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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Letter In Prose And Verse To Mrs. Bunbury</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">MADAM,</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I read your letter with all that allowance which critical candour could<br>require, but after all find so much to object to, and so much to raise<br>my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious answer.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms<br>contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from<br>the town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and<br>applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains, from a town also<br>of that name; -- but this is learning you have no taste for!) -- I say,<br>Madam, there are sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an<br>ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give<br>you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here,<br>And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear,<br>To open our ball the first day of the year.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Pray, Madam, where did you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the<br>title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,'<br>or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the<br>profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet<br>coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, -- that is,<br>in the middle of winter! -- a spring-velvet in the middle of winter!!!<br>That would be a solecism indeed! and yet, to increase the inconsistence,<br>in another part of your letter you call me a beau. Now, on one side or<br>other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau, I can never think of wearing a<br>spring-velvet in winter: and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains<br>itself. But let me go on to your two next strange lines:--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay,<br>To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The absurdity of making hay at Christmas, you yourself seem sensible of:<br>you say your sister will laugh; and so indeed she well may! The Latins<br>have an expression for a contemptuous sort of laughter, 'Naso contemnere<br>adunco'; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in<br>the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the most<br>extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your<br>and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer<br>raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once<br>with verse and resentment. I take advice! and from whom? You shall hear.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">First let me suppose, what may shortly be true,<br>The company set, and the word to be, Loo;<br>All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure,<br>And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre.<br>Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn <br>At never once finding a visit from Pam.<br>I lay down my stake, apparently cool,<br>While the harpies about me all pocket the pool.<br>I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly,<br>I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: <br>Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim<br>By losing their money to venture at fame.<br>'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold,<br>'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold:<br>All play their own way, and they think me an ass, -- <br>'What does Mrs. Bunbury?' 'I, Sir? I pass.'<br>'Pray what does Miss Horneck? Take courage, come do,' --<br>'Who, I? let me see, Sir, why I must pass too.'<br>Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil,<br>To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. <br>Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on,<br>Till made by my losses as bold as a lion,<br>I venture at all, -- while my avarice regards<br>The whole pool as my own -- 'Come, give me five cards.'<br>'Well done!' cry the ladies; 'Ah, Doctor, that's good! <br>The pool's very rich -- ah! the Doctor is loo'd!'<br>Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplex'd,<br>I ask for advice from the lady that's next:<br>'Pray, Ma'am, be so good as to give your advice;<br>Don't you think the best way is to venture for 't twice?' <br>'I advise,' cries the lady, 'to try it, I own. --<br>Ah! the Doctor is loo'd! Come, Doctor, put down.'<br>Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager,<br>And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar.<br>Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in, <br>Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding?<br>For giving advice that is not worth a straw,<br>May well be call'd picking of pockets in law;<br>And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye,<br>Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. <br>What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought!<br>By the gods, I'll enjoy it; though 'tis but in thought!<br>Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum,<br>With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em;<br>Both cover their faces with mobs and all that; <br>But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat.<br>When uncover'd, a buzz of enquiry runs round, --<br>'Pray what are their crimes?' -- 'They've been pilfering found.'<br>'But, pray, whom have they pilfer'd?' -- 'A Doctor, I hear.'<br>'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near!' <br>'The same.' -- 'What a pity! how does it surprise one!<br>Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!'<br>Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering,<br>To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing.<br>First Sir Charles advances with phrases well strung, <br>'Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.'<br>'The younger the worse,' I return him again,<br>'It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.'<br>'But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.'<br>'What signifies 'handsome', when people are thieves?' <br>'But where is your justice? their cases are hard.'<br>'What signifies 'justice'? I want the 'reward'.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds; there's the<br>parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, offers forty pounds; there's<br>the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the-Pound to St. Giles's<br>watchhouse, offers forty pounds, -- I shall have all that if I<br>convict them!' --</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'But consider their case, -- it may yet be your own!<br>And see how they kneel! Is your heart made of stone?'<br>This moves:-- so at last I agree to relent, <br>For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I challenge you all to answer this: I tell you, you cannot. It<br>cuts deep; -- but now for the rest of the letter: and next --<br>but I want room -- so I believe I shall battle the rest out at<br>Barton some day next week.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472295" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I don't value you all!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Oliver+Goldsmith">Oliver Goldsmith</a></strong></div>