Under this denomination also, we may expect to be furnished with as large a collection of old bachelors, especially those who have estates, and but a moderate degree of understanding.  For, an old wealthy bachelor, being perpetually surrounded with a set of flatterers, cousins, poor dependents, and would-be heirs, who for their own views submit to his perverseness and caprice, becomes insensibly infected with this scolding malady, which generally proves incurable, and renders him disagreeable to his friends, and a fit subject for ridicule to his enemies.

As to the incurable scribblers, (of which society I have the honour to be a member,) they probably are innumerable; and, of consequence, it will be absolutely impossible to provide for one-tenth part of their fraternity.  However, as this set of incurables are generally more plagued with poverty than any other, it will be a double charity to admit them on the foundation; a charity to the world, to whom they are a common pest and nuisance; and a charity to themselves, to relieve them from want, contempt, kicking, and several other accidents of that nature, to which they are continually liable.

Grub-street itself would then have reason to rejoice, to see so many of its half-starved manufacturers amply provided for; and the whole tribe of meagre incurables would probably shout for joy, at being delivered from the tyranny and garrets of printers, publishers, and booksellers.

What a mixed multitude of ballad-writers, ode-makers, translators, farce-compounders, opera-mongers, biographers, pamphleteers, and journalists, would appear crowding to the hospital; not unlike the brutes resorting to the ark before the deluge!  And what an universal satisfaction would such a sight afford to all, except pastry-cooks, grocers, chandlers, and tobacco-retailers, to whom alone the writings of those incurables were anyway profitable!

I have often been amazed to observe, what a variety of incurable coxcombs are to be met with between St. James’s and Limehouse, at every hour of the day; as numerous as Welsh parsons, and equally contemptible.  How they swarm in all coffeehouses, theatres, public walks, and private assemblies; how they are incessantly employed in cultivating intrigues, and every kind of irrational pleasure; how industrious they seem to mimic the appearance of monkeys, as monkeys are emulous to imitate the gestures of men:  And from such observations, I concluded, that to confine the greatest part of those incurables, who are so many living burlesques of human nature, would be of eminent service to this nation; and I am persuaded that I am far from being singular in that opinion.

As for the incurable infidels and liars, I shall range them under the same article, and would willingly appoint them the same apartment in the hospital; because there is a much nearer resemblance between them, than is generally imagined.

Have they not an equal delight in imposing falsities on the public; and seem they not equally desirous to be thought of more sagacity and importance than others?  Do they not both report what both know to be false; and both confidently assert what they are conscious is most liable to contradiction?