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THE

CONNOISSEUR.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

No I. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1754

ORDINE GENTIS

MORES, ET STUDIA, ET POPULOS, ET PRELIA DICAM.

THEIR STUDIES AND PURSUITS IN ORDER SHEWN,
'TIS MINE TO MARK THE MANNERS OF THE TOWN.

S I have affumed the character of

low the example of the old Roman Cenfor; the first part of whofe duty was to review the people, and diftribute them into their feveral divifions. I fhall therefore enter upon my office, by taking a curfory furvey of what is ufually called The Town. In this I fhall not confine myself to the exact method of a geographer, but carry the reader from one quarter to another, as it may fuit my convenience, or beft contribute to his entertainment.

When a comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily vifits to the centre of bufinefs, the 'Change and the adjacent coffee-houses; that by a frequent intercourfe and converfation with the unforeskinn'd race,' he might habituate himself to their air and deportment. A like defire of penetrating into the most secret springs of 'action in these people has often led Me there; but I was never more diverted than at Garraway's a few days before the drawing of the lottery, I not only

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ftrongly pictured in the faces of thofe who came to buy; but I remarked with no lefs delight, the many little artifices made ufe of to allure adventurers, as well as the vifible alterations in the looks of the fellers, according as the demand for tickets gave occafion to raise or lower their price. So deeply were the countenances of thefe bubble-brokers impreffed with an attention to the main chance, and their minds feemed fo dead to all other fenfations, that one might almost doubt, where money is out of the cafe, whether a few has eyes, hands, organs, dimenfions, fenfes, affections, paffions.'

From Garraway's it is but a fhort ftep to a gloomy clafs of mortals, not lefs intent on gain than the stock-jobber: I mean the difpenfers of life and death, who flock together, like birds of prey watching for carcafes, at Batfon's. I never enter this place, but it ferves as a memento mori to me. What a formal aflemblage of fable fuits, and tremendous perukes! I have often met here a A

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most intimate acquaintance, whom I have scarce known again; a fprightly young fellow, with whom I have fpent many a jolly hour; but being juft dubbed a graduate in phyfic, he has gained fuch an entire conqueft over the rifible, mufcles, that he hardly vouchfafes at any time to fmile. I have heard him harangue, with all the oracular import ance of a veteran, on the poffibility of Canning's fubfifting for a whole month on a few bits of bread; and he is now preparing a treatife, in which will be fet forth a new and infallible method to prevent the spreading of the plague from France into England. Batfon's has been reckoned the feat of folemn ftupidity: yet is it not totally devoid of taste and common fenfe. They have among them phyficians, who can cope with the most eminent lawyers or divines; and critics, who can relish the fal volatile of a witty compofition, or determine how much fire is requifite to fublimate a tragedy fecundùm artem.

Emerging from thefe difmal regions, I am glad to breathe the pure air in St. Paul's Coffee-houfe: where (as I profels the highest veneration for our clergy) I cannot contemplate the magnificence of the cathedral without reflecting on the abject condition of thofe tatter'd crapes,' who are faid to ply here for an occafional burial or fermon, with the fame regularity as the happier drudges, who falute us with the cry of Coach,

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Sir,' or Chair, your honour.' And here my publifher would not forgive me, was I to leave the neigh. bourhood without taking notice of the Chapter Coffee-houfe, which is frequented by thofe encouragers of literature, and (as they are itiled by an eminent critic) not the worst judges of < merit, the bookfellers.' The converfation here naturally turns upon the neweft publications; but their criticifms are fomewhat fingular. When they fay a good book, they do not mean to praife the file or fentiment, but the quick and extenfive fale of it. That book, in the phrafe of the CONGER, is beft, which fells molt: and if the demand for Quarles fhould be greater than for Pope, he would have the higheft place on the rubric-poft. There are alfo many parts of every work liable to their remarks, which fall not within the notice of lefs accurate obfervers. A few nights ago I faw one of these gentlemen take up a

fermon, and after feeming to peruse it for fome time with great attention, he declared, it was very good English." The reader will judge whether I was most surprised or diverted, when I difcovered, that he was not commending the purity and elegance of the diction, but the beauty of the type; which, it feems, is known among the printers by that appellation. We must not, however, think the members of the CONGER ftrangers to the deeper parts of literature; for as carpenters, fmiths, mafons, and all mechanics, fmell of the trade they labour at, book fellers take a peculiar turn from their connections with books and authors. The character of the bookfeller is commonly formed on the writers in his fervice. Thus one is a politician or a deift; another affects humour, or aims at turns of wit and repartee; while a third perhaps is grave, moral, and fententious.

