MADAM,
IAM one of your readers, and bear you that sort of good will which we naturally feel for persons who contribute to our amusement. I have done what very few friends do; I have spoke well of you behind your back, and have not scrupled to declare in all companies, that Mrs. Penelope Spindle’s attack upon your reputation is extremely unjust.
She denies that you are lineally descended from the ancient family of the Triflers; and confidently asserts that you have taken a province which you cannot fill; but unfortunately for her, the arguments she brings in support of this opinion, are those which may be most successfully urged against it. Are love and courtship, she says, proper subjects for a trifler? Most certainly; for in this polite age, love and courtship are meer trifles; marriage is a trifle; virtue is an egregious trifle; wisdom, morality, religion, all are trifles; and there is nothing serious but cards. I maintain that hitherto the subjects of your paper have been consistent with your title. You have knowledge enough of life to perceive that cards is the sole business of it: and tho’ there are many other serious affairs, such as balls, operas, concerts, masquerades, and the like, which claim the attention of persons of rank and fortune, yet all these must yield to cards.
As a trifler therefore, you have wisely avoided entering upon so great and important a matter: you have confined yourself to such topics, as most of your readers will readily allow to be trifles; and when you talk of wit, learning, economy; when you recommend reservedness, and a contempt for fashionable amusements, there is not a fine lady in town who does not acknowledge the propriety of your title, and declare that you are an intolerable trifler.
Mrs. Spindle says, it is common for periodical authors to forget their titles; that the Tatler often talks with the most solemn austerity of wisdom; and that the Guardian deviates into many topicks, with which, as a guardian, he has no concern. I wish, for the sake of your reputation as a writer, that you would follow their example, and sometimes forget your title. If you hope to have your paper read with general approbation, do not dwell so much upon exploded trifles, unworthy the attention of persons of polite education. Raise your thoughts to things solid and rational; shew us the strength of your reasoning, in a dissertation on whist; and the subtilty of your wit, by leading us through all the mazes of quadril: if you have any genius for poetry, write a panegyric on loo; and if you dare venture on so sublime a subject, let your muse record the daring flights of brag.
I shall judge by the use you make of these hints whether you merit the farther correspondence of, Madam,
Your Humble Servant, MARIA.