the first seven years, any farther than by taking notice that they
carefully observed their father's will and kept their coats in very
good order; that they travelled through several countries,
encountered a reasonable quantity of giants, and slew certain
dragons.

Being now arrived at the proper age for producing themselves, they
came up to town and fell in love with the ladies, but especially
three, who about that time were in chief reputation, the Duchess
d'Argent, Madame de Grands-Titres, and the Countess d'Orgueil {71}.
On their first appearance, our three adventurers met with a very bad
reception, and soon with great sagacity guessing out the reason,
they quickly began to improve in the good qualities of the town.
They wrote, and rallied, and rhymed, and sung, and said, and said
nothing; they drank, and fought, and slept, and swore, and took
snuff; they went to new plays on the first night, haunted the
chocolate-houses, beat the watch; they bilked hackney-coachmen, ran
in debt with shopkeepers, and lay with their wives; they killed
bailiffs, kicked fiddlers down-stairs, ate at Locket's, loitered at
Will's; they talked of the drawing-room and never came there; dined
with lords they never saw; whispered a duchess and spoke never a
word; exposed the scrawls of their laundress for billet-doux of
quality; came ever just from court and were never seen in it;
attended the levee sub dio; got a list of peers by heart in one
company, and with great familiarity retailed them in another. Above
all, they constantly attended those committees of Senators who are
silent in the House and loud in the coffeehouse, where they nightly
adjourn to chew the cud of politics, and are encompassed with a ring
of disciples who lie in wait to catch up their droppings. The three
brothers had acquired forty other qualifications of the like stamp