6 good-breeding and polite education. She fings, dances, plays on the lute and harpsicord, paints prettily, is a perfect mistress of the French tongue, and has made a confiderable progress in Italian. She is befides excellently skill'd in all domestic sciences, as preferving pickling, pastry, making wines of fruits of our own growth, embroidering and needleworks of every kind. • Hitherto you will be apt to think there is very little • cause of complaint; but suspend your opinion till I • have farther explain'd myself, and then I make no question you will come over to mine. You are not to imagine I find fault that the either possesses or takes delight in the exercise of those qualifications I just now mentioned; 'tis the immoderate fondness she has 6 6 to them that I lament, and that what is only design'd • for the innocent amusement and recreation of life, • is become the whole business and study of hers. The • fix months we are in town (for the year is equally • divided between that and the country) from almoft • break of day till noon, the whole morning is laid out • in practising with her feveral masters; and to make up ⚫ the loffes occafion'd by her absence in summer, every day in the week their attendance is required; and as they are all people eminent in their professions, their • skill and time must be recompenfed accordingly: So how far these articles extend, I leave you to judge. • Limning, one would think, is no expensive diversion; but as she manages the matter, 'tis a very confiderable • addition to her disbursements; which you will eafily believe, when you know the paints fans for all her • female acquaintance, and draws all her relations • pictures in miniature; the first must be mounted by no body but Colmar, and the other set by no body but Charles Mather. What follows, is still much worse than ' the former; for, as I told you she is a great artist at ' her needle, 'tis incredible what fums the expends in • embroidery; for befides what is appropriated to her • personal use, as mantuas, peticoats, stomachers, hand• kerchiefs, purses, pin-cushions, and working aprons, • she keeps four French proteftants continually employ'd • in making divers pieces of fuperfluous furniture, as quilts, toilets, hangings for closeis, beds, window. • curtains, 6 B5 ، ، curtains, easy-chairs, and tabourets: Nor have I any hopes of ever reclaiming her from this extravagance, while the obftinately perfifts in thinking it a notable piece of good housewifry, because they are made at home, and the has had fome share in the performance. There would be no end of relating to you the parti. culars of the annual charge, in furnishing her storeroom with a profusion of pickles and preserves; for * she is not contented with having every thing, unless it • be done every way, in which the confults an heredi ، 4 tary book of receipts; for her female ancestors have • been always famed for good housewifry, one of whom • is made immortal, by giving her name to an eyewater and two forts of puddings. I cannot under⚫ take to recite all her medicinal preparations, as falves, • ferecloths, powders, confects, cordials, ratafia, perfico, orange-flower, and cherry-brandy, together with • innumerable forts of fimple waters. But there is nothing I lay so much to heart, as that deteftable catalogue of counterfeit wines, which derive their names • from the fruits, herbs, or trees of whose juices they ⚫are chiefly compounded: They are loathsome to the taste, and pernicious to the health; and as they sel• dom survive the year, and then are thrown away, unfalse pretence of frugality, I may affirm they ftand me in more than if I entertained all our vifitors • with the best burgundy and champaign. Coffee, cho*colate, green, imperial, peco, and bohea-tea seem to • be trifles; but when the proper appurtenances of the • tea-table are added, they swell the account higher than one would imagine. I cannot conclude without doing her justice in one article; where her frugality is • fo remarkable, I must not deny her the merit of it, and that is in relation to her children, who are all confined, both boys and girls, to one large room in the • remotest part of the house, with bolts on the doors • and bars to the windows, under the care and tuition der a of an old woman, who had been dry nurse to her grandmother. This is their refidence all the year • round; and as they are never allowed to appear, the prudently thinks it needless to be at any expence in * apparel or learning. Her eldest danghter to this day, • would 6 6 6 6 would have neither read nor writ, if it had not been for the butler, who, being the fon of a country attorney, has taught her fuch a hand, as is generally used for ingrossing bills in Chancery. By this time I have sufficiently tired your patience with my domeftic grievances; which I hope you will agree could not well be 'contained in a narrower compass, when you confider what a paradox I undertook to maintain in the beginning of my epistle, and which manifestly appears to be 'but too melancholy a truth. And now I heartily wish the relation I have given of my misfortunes may be: ' of ufe and benefit to the public. By the example I have fet before them, the truly virtuous wives may ' learn to avoid those errors which have so unhappily ' misled mine, and which are visibly these three. First,. In mistaking the proper objects of her esteem, and fixing her affections upon such things as are only the trappings and decorations of her fex. Secondly, In not diftinguishing what becomes the different stages of 'life. And, lastly, the abuse and corruption of fome "excellent qualities, which, if circumscrib'd within just " bounds, would have been the blessing and profperity of ' her family, but, by a vicious extreme, are like to be "the bane and destruction of it. 6 6. Q No 329 Tuesday, March 18. Ire tamen reftat, Numa quò devenit, & Ancus. Hor. Epift. 6. 1. 1..v. 27. With Ancus, and with Numa, kings of Rome, M Y friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLY told me t'other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, in which, fays he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the Tombs, and that he should be glad to go and fee them with me, not having visited them fince he had read. history.. history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very bufy all laft fummer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted feveral times in his disputes with Sir ANDREW FREEPORTsince his laft coming to town. ingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey. Accord I found the Knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, than he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the fame time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As foon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable, upon which the Knight observing that I had made feveral wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at firfl, but that it was the best thing in the world against the ftone or gravel. I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of goodwill. Sir ROGER told me farther, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilft he staid in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the fickness being at Dantzick: When of a fudden turning short to one of his fervants, who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it. He then refumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors or apothecaries in the country: That the distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that the distributed her water gratis among all forts of people; to which the knight added, that the had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; and truly, fays Sir ROGER, if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better. His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coach man man if his axletree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without farther ceremony. We had not gone far, when Sir ROGER, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and, upon presenting himself at the window, asked if he fmoked; as I was confidering what this would end in, he bid him ftop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey, till we were fet down at the weft end of the Abbey.040 As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cry'd out, A brave man I warrant him! Paffing Pa afterwards by Sir Cloudfly Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cry'd Sir Cloudfly Shovel! a very gallant man! As we stood before Busby's tomb, the knight utter'd himself again after the fame manner, Dr. Busby's, a great man! he whipp'd my grand father; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead; a very great man! We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir ROGER, planting himself at our hiftorian's elbow, was very attentive to every thing he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord, who had cut off the king of Morrocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to fee the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifry, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honour to queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquifitive into her name and family; and after having regarded her finger for some time, I wonder, says he, that Sir Richard Baker has faid nothing of her in his Chronicle. We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, where my old friend after having heard that the ftone underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's pillar, fat himself down in the chair; and looking like the figure of an old |