the _Pimp_ to his other _Pleasures_, and who fear’d a lighted _Pipe_ as much as if it had been a great _Gun_ levell’d at him) with his _Nose Flaming_, and his _Breath_ stinking of Spirits worse than a _Dutch Tarpawlin’s_, and smoking out of a short _Pipe_, that for some Months has been kept hot as constantly as a _Glass-House_, and so I leave him to his Meditation. You wou’d think it yet more strange, that any one should be _Slovenly_ and _Nasty_ out of _Vanity_; yet such there are I can assure you, _Madam_, and cou’d easily give a description of ’em, but that so foul a Relation must needs be Nauseous to a Person so Neat as your _Self_; and wou’d be treating You as the _Country Squire_ did his _Court Friend_, who when he had shew’d him all the Curiosities of his House and Gardens, carried him into his Hogsties. But there are more than enow to justifie what I have said of the Humour of _Diogenes_, who was as vain and as proud in his _Tub_, as _Plato_ cou’d be in the midst of his fine _Persian Carpets_, and rich _Furniture_. Vanity is only an Ambition of being taken notice of, which shews it self variously according to the humour of the Persons; which was more extravagant in the _Anti-Beau_, than in the _Beau Philosopher_. Vanity is the veriest _Proteus_ in the World, it can Ape _Humility_, and can make Men decry themselves on purpose to be Flattered; like some cunning _Preachers_ that cry up _Mortification_ and _Self-denial_ perpetually, and are pamper’d all the while by the Zeal and at the Charges of their Followers, who are affraid the good Man shou’d starve himself. It is the Blessing of Fools, and the Folly of Ingenious Men. For it makes those contentedly hugg themselves under all the scorn of the World, and the Indignities that are offer’d ’em, and these restless and dissatisfied with its applause. Both think the World envious, and that their merit is injur’d, and it is impossible to right either of ’em to their Minds; for those have no title to the pretence of merit, and these not so much as they think they have. Yet it is the Happiness of the first that they can think themselves capable of moving _Envy_; [Sidenote: _Vanity a Blessing to Fools._] for though they commonly mistake the Derision of Men, for their applause, yet Men are sometimes so ill Natur’d as to undeceive ’em, and then it is their Comfort, that these are envious Men, and misrepresent the Worlds opinion of ’em. Cou’d these Men be convinc’d of their mistake, I see nothing that shou’d hinder them from being desperate, and hanging or disposing of themselves some other such way. For though a Man may comfort himself under Afflictions, it is either that they are undeserved, or if deserved, that he suffers only for Oversights, or rash Acts, by which the wisest Men may be sometimes overtaken; that he is in the main Discreet and Prudent, and that others believe him so. But when a Man falls under his own _Contempt_, and does not only think himself not