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"Nay, if you do not admire Mr Meadows," cried he, "you must not even whisper it to the winds"

"Is he, then, so very adht of fashionable favour: his dress is a model, his manners are imitated, his attention is courted, and his notice is envied"

"Are you not laughing?"

"No, indeed; his privileges are much more extensive than I have mentioned: his decision fixes the exact liives reputation, and a word from him in public confers fashion!"

"And by onderful powers has he acquired such influence?"

"By nothing but a happy art in catching the reigning foibles of the ti them to an extreme yet more absurd than any one had done before him Ceremony, he found, was already exploded for ease, he, therefore, exploded ease for indolence; devotion to the fair sex, had given way to a more equal and rational intercourse, which, to push still farther, he presently exchanged for rudeness; joviality, too, was already banished for philosophical indifference, and that, therefore, he discarded, for weariness and disgust"

"And is it possible that qualities such as these should recommend him to favour and admiration?"

"Very possible, for qualities such as these constitute the present taste of the tiay world, ent, and selfish"

"Admirable requisites!" cried Cecilia; "and Mr Meadows, I acknowledge, seems to have attained them all"

"He must never," continued Mr Gosport, "confess the least pleasure froredient of his character: he must, upon no account, sustain a conversation with any spirit, lest he should appear, to his utter disgrace, interested in what is said: and when he is quite tired of his existence, from a total vacuity of ideas, he must affect a look of absence, and pretend, on the sudden, to be wholly lost in thought"

"I would not wish," said Cecilia, laughing, "a more amiable companion!"

"If he is asked his opinion of any lady," he continued, "he rimace; and if he is seated next to one, he must take the ut, and inattention, that he is sick of his situation; for what he holds of all things to be allantry to the women To avoid this is, indeed, the principal solicitude of his life If he sees a lady in distress for her carriage, he is to enquire of her what is the h her fatigues, wink at some bye-stander, and walk away If he is in a room where there is a crowd of company, and a scarcity of seats, he must early ensure one of the best in the place, be blind to all looks of fatigue, and deaf to all hints of assistance, and seee at his ease, and appear an unconscious spectator of what is going forward If he is at a ball where there are h it should happen to be his favourite a ladies, wonder to see them sit still, and perhaps ask them the reason!"