The Temple is the barrier that divides the city and fuburbs; and the gentlemen who refide there, feem influenced by the fituation of the place they inhabit. Templars are, in general, a kind of citizen-courtiers. They aim at the air and mien of the drawing-room; but ́ the holiday fmartness of a prentice, heightened with fome additional touches of the rake or coxcomb, betrays itself in every thing they do. The Temple, however, is tocked with it's peculiar beaux, wits, poets, critics, and every character in the gay world: and it is a thousand pities, that fo pretty a fociety fhould be difgraced with a few dull fellows, who can fubmit to puzzle themfelves with cafes and reports, and have not tafte enough to follow the genteel method of studying the law.

I fhall now, like a true ftudent of the Temple, hurry from thence to Covent Garden, the acknowledged region of gallantry, wit, and criticism; and hope to be excufed for not stopping at George's in my way, as the Bedford affords a greater variety of nearly the fame chraracters. This coffee-houfe is every night crouded with men of parts. Almost every one you meet is a polite scholar and a wit. Jokes and bon mots are echoed from box to box; every branch of literature is critically examined, and the merit of every production of the prefs, or performance at the theatres, weighed and determined. This school (to which I am myself indebted for a

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great part of my education, and in which, though unworthy, I am now arrived at the honour of being a public lecturer) has bred up many authors, to the amazing entertainment and inftruction of their readers. Button's, the grand archetype of the Bedford, was frequented by Addifon, Steele, Pope, and the reft of that celebrated fet, who flourished at the beginning of this century; and was regarded with juft deference on account of the real geniufes who frequented it. But we can now boaft men of fuperior abilities; men, who without any one acquired excellence, by the mere dint of an happy affurance, can exact the fame tribute of veneration, and receive it as due to the illustrious characters, the fcribblers, players, fiddlers, gamblers, that make fo large a part of the company at the Bedford.

I shall now take leave of Covent Garden, and defire the reader's company to White's. Here (as Vanbrugh fays of Locket's) he may have a difh no bigger than a faucer, that fhall coft him fifty fhillings.' The great people, who frequent this place, do not interrupt their politer amufements, like the wretches at Garraway's, with bufinefs, any farther than to go down to Westminster one feffions to vote for a bill, and the next to repeal it. Nor do they trouble themselves with literary debates, as at the Bedford. Learning is beneath the notice of a man of quality. They employ themselves more fashionably at whift for the trifle of a thousand pounds the rubber, or by making betts on the lye of the day.

From this very genteel place the reader muft not be furprised, if I fhould convey him to a cellar, or a common porterhoufe. For as it is my province to delineate and remark on mankind in general, whoever becomes my difciple muft not refufe to follow me from the Star and Garter to the Goofe and Gridiron, and be content to climb after me up to an author's garret, or give me leave to introduce him to a route. In my prefent curfory view of The Town, I have indeed confined myfelf principally to coffee-houfes; though I conftantly vifit all places, that afford any matter for fpeculation. I am a Scotchman at Forreft's, a Frenchman at Slaughter's, and at the Cocoa-Tree I am-an English

man. At the Robin Hood I am a politician, a logician, a geometrician, a phyfician, a metaphyfician, a cafuift, a moralift, a theologift, a mythologist, or any thing-but an Atheift. Whereever the World is, I ain. You will therefore hear of me fometimes at the theatres, fometimes perhaps at the opera: nor fhall I think the exhibitions of Sadler's Wells, or the Little Theatre in the Haymarket beneath my notice; but may one day or other give a differtation upon Tumbling, or (if they fhould again become popular) a critique on Dogs and Monkeys.

