singled out each other for marriage, we shall, perhaps, not think that the Russians lost much by their restraint. For the whole endeavour of both parties, during the time of courtship, is to hinder themselves from being known, and to disguise their natural temper, and real desires, in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued affectation. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but in a mask, and the cheat is managed often on both sides with so much art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the wedding-night, and that by a strange imposture one has been courted, and another married.

I desire you, therefore, Mr. Rambler, to question all who shall hereaster come to you with matrimonial complaints, concerning their behaviour in the tyne of courtship, and insorm them that they are neither to wonder nor repine, when a contract begun with, fraud has ended in difappointment.

I am, Sec.

Numb. 46. Saturday, August 25, 1750.

Genus, et proavct, et qute mn stcimus ipfi%
Vix ea nojira .von. QviD.

Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim j
All is my own, my honour and my shame.

so the RAMBLER, SIR, • •

SINCE I find that you have paid so much regard to my complaints as to publish them, I am inclined by vanity, or gratitude, to continue o,ur correspondence; and indeed, without either of these motives, am glad of an opportunity to write, for X gm not accustomed to keep in any thing that swell? my heart, and have here none with whom I can freely converse. While I am thus employed, some tedious hours will flip away, and when I return to watch the dock, I shall find that I have disburdened myself of part of the day.

You perceive that I do not pretend to write with much consideration of any thing but my own con.! venience; and, not to conceal from you my real sentiments, the little time which I have spent, against my will, in solitary meditation, has not much contributed to my veneration for authors. I have now sufficient reason to suspect that, with all your splendid prosessions of wisdom, and seeming regard for truth, you have very little sincerity; that you either, write what you do not think, and willingly impofe upon

U 4 mankind,

mankind, or that you take no care to think righr, but while you set up yourselves as guides, mislead your followers by creduliry, or negligence; that you produce to the publick whatever notions you can speciously maintain, or elegantly express, without enquiring whether they are just; and transcribe hereditary falsehoods from old authors perhaps as ignorant and careless as yourselves.

You may perhaps wonder that I express myself with so much acrimony on a question in which women are supposed to have very little interest; and you are likely enough, for I have seen many instances of the fauciness of scholars, to tell me, that I am more properly employed in playing with my kittens, than in giving myself airs of criticism, and censuring the learned. But you arc mistaken, is you imagine that I am to be intimidated by your contempt, or silenced by your reproofs. As I read, I have a right to judge; as I am injured, I have 1 right to complain; and these privileges, which I have purchased at so dear a rate, I shall not easily be persuaded to resign.

To read has, indeed, never been my business, but as there are hours of leisure in the most active lise, I have passed the superfluities of time, which the diversions of the town lest upon my hands, in turning over a large collection of tragedies and romances, where, amongst other sentiments, common to all authors of this class, I have found almost every page filled with the charms and happiness of a country lise; that lise to which every statesman in the highest elevation of his profperity is contriving to retire; that lise to which every tragick heroine in some scene

or

or other wishes to have been born, and which is represented as a certain resuge from folly, from anxiety, from passion, and from guilt.

It was impossible to read so many passionate exclamations, and soothing descriptions, without seeling some desire to enjoy the state in which all this selicity was to be enjoyed; and theresore I received with raptures the invitation of my good aunt, and expected that by some unknown influence I should find all hopes and sears, jealousies and competitions, vanish from my heart upon my first arrival at the seats of innocence and tranquillity; that I should sleep in halcyon bowers, and wander in elysian gardens, where I should meet with nothing but the softness of benevolence, the candour of simplicity, and the cheersulness of content; where I should see reason exerting her sovereignty over lise, without any interruption from envy, avarice, or ambition, and every day passing in such a manner as the severest wisdom should approve.

This, Mr. Rambler, I tell you I expected, and this I had by an hundred authors been taught to expect. By this expectation I was led hither, and here I live in perpetual uneasiness, without any other comfort than that of hoping to return to London.

Having, since I wrote my former letter, been driven, by the mere necessity of escaping from absolute inactivity, to make myself more acquainted with the affairs and inhabitants of this place, I am now no longer an absolute stranger to rural converfation and employments, but am far from discovering in them more innocence or wisdom, than in the sentiments

or

or conduct of thofe with whom I have passed more cheersul and more sashionable hours.

It is common to reproach the tea-table, and the park, with giving opportunities and encouragement to scandal. I cannot wholly clear them from the charge; but must, however, observe in savour of the modish prattlers, that, if not by principle, we are at least by accident, less guilty of desamation than the country ladies. For having greater numbers to observe and censure, we are commonly content to charge them only with their own saults or follies, and seldom give way to malevolence, but such as arise* from some injury or affront, real or imaginary, offered to ourselves. But in these distant provinces, where the same samilies inhabit the same houses from age to age, they transmit and recount the saults of a whole succession. I have been insormed how every estate in the neighbourhood was originally got, and find, if I may credit the accounts given me, that there is not a single acre in the hands of the right owner. I have been told of intrigues between beaus and toasts that have been now three centuries in their quiet graves, and am often entertained with traditional scandal on persons of whofe names there would have been no remembrance, had they not committed somewhat that might disgrace their dependents.

In one of my visits I happened to commend the air and dignity of a young lady, who had just lest the company; upon which two grave matrons looked with great fliness at each other, and the elder asked me whether I had ever seen the picture of Henry the eighth. You may imagine that I did no^

imme