of serious maturity, and which are reserred to the day of marriage, as the supreme qualification for connubial lise. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all the neighbourhood, and which she has hitherto found means of mixing and baking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its flavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this great asfair with all the caution that human policy can suggest. It is never known besore-hand when this pudding will be produced; she takes the ingredients privately into her own clofet, employs her maids and daughters in disferent parts of the house, orders the oven to be heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands, the mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all enquiries are vain. The compofition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda, that is she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told without reserve. But the art of making English capers she has not yet persuaded herself to discover, but seems resolved that secret shall perish with her, as some alchymists have obstinately suppressed the art of transmuting metals. I once ventured to lay my singers on her book of receipts, which she lest upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of goofeberry wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event sufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of the danger to which her secrets were expofed, I was not able to make use of the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was so well concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, her mother, and herself, that I was was totally unable to understand it, and lost the opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowing the language in which its answers were returned. It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship's esteem, that I should apply myself to some of these economical accomplishments; for I overheard her, two days ago, warning her daughters, by my mournsul example, against negligence of pastry, and ignorance in carving: for you saw, said she, that, with all her pretensions to knowledge, she turned the partridge the wrong way when she attempted to cut it, and, 1 believe, scarcely knows the difference between paste raised, and paste in a dish. The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's character before you, is a desire to be informed whether, in your opinion, it is worthy of imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which I have hitherto thought it my duty to read, for the lady's clofet opened, the complete fervant maid, and the court cock, and resign all curiofity aster right and wrong, for the art of scalding damaicenes without bursting them, and preserving the whiteness of pickled mushrooms. Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to sruits and flowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herself free from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. Shf has no curiofity after the events of a war, or the sate of heroes in distress; she can hear, without the least emotion, the ravage of a ftre, or devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, come into the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is is preffing the gelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive that she is more free from disquiets than thole whofe understandings take a wider range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are often scattered by the wind, the rain sometimes salls upon fruit when it ought to be gathered dry. While her artificial wines are sermenting, her whole lise is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are not always bright, and the maid sometimes forgets the just proportions of salt and pepper, when venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, her wines four, and pickles mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, she is every day mortified with the deseat of her schemes, and the disappointment of her hopes. "With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. She has no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has no desire to be praised but for her cookery, nor wishes any ill to the rest of mankind, but that whenever they aspire «o a seast, their custards may be wheyifh, and their pie-crusts tough. I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladies as the great patterns of our sex, and to consider conserves and pickles as the business of my lise; whether the censures which I now suffer be just, and whether the brewers of wines, and the di/tillers of washes, have a .right to look with insolence- on the weakness of Cornelia. Numb. 52. Saturday, Sept. 15, 175- Studies fltitti Theseius berss Si/le nudum, Jixit, ntque enim sortuna qatrtwj* Sola tua eji, JimiUi aliorum respite ca/ut, Mitius ifta feres. Ot .^ How oft in vain the son of Theseus said, Catcott. AMONG the various methods of consolation, to which the miseries inseparable from our present state have given occasion, it has been, as I have already remarked, recommended by some writers to put the susferer in mind of heavier pressures, and more excruciating calamities, than those of which he has himself reason to complain. This has, in all ages, been directed and practised; and, in consormity to,this custom, Lipsius, the great modern master of the Stoick philosophy, has, in his celebrated treatise on steadiness os mi*£y endeavoured to fortify the breast against too much sensibility of misfortune, by enumerating the evih which have in former ages fallen upon the world, the devastation of wide-extended regions, the (ack of cities, and massacre of nations. And the common voice of the multitude uninstructed by precept, and unprejudiced by authority, which, in question that relate to the heart of man, is, in my opinion, rooto more decisive than the learning of Lipsius, seems to justify the efficacy of this procedure; for one of the first comforts which one neighbour administers to another, is a relation of the like inselicity, combined with circumstances of greater bitterness. But this medicine of the mind is like many remedies applied to the body, of which, though we lee the esfects, we arc unacquainted with the man«cr of operation, and of which, theresore, some, who are unwilling to suppose any thing out of the reach of their own fagacity, have been inclined to doubt whether they have really thofe virtues for which they are celebrated, and whether their reputation is not the mere gist of fancy, prejudice, and credulity. Consolation, or comfort, are words which, in their proper acceptation, signify some alleviation of that pain to which it is not in our power to asford the proper and adequate remedy; they imply rather an augmentation of the power of bearing, than a diminution of the burthen. A prisoner is relieved by him that sets him at liberty, but receives comfort from such as suggest considerations by which he is made patient under the inconvenience of confinement. To that gries which arises from a great loss, he only brings the true remedy, who makes his friend's condition the fame as besore j but he may be properly termed a comforter, who by persuasion extenuates the pain of poverty, and shews, in the style of Hesiod, that hals is more than the whole. It is, perhaps, not immediately obvious, how it can lull the memory of misfortune, or appease the throbbings |