by Patent to any particular Foundation (as St. John’s Men would have the World believe, and have therefore erected a separate Society within themselves) but Liberty is left to elect from any School in Great Britain, provided the Candidates be within the Rules of the Club, as set forth in a Table entituled The Act of Deformity.  A Clause or two of which I shall transmit to you.

  I. That no Person whatsoever shall be admitted without a visible
  Quearity in his Aspect, or peculiar Cast of Countenance; of which the
  President and Officers for the time being are to determine, and the
  President to have the casting Voice.

  II.  That a singular Regard be had, upon Examination, to the Gibbosity
  of the Gentlemen that offer themselves, as Founders Kinsmen, or to the
  Obliquity of their Figure, in what sort soever.

  III.  That if the Quantity of any Man’s Nose be eminently
  miscalculated, whether as to Length or Breadth, he shall have a just
  Pretence to be elected.

  Lastly, That if there shall be two or more Competitors for the same
  Vacancy, caeteris paribus, he that has the thickest Skin to have the
  Preference.

Every fresh Member, upon his first Night, is to entertain the Company with a Dish of Codfish, and a Speech in praise of AEsop; [2] whose portraiture they have in full Proportion, or rather Disproportion, over the Chimney; and their Design is, as soon as their Funds are sufficient, to purchase the Heads of Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron, Hudibras, and the old Gentleman in Oldham, [3] with all the celebrated ill Faces of Antiquity, as Furniture for the Club Room.

As they have always been profess’d Admirers of the other Sex, so they unanimously declare that they will give all possible Encouragement to such as will take the Benefit of the Statute, tho’ none yet have appeared to do it.

The worthy President, who is their most devoted Champion, has lately shown me two Copies of Verses composed by a Gentleman of his Society; the first, a Congratulatory Ode inscrib’d to Mrs. Touchwood, upon the loss of her two Fore-teeth; the other, a Panegyrick upon Mrs. Andirons left Shoulder.  Mrs. Vizard (he says) since the Small Pox, is grown tolerably ugly, and a top Toast in the Club; but I never hear him so lavish of his fine things, as upon old Nell Trot, who constantly officiates at their Table; her he even adores, and extolls as the very Counterpart of Mother Shipton; in short, Nell (says he) is one of the Extraordinary Works of Nature; but as for Complexion, Shape, and Features, so valued by others, they are all meer Outside and Symmetry, which is his Aversion.  Give me leave to add, that the President is a facetious, pleasant Gentleman, and never more so, than when he has got (as he calls ’em) his dear Mummers about him; and he often