But he does not always seem to attribute merriment to this humble and unpleasant origin; he produces some passages really meant for enjoyment, and doing justice to his gift, attacks frivolities and failings, which are not of an important kind. Thus, he speaks in a jocund strain of the vanity of "fashionable fiddle-daddle and feeble court slip-slop," and exclaims, "Ah, ladies! Ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not a sounding brass, and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal!" He tells us that "The affection of young ladies is of as rapid a growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night," and in the following passage he exhibits the conduct of an amiable and estimable girl, when under this fascinating spell-- "Were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborn to be published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity of volumes, as not the most sentimental reader could support; she not only filled large sheets of paper, but crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness, she wrote whole pages out of poetry books without the least pity, the underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and in fine gave the usual tokens of her condition. Her letters were full of repetition, she wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her verses took all sorts of liberties with the metre." Speaking of a very religious and medical lady-- "Pitt had been made to accept Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowles, Podger's Pills, Rodger's Pills, Pokey's Elixir--every one of her ladyship's remedies, spiritual and temporal. He never left her house without carrying respectfully away with him piles of her quack theology and medicine. O, my dear brethren and fellow-sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, 'Dear madam, I took Podger's specific at your orders last year, and believe in it. Why am I to recant, and accept the Rodger's articles now?' There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the recusant finds himself taking down the bolus, and saying 'Well, well, Rodger's be it.'" A still more alarming attack is thus represented:--