Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/166

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our scholar may, in the course of an evening, acquire a great variety of such learning. This is a more advanced post, but there are higher in store; he is next promoted to be nomenclator of the persons who resort to court. He makes acquaintance with the yeomen of the guards, they, on proper application, repeat to him the names; on the stairs he enlarges his acquaintance with footmen, and is able to pick up anecdotes of families; he learns who and who are together, and becomes such an adept in composition as to dress out a bit of scandal. He is able to fetch and carry for Blackball, and besides his periodical labours can venture a little in the anecdote way. Having become well acquainted with fashionable faces, he is next sent to the theatres, and by reading the newspaper criticisms becomes something of a critic himself. To extend