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On the other side, Dusopius is so bashful that he hides himself in a corner; he hardly bears being looked at, and never quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a distance, is shocked at hearing his own voice, and would almost swoon at the repetition of his name.

The audacious Anedes, who is extremely amorous in his inclinations, never likes a woman but his eyes ask her the question, without considering the confusion he often occasions to the object; he ogles and languishes at every pretty woman in the room. As there is no law of morality which he would not break to satisfy his desires, so is there no form of civility which he doth not violate to communicate them. When he gets possession of a woman’s hand, which those of stricter decency never give him but with reluctance, he considers himself as its master. Indeed, there is scarce a familiarity which he will abstain from on the slightest acquaintance, and in the most public place. Seraphina herself can make no impression on the rough temper of Agroicus; neither her quality nor her beauty can exact the least complacence from him; and he would let her lovely limbs ach rather than offer her his chair: while the gentle Lyperus tumbles over benches and overthrows tea-tables to take up a fan or a glove; he forces you, as a good parent doth his child, for your own good; he is absolute master of a lady’s will, nor will allow her the election of standing or sitting in his company. In short, the impertinent civility of Lyperus is as troublesome, though perhaps not so offensive, as the brutish rudeness of Agroicus.

Thus we have hinted at most of the common enormities committed in public assemblies to our equals; for it would be tedious and difficult to enumerate all: nor is it needful; since from this sketch we may trace all others, most of which, I believe, will be found to branch out from some of the particulars here specified.

I am now, in the last place, to consider our behaviour to our inferiors, in which condescension can never be too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they really do. The qualities of the mind do, in reality, establish the truest superiority over one another: yet should not these so far elevate our pride as to inflate us with contempt, and make us look down on our fellow-creatures as on animals of an inferior order; but that the fortuitous accident of birth, the acquisition of wealth, with some outward ornaments of dress, should inspire men with an insolence capable of treating the rest of mankind with disdain, is so preposterous that nothing less than daily experience could give it credit. If men were to be rightly estimated, and divided into subordinate classes according to the superior excellence of their several natures, perhaps the lowest class of either sex would be properly assigned to those two disgraces of the human species, commonly called a beau and a fine lady; for, if we rate men by the faculties of the mind, in what degree must these stand? nay, admitting the qualities of the body were to give the pre-eminence, how many of those whom fortune hath placed in the lowest station must be ranked above them? If dress is their only title, sure even the monkey, if as well dressed, is on as high a footing as the beau. But perhaps I shall be told they challenge their dignity from birth; that is a poor and mean pretence to honour when supported with no other. Persons who have no better claim to superiority should be ashamed of this; they are really a disgrace to those very ancestors from whom they would derive their pride, and are chiefly happy in this, that they want the very moderate portion of understanding which would enable them to despise themselves.