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time distinguished herself by various tricks, such as putting furze balls into the beds, and pulling people's seats from under them. Miss was sent off to a boarding-school. Here she was no small favorite with the girls, whom she led into all manner of scrapes; and no small plague to the poor governess, whose tables were hacked, and beds cut, and curtains set on fire, continually. It is true she soon laid aside her romping airs, and assumed a very demure appearance; but she was always playing one sly trick or another, and had learned to tell lies, in order to lay it upon the innocent. At length she was discovered in the act of writing anonymous letters, by which whole families in the town had been set at variance; and she was then dismissed from the school with ignominy. She has since lived a very busy life in the world: seldom is there a great crowd of which she does not make one, and she has even frequently been taken up for riots, and other disorderly proceedings.

The next lady I shall introduce to your acquaintance is a city lady, Miss Management, a very stirring, notable woman, always in a bustle, and always behindhand. In the parlor she saves candle-ends; in the kitchen every thing is waste and extravagance; she hires her servants at half wages, and changes them every quarter; she is a great buyer of cheap bargains, but as she cannot always use them, they grow worm and moth eaten on her hands; when she pays a long score to her butcher, she wrangles for the odd pence, but forgets to add up the pounds. Though it is her great study to save, she is continually outrunning her income, which is partly owing to trusting a cousin of hers, Miss Calculation, with the settling her accounts, who, it is very well known, could never be persuaded to learn her multiplication table, or state rightly a question in the rule of three.

Miss Lay and Miss Place are sisters, great slatterns. When Miss Place gets up in the morning, she cannot find her combs, because she has put them in her writing-box. Miss

Lay would willingly go to work, but her housewife is in the drawer of the kitchen dresser, her bag hanging on a tree in the garden, and her thimble any where but in her pocket. If Miss Lay is going a journey, the keys of her trunk are sure to be lost. If Miss Place wants a volume out of her bookcase, she is certain not to find it along with the rest of the set. If you peep into Miss Place's dressing-room, you find her drawers filled with soiled linen, and her best cap hanging upon the carpet broom. If you call Miss Lay to take a lesson in drawing, she is so long in gathering together her pencils, her chalk, her India-rubber, and her drawing-paper, that her master's hour is expired before she has well got her materials together.

Miss Understanding. This lady comes of a respectable family, and has a half-sister distinguished for her good sense and solidity; but she herself, though not a little fond of reasoning, always takes the perverse side of any question. She is often seen with another of her intimates, Miss Representation, who is a great tale-bearer, and goes about from house to house, telling people what such a one, and such a one, said of them behind their backs. Miss Representation is a notable story-teller, and can so change, enlarge, and dress up an anecdote, that the person to whom it happened should not know it again. How many friendships have been broken by these two, or turned into bitter enmities! The latter lady does a great deal of varnish work, which wonderfully sets off paintings, for she pretends to use the pencil; but her productions are such miserable daubings, that it is the varnish alone that makes them passable to the most common eye. Though she has all sorts, black varnish is what she uses most. As I wish you very much to be on your guard against this lady whenever you meet her in company, I must tell you she is to be distinguished by a very ugly leer: it is quite out of her power to look straight at any object.

Miss Trust, a sour old creature, wrinkled and shaking with

the palsy. She is continually peeping, and prying about, in the expectation of finding something wrong. She watches her servants through the key-hole, and has lost all her friends by little shynesses that have arisen no one knows how; she is worn away to skin and bone, and her voice never rises above a whisper. Miss Rule. This lady is of a very lofty spirit, and, had she been married, would surely have governed her husband. As it is, she interferes very much in the management of families; and as she is very highly connected, she has as much influence in the fashionable world as amongst the lower orders. She even interferes in political concerns, and I have heard it whispered that there is scarcely a cabinet in Europe where she has not some share in the direction of affairs.

Miss Hap and Miss Chance. These are twin sisters, so like as scarcely to be distinguished from each other. Their whole conversation turns upon little disasters. They are both left-handed, and so exceedingly awkward and ungainly, that if you trust either of them with a cup and saucer, you are sure to have them broken. These ladies used frequently to keep days for visiting; and as people were not very fond of meeting them, many used to shut themselves up, and see no company on those days, for fear of stumbling on either of them: some people, even now, will hardly open their doors on Friday for fear of letting them in.

Miss Take. This lady is a doting old woman, who is purblind, and has lost her memory. She invites her acquaintances on wrong days, calls them by wrong names, and always intends to do just the opposite of what she does.

Miss Fortune. This lady has the most forbidding look of any of the clan, and people are sufficiently disposed to avoid her as much as it is in their power to do; yet some pretend, that notwithstanding the sternness of her countenance on the first address, her physiognomy softens as you grow more familiar with her; and though she has it not in her power to

be an agreeable acquaintance, she has sometimes proved a valuable friend. There are lessons which none can teach as well as herself, and the wisest philosophers have not scrupled to acknowledge themselves the better for her company.

LESSON LXXV.

Extract from Belshazzar.

MILMAN.

Sabaris. PEACE! peace! the king vouchsafes his gracious

speech.

Sit ye like statues, silent! Ye have quaffed

The liquid gladness of the blood-red wine,

And ye have eaten of the golden fruits
That the sun ripens but for kingly lips,
And now ye are about to feast your ears
With great Belshazzar's 'voice.

Arioch.

The crowded hall,

Suspense, and prescient of the coming joy,

Is silent as the cloudless summer skies.

Belshazzar. O ye assembled Babylon! fair youths
And hoary elders, warriors, counsellors,

And bright-eyed women, down my festal board
Reclining! O ye thousand living men,

Do ye not hold your chartered breath from me?
And I can plunge your souls in wine and joy;
Or by a word, a look, dismiss you all
To darkness and to shame : yet, are ye not
Proud of the slavery that thus inthralls you?
What king, what ruler over subject man,
Or was, or is, or shall be like Belshazzar!
I summon from their graves the sceptred dead

Of elder days, to see their shame. I cry
Unto the cloudy Past, unfold the thrones
That glorified the younger world: I call
To the dim Future-lift thy veil and show
The destined lords of human kind: they rise,
They bow their veiled heads to the dust, and own
The throne whereon Chaldea's monarch sits
The height and pinnacle of human glory.

O ancient cities, o'er whose streets the grass
Is green, whose name hath withered from the face
Of earth! O ye by rich o'erflowing Nile,
Memphis, and hundred-gated Thebes, and thou,
Assyrian Nineveh, and ye golden towers

That redden o'er the Indian streams, what are ye
To Babylon Eternal Babylon!

That's girt with bulwarks strong as adamant,
O'er whom Euphrates' restless waves keep watch,
That, like the high and everlasting heavens,
Grows old, yet not less glorious? Yes, to you

I turn, O azure-curtained palaces!

Whose lamps are stars, whose music, the sweet motion
Of your own spheres, in whom the banqueters

Are gods, nor fear my Babylonian halls

Even with your splendors to compare.

Bring wine!

I see your souls are jocund as mine own:

Pour in yon vessels of the Hebrews' God

Belshazzar's beverage pour it high. Hear, earth!
Hear, heaven! my proud defiance !—O, what man,
What God

Sabaris, and many voices. The king! the king! Look to

the king!

Arioch. Where? I can see nor king nor people

But a bewildering, red, and gloom-like light,

That swallows up the fiery canopy

Of lamps.

nothing

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