I cannot in the midst of many other things which press, hide the comfort that this letter from my ingenious kinsman gives me.
"_To my Honoured Kinsman_, ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.
"I am sorry, though not surprised, to find that you have rallied the men of dress in vain; that the amber-headed cane still maintains its unstable post; that pockets are but a few inches shortened; and a beau is still a beau, from the crown of his nightcap to the heels of his shoes. For your comfort, I can assure you, that your endeavours succeed better in this famous seat of learning. By them, the manners of our young gentlemen are in a fair way of amendment, and their very language is mightily refined. To them it is owing, that not a servitor will sing a catch, not a senior fellow make a pun, not a determining bachelor drink a bumper; and I believe a gentleman commoner would as soon have the heels of his shoes red as his stockings. When a witling stands at a coffee-house door, and sneers at those who pass by, to the great improvement of his hopeful audience, he is no longer surnamed a slicer, but a man of fire is the word. A beauty, whose health is drunk from Heddington to Hinksey,[173] who has been the theme of the Muses (her cheeks painted with roses, and her bosom planted with orange boughs), has no more the title of lady, but reigns an undisputed toast. When to the plain garb of gown and band a spark adds an inconsistent long wig, we do not say now he boshes, but there goes a smart fellow. If a virgin blushes, we no longer cry the blues. He that drinks till he stares, is no more tow-row, but honest. A youngster in a scrape, is a word out of date; and what bright man says, I was Joabed by the dean: bamboozling is exploded; a shat is a tattler; and if the muscular motion of a man's face be violent, no mortal says, he raises a horse, but he is a merry fellow.
"I congratulate you, my dear kinsman, upon these conquests; such as Roman emperors lamented they could not gain; and in which you rival your correspondent Lewis le Grand, and his dictating academy.
"Be yours the glory to perform, mine to record (as Mr. Dryden has said before me to his kinsman);[174] and while you enter triumphant into the temple of the Muses, I, as my office requires, will, with my staff on my shoulder, attend and conduct you. I am, Dear cousin,