Oh, Mr. Rambler! forgive the talkativeness of an old man! When I courted and married my Lætitia, then a blooming beauty, every thing passed just so! But how is the case now? The ladies, maidens, wives, and widows, are engrossed by places of open resort and general entertainment, which fill every quarter of the metropolis, and, being constantly frequented, make home irksome. Breakfasting-places, dining-places; routes, drums, concerts, balls, plays, operas, masquerades for the evening, and even for all night, and lately, publick sales of the goods of broken housekeepers, which the general dissoluteness of manners has contributed to make very frequent, come in as another seasonable relief to these modern time-killers.
In the summer there are in every country-town assemblies; Tunbridge, Bath, Cheltenham, Scarborough! What expence of dress and equipage is required to qualify the frequenters for such emulous appearance?
By the natural infection of example the lowest people have places of six-penny resort, and gaming-tables for pence. Thus servants are now induced to fraud and dishonesty, to support extravagance, and supply their losses.
As to the ladies who frequent those publick places, they are not ashamed to shew their faces wherever men dare go, nor blush to try who shall stare most impudently, or who shall laugh loudest on the publick walks.
The men who would make good husbands, if they visit those places, are frighted at wedlock, and resolve to live single, except they are bought at a very high price. They can be spectators of
