“_French_ Clay and _English_ Clay, as they have been named, are brothers, both men of large fortune, which their father acquired respectably by commerce, and which they are spending in all kinds of extravagance and profligacy, not from inclination, but merely to purchase admission into fine company. French Clay is a travelled coxcomb, who, _à propos de bottes_, begins with, ‘When I was abroad with the Princess Orbitella--’ But I am afraid I cannot speak of this man with impartiality, for I cannot bear to see an Englishman apeing a Frenchman. The imitation is always so awkward, so ridiculous, so contemptible. French Clay talks of _tact_, but without possessing any; he delights in what he calls _persiflage_, but in his _persiflage_, instead of the wit and elegance of Parisian raillery, there appears only the vulgar love and habit of derision. He is continually railing at our English want of _savoir vivre_, yet is himself an example of the ill-breeding which he reprobates. His manners have neither the cordiality of an Englishman nor the polish of a foreigner. To improve us in _l’esprit de société_, he would introduce the whole system of French gallantry--the vice without the refinement. I heard him acknowledge it to be ‘his principle’ to intrigue with every _married_ woman who would listen to him, provided she has any one of his four requisites, wit, fashion, beauty, or a good table. He says his late suit in Doctors’-commons cost him nothing; for 10,000_l._ are nothing to him. “Public virtue, as well as private, he thinks it a fine air to disdain, and patriotism and love of our country, he calls prejudices of which a philosopher ought to divest himself. Some charitable people say that he is not so unfeeling as he seems to be, and that above half his vices arise from affectation, and from a mistaken ambition to be what he thinks perfectly French.