Another vice of age, by which the rifing genera tion may be alienated from it, is feverity and cenforiousness, that gives no allowance to the failings of early life, that expects artfulness from childhood, and conftancy from youth, that is peremptory in every command, and inexorable to every failure. There are many who live merely to hinder happiness, and whose descendants can only tell of long life, that it produces fufpicion, malignity, peevishness, and perfecution and yet even these tyrants can talk of the ingratitude of the age, curfe their heirs for impatience, and wonder that young men cannot take pleafure in their father's company.

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, muft, when he is young, confider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth he muft lay up knowledge for his fupport, when his powers of acting fhall forfake him; and in age for bear to animadvert with rigour on faults which experience only can correct.

NUMB. 51, TUESDAY, Sept. 10, 1750.

Stultus labor eft ineptiarum.

MART.

How foolish is the toil of trifling cares!

ELPHINSTON.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

A

S you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of your attention, I have refolved, after many ftruggles with idleness and diffidence, to give you fome account of my entertainment in this fober feafon of univerfal retreat, and to defcribe to you the employments of those who look with contempt on the pleafures and diverfions of polite life, and employ all their powers of cenfure and invective upon the ufeleffness, vanity, and folly, of drefs, vifits, and converfation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to the house, where invitation, regularly fent for seven years together, had at last induced me to pass the fummer, I was surprised, after the civilities of my firft reception, to find, inftead of the leifure and tranquillity, which a rural life always promifes, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation, was, indeed, very

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full of the happiness which fhe received from my vifit, and, according to the forms of obfolete breeding, infifted that I fhould recompence the long delay of my company with a promise not to leave her till winter. But amidst all her kindness and careffes, fhe very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxious earnestnefs, fome order to her daughters, which never failed to fend them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would not fuffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, fhe muft leave me for a moment; fhe went, and returned and fat down again, but was again disturbed by fome new care, difmiffed her daughters with the fame trepidation, and followed them with the fame countenance of business and folicitude.

However I was alarmed at this fhow of eagerness and disturbance, and however my curiofity was excited by fuch bufy preparations as naturally promifed fome great event, I was yet too much a ftranger to gratify myself with enquiries; but finding none of the family in mourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather fee a wedding than a fu

neral.

At laft we fat down to fupper, when I was informed that one of the young ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to enquire, was under a neceffity of attending fome affair that could not be neglected: Soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity of her family, and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let me know that they had purpofed that night to go to bed fooner than was ufual, because they were to rife early in the morning

morning to make cheesecakes. This hint fent me to my chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excufe fome large fieves of leaves and flowers that covered two thirds of the floor, for they intended to diftil them when they were dry, and they had no other room that fo conveniently received the rifing fun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from reft,, and therefore I rofe early in the morning with a refolution to explore my new habitation. I ftole unperceived by my bufy cousins into the garden, where I found nothing either more great or elegant, than in the fame number of acres cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I foon learned that his lady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I was come hither at the time in which I might learn to make more pickles and conferves, than could be seen at any other house a hundred miles round.

It was not long before her lady fhip gave me fufficient opportunities of knowing her character, for she was too much pleafed with her own accomplishments to conceal them, and took occafion, from fome fweetmeats which fhe fet next day upon the table, to discourse for two long hours upon robs and gellies; laid down the beft methods of conferving, referving, and preferving all forts of fruit; told us with great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these terms were very often confounded; and hinted how much fhe fhould be afhamed to fet before company, at her own houfe, fweetmeats of fo dark a colour, as fhe had often feen at mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great bufinefs of her life, to watch the skillet on the fire, to fee it fimmer with the due degree of heat, and to fnatch it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which fhe has bred her daughters, are to turn rofe-leaves in the fhade, to pick out the feeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without bruifing it, and to extract bean flower water for the fkin. Such are the tasks with which every day, fince I came hither, has begun and ended, to which the early hours of life are facrificed, and in which that time is paffing away which never shall return.

But to reafon or expoftulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has fettled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own performances with all the firmness of ftupidity accustomed to be flattered. Her daughters having never seen any house but their own, believe their mother's excellence on her own word, Her husband is a mere fportfman, who is pleafed to fee his table well furnished, and thinks the day fufficiently fuccessful, in which he brings home a leash of hares to be potted by his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady foon told me that none of her books would fuit my tafte; for her part fhe never loved to fee young women give their minds to fuch follies, by which they would only learn to use hard words; shẹ bred up her daughters to understand a house, and whoever fhould marry them, if they knew any thing of good cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, fome things in the culinary fciences too fublime for youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be initiated till the years

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