Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation (c. 1713) [ Practices ]
… easy but where he can be allowed to dictate and preside; he neither expects to be informed or entertained, but to display his own talents. His business is to be good company, and not good conversation; and therefore he chooses to frequent … where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men, who had writ plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with their trifling … beside the imputation of pedantry, it is what he would never improve by. The great town is usually provided with some player, mimick, or buffoon, who has a general reception at the good tables; familiar and domestick with persons of the …
Conversation | Audience
Anthology