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LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLD

STYLE, GENT.

M2

paper.

Letter 1.

R. EDITOR,-If the observations of an odd old fellow are not wholly superfluous, I would thank you to shove them into a spare corner of your

It is a matter of amusement to an uninterested spectator like myself, to observe the influence fashion has on the dress and deportment of its votaries, and how very quick they fly from one extreme to the other.

A few years since the rage was very high crowned hats with very narrow brims, tight neckcloth, tight coat, tight jacket, tight smallclothes, and shoes loaded with enormous silver buckles; the hair craped, plaited, queued, and

powdered;-in short, an air of the greatest spruceness and tightness diffused over the whole person.

The ladies with their tresses neatly turned up over an immense cushion; waist a yard long, braced up with stays into the smallest compass, and encircled by an enormous hoop; so that the fashionable belle resembled a walking bottle.

Thus dressed, the lady was seen, with the most bewitching languor, reclining on the arm of an extremely attentive beau, who, with a long cane, decorated with an enormous tassel, was carefully employed in removing every stone, stick, or straw that might impede the progress of his tottering companion, whose high-heeled shoes just brought the points of her toes to the ground.

What an alteration has a few years produced! We now behold our gentlemen, with the most studious carelessness and almost slovenliness of dress; large hat, large coat, large neckcloth, large pantaloons, large boots, and hair scratched into every careless direction, lounging along the streets in the most apparent listlessness and vacuity of thought; staring with an unmeaning countenance at every passenger, or leaning upon the arm of some kind fair one for support, with the other hand

crammed into his breeches' pocket. Such is the picture of a modern beau,—in his dress stuffing himself up to the dimensions of a Hercules, in his manners affecting the helplessness of an invalid.

The belle who has to undergo the fatigue of dragging along this sluggish animal has chosen a character the very reverse,-emulating in her dress and actions all the airy lightness of a sylph, she trips along with the greatest vivacity. Her laughing eye, her countenance enlivened with affability and good-humor, inspire with kindred animation every beholder, except the torpid being by her side, who is either affecting the fashionable sang-froid, or is wrapt up in profound contemplation of himself.

Heavens! how changed are the manners since I was young! Then, how delightful to contemplate a ball-room,-such bowing, such scraping, such complimenting; nothing but 'copperplate speeches to be heard on both sides; no walking but in minuet measure; nothing more common than to see half a dozen gentlemen knock their heads together in striving who should first recover a lady's fan or snuffbox that had fallen.

But now, our youths no longer aim at the character of pretty gentlemen; their greatest ambition is to be called lazy dogs, careless

fellows, etc., etc. Dressed up in the mammoth style, our buck saunters into the ball-room in a surtout, hat under arm, cane in hand; strolls round with the most vacant air; stops abruptly before such lady as he may choose to honor with his attention; entertains her with the common slang of the day, collected from the conversation of hostlers, footmen, porters, etc., until his string of smart sayings is run out, and then lounges off to entertain some other fair one with the same unintelligible jargon. Surely, Mr. Editor, puppyism must have arrived to a climax; it must turn; to carry it to a greater extent seems to me impossible.

JONATHAN OLDSTYLE.

NOVEMBER 15, 1802.

ST

Letter II.

IR,-Encouraged by the ready insertion. you gave my former communication, I have taken the liberty to intrude on you a few more remarks.

Nothing is more intolerable to an old person than innovation on old habits. The customs that prevailed in our youth become dear to us as we advance in years; and we can no more bear to see them abolished than we can to behold the trees cut down under which we have sported in the happy days of infancy.

Even I myself, who have floated down the stream of life with the tide,-who have humored it in all its turnings, who have conformed in a great measure to all its fashions,— cannot but feel sensible of this prejudice. I often sigh when I draw a comparison between the present and the past; and though I cannot but be sensible that, in general, times are altered for the better, yet there is something,

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