Though the Town is the walk I fhall generally appear in, let it not be imagined, that vice and folly will shoot up unnoticed in the country. My cousin VILLAGE has undertaken that province, and will fend me the fresheft advices of every fault or foible that takes root there. But as it is my chief ambition to please and inftruct the ladies, I fhall embrace every opportunity of devoting my labours to their fervice: and I may with juftice congratulate myfeif upon the happiness of living in an age, when the female part of the world are fo ftudious to find employment for a Cenfor.

The character of Mr. Town is, I flatter myself, too well known to need an explanation. How far, and in what fenfe, I propose to be a CONNOISSEUR, the reader will gather from my general

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N° II. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1754.

-COMMISSA QUOD AUCTIO VENDIT

STANTIBUS, OENOPHORUM, TRIPODES, ARMARIA, CISTAS.

MAIM'D STATUES, RUSTY MEDALS, MARBLES OLD,

BY SLOANE COLLECTED, OR BY LANGFORD SOLD.

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I Have already received letters from TRAJ. IMP. P. VIT. COSS MAX

several Virtuofi, expreffing their afstonishment and concern at my difappointing the warm hopes they had conceived of my undertaking from the title of my paper. They tell me, that by deferting the paths of Virtù, I at once neglect the public interest and my own; that by (upporting the character of Connoiffeur in it's ufual fenfe, I might have obtained very confiderable falaries from the principal auction-rooms, toy-fhops, and repofitories; and might befides very plaufibly have recommended myself as the propereft perfon in the world to be keeper of Sir Hans Sloane's Museum.

I cannot be infenfible of the importance of this capital bufinefs of Taite, and how much reputation as well as profit would accrue to my labours, by confining them to the minutest researches into nature and art, and poring over the ruft of antiquity. I very well know that the difcovery of a new Zoophyte, or fpecies of the Polype, would be as valuable as that of the Longitude. The cabinets of the curious would furnish out matter for my effays, more inftructing than all the learned lumber of a Vatican. Of what confequence would it be, to point out the distinctions of originals from copies fo precifely, that the paltry fcratchings of a modern may never hereafter be palmed on a Connoiffeur for the labours of a Rembrandt! I fhould command applaufe from the adorers of antiquity, were I to demonftrate, that merit never exifted but in the schools of the old painters, never flourished but in the warm climate of Italy: and how fhould I rife in the esteem of my countrymen, by chaftifing the arrogance of an Englishman in prefuming to determine the Analysis of Beauty!

At other times I might take occafion to fhew my fagacity in conjectures on rufty coins and illegible marbles. What profound erudition is contained in an balf-obliterated antique piece of copper!

V. P. P. S. C.; and how merveillous, most courteous and ryghte worthye reader, would the barbarous infcription of some ancient monument appear to thee, and how pleafaunt to thyne epne wytheall, thus preferved in it's obfolete fpelling, and original Black Character! To this branch of Tafte, I am more particularly preffed. A correfpondent defires to know, whether I was of the party, that lately took a furvey of Palmyra in the Defart; another, if I have traversed the Holy Land, or vifited Mount Calvary. I fhall not fpeak too proudly of my travels: but as my predeceffor the SPECTATOR has re commended himself by having made a trip to Grand Cairo to take measure of a pyramid, I affure my reader that I have climbed Mount Vefuvio in the midst of it's eruptions, and dug fome time underground in the ruins of Herculaneum.

I fhall always be folicitous to procure the esteem of fo refpectable a body as the Connoiffeurs; fince I cannot but be fenfible, could I any way merit it by my labours, how much more important the name of Mr. Town would appear, dignified with the addition of F. R. S. or Member of the Society of Antiquarians. I therefore take this early opportunity of obliging the curious with a letter from a very eminent perfonage, who, as well as myfelf, is lately become a Connoiffeur, and is known to have gone abroad for no other purpose than to buy pictures.

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