ballads in the world, like jolly Dick Turpin; or prate eternally
about "to kalon,"* like that precious canting Maltravers, whom we
all of us have read about and pitied; or die whitewashed saints,
like poor "Biss Dadsy" in "Oliver Twist." No, my dear madam, you
and your daughters have no right to admire and sympathise with any
such persons, fictitious or real: you ought to be made cordially to
detest, scorn, loathe, abhor, and abominate all people of this
kidney. Men of genius like those whose works we have above alluded
to, have no business to make these characters interesting or
agreeable; to be feeding your morbid fancies, or indulging their
own, with such monstrous food. For our parts, young ladies, we beg
you to bottle up your tears, and not waste a single drop of them on
any one of the heroes or heroines in this history: they are all
rascals, every soul of them, and behave "as sich." Keep your
sympathy for those who deserve it: don't carry it, for preference,
to the Old Bailey, and grow maudlin over the company assembled
there.

* Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.

Just, then, have the kindness to fancy that the conversation which
took place over the bowls of punch which Mrs. Catherine prepared,
was such as might be expected to take place where the host was a
dissolute, dare-devil, libertine captain of dragoons, the guests for
the most part of the same class, and the hostess a young woman
originally from a country alehouse, and for the present mistress to
the entertainer of the society. They talked, and they drank, and
they grew tipsy; and very little worth hearing occurred during the
course of the whole evening. Mr. Brock officiated, half as the
servant, half as the companion of the society. Mr. Thomas Trippet