The True Patriot
by
No. 13.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1746.
Qui non recte instituunt atque erudiunt liberos, non solum liberis sed et reipublicae faciunt injuriam. –CICERO.
MR ADAMS having favoured me with a second letter, I shall give it the public without any apology. If anything in it should at first a little shock those readers who know the world better, I hope they will make allowances for the ignorance and simplicity of the writer.
TO THE TRUE PATRIOT.
MY WORTHY FRIEND,–I am concerned to find, by all our public accounts, that the rebels still continue in the land. In my last I evidently proved that their successes were owing to a judgment denounced against our sins, and concluded with some exhortations for averting the Divine anger by the only methods which suggested themselves to my mind. These exhortations, by the event, I perceive have not had that regard paid to them I had reason to expect. Indeed, I am the more confirmed in this conjecture, by a lad whom I lately met at a neighbouring baronet’s, where I sojourned the two last days of the year, with my good friend Mr Wilson.
This lad, whom I imagined to have been come from school to visit his friends for the holidays (for though he is perhaps of sufficient age, I found, on examination, he was not yet qualified for the university), is, it seems, a man sui juris; and is, as I gather from the young damsels, Sir John’s daughters, a member of the society of bowes. I know not whether I spell the word right; for I am not ashamed to say I neither understand its etymology nor true import, as it hath never once occurred in any lexicon or dictionary which I have yet perused.
Whatever this society may be, either the lad with whom I communed is an unworthy member, or it would become the government to put it down by authority; for he uttered many things during our discourse for which I would have well scourged any of the youth under my care.
He had not long entered the chamber before he acquainted the damsels that he and his companions had carried the opera, in opposition to the puts; by which I afterwards learnt he meant all sober and discreet persons. “And fags!” says he (I am afraid, though, he made use of a worse word), “we expected the bishops would have interfered; but if they had we should have silenced them.” I then thought to myself, Strippling, if I had you well horsed on the back of another lad, I would teach you more reverence to their lordships.
This opera, I am informed, is a diversion in which a prodigious sum of money, more than is to be collected out of twenty parishes, is lavished away on foreign eunuchs and papists, very scandalous to be suffered at any time, especially at a season when both war and famine hang over our heads.
During the whole time of our repast at dinner the young gentleman entertained us with an account of several drums and routs at which he had been present. These are, it seems, large congregations of men and women, who, instead of assembling together to hear something that is good, nay, or to divert themselves with gambols, which might be allowed now and then in holiday times, meet for no other purpose but that of gaming, for a whole guinea and much more at a stake. At this married women sit up all night, nay, sometimes till one or two in the morning, neglect their families, lose their money, and some, Mr Wilson says, have been suspected of doing even worse than that. Yet this is suffered in a Christian kingdom; nay (quod prorsus incredibile est), the holy sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings; and card-playing goes on as publickly then as on any other day; nor is this only among the young lads and damsels, who might be supposed to know no better, but men advanced in years, and grave matrons, are not ashamed of being caught at the same pastime. O tempora! O mores!