Another vice of age, by which the rifing generation may be alienated from it, is severity and censorioufness, that gives no allowance to the sailings of early lise, that expects artsulness from childhood, and constancy from youth, that is peremptory in every command, and inexorable to every sailure. There are many who live merely to hinder happiness, and whofe descendants can only tell of long lise, that it produces suspicion, malignity, peevishness, and persecution: and yet even these tyrants can talk of the ingratitude of the age, curie their heirs for impatience, and wonder that young men cannot take pleasure in their sather's company.

He that would pals the latter part of lise with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he mall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth he must lay tip knowledge for his support, when his powers of acting shall forsake him; and in age forbear to animadvert with rigour on saults which experience only can correct.

Numb. 51. Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1750.

• Stuhus labor est ineptiarum. Ma Et.

How foolish is the toil of trifling cares! Elphinstom.

To the RAMBLER,

S I R,

AS you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from the country, and appear to think no form of human lise unwOrthy of your attention, I have resolved, aster many struggles with idleness and diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this sober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the employments of thofe who look with contempt on the pleasures and diversions of polite lise, and employ all their powers of censure and invective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly, of dress, visits, and conversation.

"When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to the house, where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together, had at last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, aster the civilities of my first reception, to find^ instead of the leisure and tranquillity, which a rural lise always promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a consused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every sace was clouded, and every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my sather's relation, was, indeed, very

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sull of the happiness which me received from visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, insisted that I should recompencc the long delay of my company with a promise not to leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and caresses, she very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxious earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed to send them out with impolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would not suffer her to stay behind; (he begged my pardon, she must leave me for a moment; she went, and returned and fat down again, but was again disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the fame trepidation, and followed them with the fame countenance of business and solicitude.

However I was alarmed at this sbow of eagerness and disturbance, and however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as naturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to gratisy myself with enquiries; but finding none of the family in mourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather see a wedding than a funeral.

At last we fat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the young ladies, aster whom I thought myself obliged to enquire, was under a necessity of attending some affair that could not be neglected: Soon asterward 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 sooner than was usual, because they were to rise early in the

morning

morning to make cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excuse some large fieves of leaves and flowers that covered two thirds of the sioor, for they intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no other room that so conveniently received the rising sun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and theresore I rofe early in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I stole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, wherje I found nothing either more great or elegant, than in the fame number of acres cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I soon 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 conserves, than could be seen at any other house a hundred miles round.

It was not long besore her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some sweetmeats which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two long hours upon robs and gellies; laid down the best methods of conserving, reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these terms were very often consounded; and hinted how much she should be ashamed to set before company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark a colour as she had often seen at mistress Sprightly'?.

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It is, indeed, the great business of her lise, to watch the skillet on the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which slie has bred her daughters, are to turn roseleaves in the shade, to pick out the seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without bruising it, ami to extract bean-ftower water for the skin. Such are the tasks with which every day, since I came hither, has begun and ended, to which the early hours of lise are facrificed, and in which that time is palling away which never shall return.

But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has settled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own persormances with all the firmness of stupidity 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 sportsman, who is pleased to see his table well surnished, and thinks the day sufficiently successsul, in which he brings home a leash of hares to be potted by his wise.

After a sew days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me that none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never loved to see young women give their minds to such follies, by which they would only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to understand a house, and whoever should marry them, is they knew any thing of good cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary ublime for youthsul intellects, mysteries must not be initiated till the ycsxa

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