What are we
to think of the fine-dressed sparks, proud of their own personal
deformities, which appear the more hideous by the contrast of wearing
scarlet and gold, with what they call toupees[1] on their heads, and all
the frippery of a modern beau, to make a figure before women; some of
them with hump-backs, others hardly five feet high, and every feature
of their faces distorted: I have seen many of these insipid pretenders
entering into conversation with persons of learning, constantly making
the grossest blunders in every sentence, without conveying one single
idea fit for a rational creature to spend a thought on; perpetually
confounding all chronology, and geography, even of present times. I
compute, that London hath eleven native fools of the beau and puppy kind,
for one among us in Dublin; besides two-thirds of ours transplanted
thither, who are now naturalized: whereby that overgrown capital exceeds
ours in the articles of dunces by forty to one; and what is more to our
farther mortification, there is no one distinguished fool of Irish birth
or education, who makes any noise in that famous metropolis, unless the
London prints be very partial or defective; whereas London is seldom
without a dozen of their own educating, who engross the vogue for half a
winter together, and are never heard of more, but give place to a new
set.
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