Page:The Works Of Henry Fielding (1903, NY) Vol. 12 - Miscellaneous Writings, Part 2.pdf/295

 money, and said he was a comical gentleman, but that it was a thousand pities he swore so much; if it was not for that, he was a very good customer, and as generous as a prince, for that the night before he had treated everybody in the house. I then asked him if he knew that comical gentleman, as he called him? "No, really, sir," said the landlord, "though a gentleman was saying last night that he was a sort of rider or rideout to a linendraper at London." This, Mr. Censor, I have since found to be true; for, having occasion to buy some cloth, I went last week into a linendraper's shop, in which I found a young fellow whose decent behaviour and plain dress shewed he was a tradesman. Upon looking full in his face I thought I had seen it before; nor was it long before I recollected where it was, and that this was the same beau I had met with in Somersetshire. The difference in the same man in London, where he was known, and in the country, where he was a stranger, was beyond expression; and, was it not impertinent to make observations to you, I could inlarge upon this sort of behaviour; for I am firmly of opinion that there is neither spirit nor good sense in oaths, nor any wit or humour in blasphemy. But as vulgar errors require an abler pen than mine to correct them, I shall leave that task to you, and am, sir, your humble servant,

R. S.