passionate love. If you venture to express a doubt of the accuracy
of any of these portraitures, the theatrical young gentleman
assures you, with a haughty smile, that it always has been done in
that way, and he supposes they are not going to change it at this
time of day to please you; to which, of course, you meekly reply
that you suppose not.

There are innumerable disquisitions of this nature, in which the
theatrical young gentleman is very profound, especially to ladies
whom he is most in the habit of entertaining with them; but as we
have no space to recapitulate them at greater length, we must rest
content with calling the attention of the young ladies in general
to the theatrical young gentlemen of their own acquaintance.



THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN



Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic
raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the
influence of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down
their shirt collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets
with bare throats and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an
astonished public. These were poetical young gentlemen. The
custom was gradually found to be inconvenient, as involving the
necessity of too much clean linen and too large washing bills, and
these outward symptoms have consequently passed away; but we are
disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the number of poetical