N° 92.

L

SATURDAY, March 25. 1780.

OOKING from the window of a houfe where I was vifiting some mornings ago, I observed, on the oppofite fide of the street, a fign-post, indicating a person to live there, by trade a Figure-maker. On remarking to a gentleman who stood near me, that this was a profeffion I did not recollect having heard of before, my friend, who has a knack of drawing observations from trifles, and, I must confefs, is a little inclined to take things on their weak fide, replied, with a farcastic smile, that it was one of the most common in life. While he spoke, a smart young man, who has lately fet up a very showy equipage, passed by in his carriage at a brisk trot, and bowed to me, who have the honour of a flight acquaintance with him, with that air of civil confequence which puts one in mind of the notice a man thinks himself intitled to. "That "young gentleman," said my friend, " is a "Figure-maker, and the chariot he drives in " is his fign-post. You might trace the bre" thren

"thren of this wade through every street, "square, and house in town. Figure-ma

"king is common to all ranks, ages, tem"pe pers, and fituations: there are rich and poor, extravagant and narrow, wife and "foolish, witty and ridiculous, eloquent and " filent, beautiful and ugly Figure-makers. In "short, there is scarce any body such a cу"pher from Nature, as not to form fome "pretenfions to making a figure in spite of "her."

"The young man who bowed to you is an "extravagant Figure-maker, more remarkable "from being fucceffor to a narrow one I "knew his father well, and have often vifited. "him, in the course of money-tranfactions, " at his office, as it was called, in the garret"story of a dark airless house, where he fat, "like the genius of lucre, brooding, in his "hole, over the wealth his parfimony had ac "quired him. The very ink with which he wrote was adulterated with water, and he "delayed mending his pen till the characters "it formed were almost illegible. Yet he too "had great part of his enjoyment from the "opinion of others, and was not insensible to "the pleasures of Figure-making. I have of

"ten seen him in his thread-bare brown coat, "stop on the street to wait the paffing of "some of his well dressed debtors, that he " might have the pleasure of infulting them "with the intimacy to which their situations "intitled him; and I once knew him actual"ly lend a large fum on terms less advanta"geous than it was his custom to infift upon, " merely because it was a Peer who wanted ،، to borrow, and that he had applied in vain "to two right honourable relations of im"menfe fortune.

"His fon has just the fame defire of shew"ing his wealth that the father had; but he " takes a very different method of displaying "it. Both, however, display, not enjoy, "their wealth, and draw equal fatisfaction " from the consequence derived from it in the " opinion of others. The father kept guineas " in his coffers which he never used; the for "changes, indeed, the species of property, " but has just as little the power of using it. " He keeps horses in his stable, mistresses in. " lodgings, and servants in livery, to no better "purpose than his father did guineas. He " gives dinners, at which he eats made dishes "that he detefts, and drinks Champaigne and

"Burgundy,

1

" men.

"Burgundy, instead of his old beverage of "port and punch, till he is fick, because they " are the dishes and drink of great and rich The fon's fituation has the advantage " of brillancy, but the father's was more like"ly to be permanent; he was daily growing "richer with the aspect of poverty; his fon " is daily growing poorer with the appear"ance of wealth..

"It is impoffible to enumerate the pranks "which the fudden acquisition of riches, join"ed to this defire of Figure-making, fets people "a-playing. There is nothing fo abfurd or "extravagant, which riches, in the hands of " a weak man, will not tempt him to commit " from the mere idea of enjoying his money "in the way of exhibition. Nay, this will "happen to perfons of whose fenfe and dif"cretion the world had formerly a high opi"nion, even where that opinion was a juft one; for wealth often makes fools where "it does not find them." - My friend happening to cast his eye towards me at that mo ment, discovered a fimile on my countenance, "You are thinking now," said he, " that you and I could endure being left twenty or

thirty thousand pounds, notwithstanding "the "the truth of my observation."- " It would "fpoil your lecture, I replied; but you may "go on in the mean time."- He took the pinch of snuff which my remark had stopped in its progress towards his nose, and went ons

"From this motive of Figure making," con. tinued he, turning to the ladies of the company, "beauty puts on her airs, and wit la"bours for a Bon-Mot, till the first becomes " ugly, and the latter tiresome. You may "have frequently observed Betsey Ogle, in a "company of her ordinary acquaintance, look "charmingly, because she did not care how "she looked, till the appearance of a gentle"man, with a fine coat or a title, has set her "a-toffing her head, rolling her eyes, biting "her lips, twifting her neck, and bringing "her whole figure to bear upon him, till the "expreffion of her countenance became per"fect folly, and her attitudes downright dif"tortion. In the same way, our friend Ned "Glib, (who has more wit than any man I "know, could he but learn the economy of "it), when some happy strokes of humour "have given him credit with himself and the "company, will fet out full tilt, mimicking, "caricaturing, punning, and story-telling,