Behind Me, In The Pit, Sat A Young Fop, Who, In Order To
Display His Costly Stone Buckles With The
Utmost brilliancy,
continually put his foot on my bench, and even sometimes upon my
coat, which I could avoid only
By sparing him as much space from my
portion of the seat as would make him a footstool. In the boxes,
quite in a corner, sat several servants, who were said to be placed
there to keep the seats for the families they served till they
should arrive; they seemed to sit remarkably close and still, the
reason of which, I was told, was their apprehension of being pelted;
for if one of them dares but to look out of the box, he is
immediately saluted with a shower of orange peel from the gallery.
In Foote's "Nabob" there are sundry local and personal satires which
are entirely lost to a foreigner. The character of the Nabob was
performed by a Mr. Palmer. The jett of the character is, this
Nabob, with many affected airs and constant aims at gentility, is
still but a silly fellow, unexpectedly come into the possession of
immense riches, and therefore, of course, paid much court to by a
society of natural philosophers, Quakers, and I do not know who
besides. Being tempted to become one of their members, he is
elected, and in order to ridicule these would-be philosophers, but
real knaves, a fine flowery fustian speech is put into his mouth,
which he delivers with prodigious pomp and importance, and is
listened to by the philosophers with infinite complacency.
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