibly do; nay, that I only wanted the knowledge of my own accomplishments, to set me in a light of giving lectures to the world in the very science I had ignorantly fuppofed myself so much deficient in. The most fatal parent of self-flattery is comparison. To this I ow'd the errour of believing foon after in too large a sense, what I was now blind to,

I follow'd the noble FACIO close: I look'd at the lady :to look at her is to love her :-I became enamour'd of her to madness, to all madness except that of telling her fo. Her noble guardian, whose talent is not discernment, (notwithstanding his eternally rolling eyes might go a great way toward making people think fo) tho' he faw me often, did not fee this. Happily for me however he saw something about me that call'd up his attention. Our Oxford taylors, I find, (but that by the bye) don't come into fashions, till the people who fet them are going out of them. All changes of this kind are in extreams: I had the mortification to find that my coat was fo very different from his, that he attack'd me upon it; very familiarly taking me by the hand, and telling me, he faw I was a lover, for that one might always diftinguifh an admirer of the ladies by the cut of his cloaths. I was rude enough to interrupt the laugh of ap plaufe, with which the charming companion of my new ac

quaintance

quaintance was epiloguizing his witty raillery. I addrefs'd myself to her instead of the noble nothing who expected my answer, and exclaimed with as little modefty as he had shewn in his attack, What a misfortune it was to the world, that such a genius was not bred a taylor! I had the lady fast by the hand as I deliver❜d this ejaculation: fhe ftar'd at me almost as much as I did at myself for having made it; and after half a minute's intercourfe of the modefteft eyes in the universe, fhe gave me a gentle pat on the cheek, drew her lilly fingers gently to her thumb, as if to catch fome fhamelefs infect she had found there, and adding the pretence of throwing the vermin down, and drawing her foot foftly over it, she faid, pray Mr. Modesty, what part of the clouds have you just dropt from, that I never chanc'd to find you out before?

I did not at that time understand the lady's manual addrefs to me; but I have been fince acquainted by the choice fpirits, that it is a form of falutation invented by the celebrated Mr. FOOTE for the ufe of the fair fex, and intended to give the gentleman who fhould be honour'd with it a proof, that the lady among other qualifications is not wanting in a foft hand, a gentle touch, a modeft affurance, and a pretty foot.

I could proceed to tell you fome of the smartest things in. the world that pass'd between us during the two fucceeding hours, in which we loung'd about the room among a parcel of two-legged things fo much below our notice, as not to be worth our attention or even our regarding that we had engrofs'd theirs. But fuffice it, that after having nonfuited my noble antagonist at his fecond attempt to be merry upon me, by telling him that I believ'd him to be the impudenteft fellow upon the earth except myself, and that I honour'd him for it extreamly, he seem'd fo perfectly fatisfy'd with the place I had affign'd him, that he never difputed it with me afterwards, but very precipitately made his retreat out of one of the doors under the orcheftre, leaving me in poffeffion of the field of battle and the lady.

I claim'd a conqueror's right over my fair captive: fhe

very good-naturedly answer'd, she had received that paultry fellow we just parted from, merely because he had a superior fhare of cafe and freedom (this is the term for impudence among the ladies) to any body fhe was at that time acquainted with; that exclufive of this recommendation, he had nothing that deferv'd the name of human about him; and that if, with the abundant fhare of her favourite qualification which the faw I was poffefs'd of, I could convince her that I had one good quality befide, she should own that I had a right to every thing I fhould be pleas'd to command of her.

You will eafily conceive I had a favourable opinion enough of myself to suppose I was now within a hair's breadth of an incident, which I had never before taken into my thoughts as a part of my scheme. I congratulated myself abundantly on my happy fortune; and recollecting one by one all the good qualities I had to boast of, I spent some time in determining which was the most obvious, the most fure to be own'd at fight. I might have spar'd myself this trouble: the lady, who had left her virtue, not as I imagin'd defenceless, but to the guardianship of her wit, exerted that champion against me in so refiftlefs and invincible a man-i her, that pleas'd me more and plagu'd me more than I think I was ever either pleas'd or plagu'd in my life. She heard me enter my pretenfions feverally to every good thing the human mind could be poffefs'd of, and fairly banter'd me one by one out of them all. I am unwilling to own fhe had reafon on her fide, but I frankly confefs fhe had argument: I found fhe had only laugh'd at me when I thought fhe had feriously promis'd me every thing; and I grew uneafy at converfing with a perfon fo much my fuperior in wit as well as in impudence.

I confefs'd I was out of all hopes of her; and I told her too, I had come to London purely and purposely to be initiated in a quality, which I had indeed flatter'd myself a few hours ago I already poffefs'd in fome degree, but that I now found there was fo much difparity between the baffled lord

and