His Language and Discourse are altogether suitable to his Garb and Habit, all affected and apish, but indeed, far more vile, sinful, and abominable. When he talks, why then his Time-observing Hand and Foot do so point, accent, and adorn all his phantastick Flourishes, that his Words are often as much lost in his Actions, as his Sense in his Words: Withal using foolish Expressions, as stab my Vitals, run me through the _Diaphragma_, pasitively (not positively) it is so and so; speaking as effeminately, and Molly-like, as the _Ischnotes_, who say, as you may see in _Lilly_’s Grammar, _Nync_ for _Nunc_, _Tync_ for _Tunc_. By Degrees he steps from Idleness and Emptiness, Foolery and Drollery, to Scurrility and Obloquy; so that if his black Breath could blow out, or eclipse those Lights that shine brightest, we should not have one Star left in Virtue’s Heaven; and those Lights which were once sent into the World, to guide him timely and truly out of it into a better, he first endeavours to extinguish, that so he may, without Check or Shame, wander thro’ all the Works of Darkness into Hell. Alas! he sees no such Loveliness in the Things above, as may oblige him to the submissive Courtship of saying his Prayers below; and yet is so confident to enjoy Heaven at last; as if he thought God would be beholden to him for accepting his Blessings; or (as some foolish Lovers take Occasion to double their Addresses from the Unkindness of a coy Mistress) God would the more earnestly importune him to be sav’d, the more disdainfully he looks upon Salvation. If ever he appears at Church, it is but to meditate upon the Ladies, as they sit in their Sunday’s Beauties; and then he returns from the House of God, as most who go thither with no better Intentions, nay ten Times more an _Athiest_ than he went.
The Theatre in the _Hay-Market_ is his sole Delight, where half a Guinea is given for an _Italian_ Song, sung in a new Opera by some foreign Eunuch, or Jilt, with such Quivering, that the Words are lost and confounded with more affected Noise than Harmony. Or else he passes his Time away (as above hinted) at the Play-Houses in _Drury-Lane_, or _Lincoln’s-Inn Fields_, to ogle an impudent Actress, or some female Dancer, who crane’s her Neck with such various Motions, that one would think she was going to break it without the Assistance of a Hangman. Or if he is not at these Places of Pollution and Wickedness, the Tavern he then makes his Exchange; where he endeavours to drink himself so far into a Beast, as if it was his Design to become thereby incapable of Damnation, except he be forc’d to sleep out the last Night’s Intemperance; and thinks himself a Champion, when he can kick two down Stairs at once, the Drawer and his Bottle; and sound the Alarm to the Skirmish, in a loud Peal of new-fashion’d Curses. After all is done there, he walks the Streets as light in his Head, as his Purse; and much oftner salutes the Pavement than the Passengers. The Beau hates no Name so much as that of a _Christian_, he is afraid it would make him melancholy: He travels over the wide World of Sin, till he hath as little Money as Religion, and no more Credit than Money; whereby he is usually at last constrain’d either to lie hid, and so become his own Prisoner, or to pawn his Body to the Marshal of the _King’s Bench_ Prison in _Southwark_, or the Warden of the _Fleet_, for his Chamber; or else, to become a Citizen of the World, and so at last is every where at Home, because he is indeed at Home no where. In fine, I never saw an affected Beau have any Bravery; which makes me think they are related to a certain Attorney, who once resenting my sending an affronting Letter to his Sweetheart, had not the Courage to draw his Tilter, when I _ex tempore_ spoke to him the following Lines: