Numb. 62. Saturday, October 20, 1750.

Nunc ego Triptolemi cupercm confcendtrt currus,

Mijtt in ignotam qui rude femen bumum:
Nunc ego Medea •vellem frttnare dracones,

Stuos habuit fugiens ar•va, Corintbe, tua;
Hunc ego j ad and as opt ar em sumere pennai,

Sine tuas, Perseu; Dœdalt, five tuai. OviD.

Now would I mount his car, whose bounteous hand

First sow'd with teeming seed the furrow'd land:

Now to Media's dragons fix my reins,

That swiftly bore her from Corinthian plains;

Now on Dædalian waxen pinions stray,

Or thofe which wafted Perseus on his way. F. Lewis.

To the RAMBLER.

S I R,

IAM a young woman of a very large fortune, which, if my parents would have been persuaded to comply with the rules and customs of the polite part of mankind, might long since have raised me to the highest honours of the semale world; but so strangely have they hitherto contrived to waste my lise, that I am now on the borders of twenty, without having ever danced but at our monthly assembly, or been toasted but among a sew gentlemen of the neighbourhood, or seen any company in which it was worth a wish to be distinguished.

My sather having impaired his patrimony in soliciting a place at court, at last grew wise enough to cease his pursuit, and, to repair the consequences of

expensive

expensive attendance and negligence of his asfairs, married a lady much older than himself, who had lived in the fashionable world till she was considered as an encumbrance upon parties of pleasure, and as I can collect from incidental insormations, retired from gay assemblies just time enough to escape the mortification of univerfal neglect.

She was, however, still rich, and not yet wrinkled; my father was too distresssully embarrassed to think much on any thing but the means of extrication, and tnough it is not likely that he wanted the delicacy which polite converfation will always produce in understandings not remarkably desective, yet he was contented with a match, by which he might be set free from inconveniencics, that would have destroyed all the pleasures of imagination, and taken from softness and beauty the power of delighting.

As they were both somewhat disgusted with their treatment in the world, and married, though without any dislike of each other, yet principally for the fake of setting themselves (ree from dependence on caprice or fashion, they soon retired into the country, and devoted their lives to rural business and diversions.

They had not much reason to regret the change of their situation; for their vanity, which had so long been tormented by neglect and difappointment, was here gratified with every honour that could be paid them. Their long familiarity with publicklife made them the oracles of all thofe who aspired to intelligence, or politeness. My father dictated politicks, my mother prescribed the mode, and itwassufc ficient

ficient to entitle any samily to some consideration, that they were known to visit at Mrs. Courtly's.

In this state they-were, to speak in the style os novellists, made happy by the birth of your correspondent. My parents had no other child, I was therefore not brow-beaten by a saucy brother, or lost in a multitude of coheiresses, whofe fortunes being equal, would probably have conserred equal merit, and procured equal regard; and as my mother was now old, my understanding and my person had sair play, my enquiries were not checked, my advances towards importance were not repressed, and I was soon suffered to tell my own opinions, and early accustomed to hear my own praises.

By these accidental advantages I was much exalted above the young ladies with whom I conversed, and was treated by them with great deserence. I saw none who did not seem to consess my superiority, and to be held in awe by the splendour of my appearance; for the fondness of my sather made himself pleased to lee me dressed, and my mother had no vanity nor expences to hinder her from concurring with his inclinations.

Thus, Mr. Rambler, I lived without much desire aster any thing beyond the circle of our visits; and here I should have quietly continued to portion out my time among my books, and my needle, and my company, had not my curiosity been every moment excited by the conversation of my parents,who, whenever they sit down to samiliar prattle, and endeavour the entertainment of each other, immediately transport themselves to London, and relate some adventure in a hackney-coach, some frolick at a masquerade, radc, some converfation in the Park, or some quarrel at an assembly, display the magnificence of a birthnight, relate the conquests of maids of honour, or give a history of diversions, shows, and entertainments, which I had never known but from their accounts.

I am so well versed in the history of the gay world, that I can relate, with great punctuality, the lives of all the last race of wits and beauties; can enumerate, with exact chronology, the whole succession of celebrated singers, musicians, tragedians, comedians, and harlequins; can tell to the last twenty years all the changes of fashions; and am, indeed, a complete antiquary with respect to head-dresses, dances, and operas.

You will easily imagine, Mr. Rambler, that I could not hear these narratives, for sixteen years together, without suffering some impression, and wishing myself nearer to thofe places where every hour brings some new pleasure, and lise is diversified with an unexhausted succession of selicity.

I indeed often asked my mother why she lest a place which she recollected with so much delight, and why she did not visit London once a year, like some other ladies, and initiate me in the world by showing me its amusements, its grandeur, and its variety. But she always told me that the days which she had seen were such as will never come again; that all diversion is now degenerated, that the converfation of the present age is insipid, that their fashions are unbecoming, their customs absurd, and their morals corrupt; that there is no ray lest of the genius which enlightened the times that she remembers;

that that no one who had seen, or heard, the ancient performers, would be able to bear the bunglers of this despicable age; and that there is now neither politeness, nor pleasure, nor virtue, in the world. She therefore assures me that she consults my happiness by keeping me at home, for I should now find nothing but vexation and disgust, and she should be ashamed to see me pleased with such fopperies and trifles, as take up the thoughts of the present set of young people.

With this answer I was kept quiet for several years, and thought it no great inconvenience to be confined to the country, till last summer a young gentleman and his sister came down to pals a sew months with one of our neighbours. They had generally no great regard for the country ladies, but distinguished me by a particular complaisance, and, as we grew intimate, gave me such a detail of the elegance, the splendour, the mirth, the happiness os the town, that I am resolved to be no longer buried in ignorance and obscurity, but to share with other wits the joy of being admired, and divide with other beauties the empire of the world.

I do not find, Mr. Rambler, upon a deliberate and impartial comparison, that I am excelled by Bciinda in beauty, in wit, in judgment, in knowledge, or in any thing, but a kind of gay, lively samiliarity, which she mingles with strangers as with persons long acquainted, and which enables her to display her powers without any obstruction, hesitation, or confusion. Yet she can relate a thousand civilities paid to her in publick, can produce, from * hundred lovers, letters silled with praises, protestations,