endure opposition; for teaching him not to think every man who differs from him in matters of taste, a fool, and in politics, a knave; for cutting down harangues; for guarding him from producing as novelties and invention what has been said a thousand times; for quickness of allusion, which brings the idea before you without detail or quotation; nothing is equal to the miscellaneous society of London.-The advantages too which it possesses, in being the

likely to be engaged in public life, though I would still counsel you to be equally careful in your choice, yet your happiness would not so immediately, so exclusively depend on the individual society of a woman, as that of a retired country gentleman must do. A man of sense, who loves home, and lives at home, requires a wife who can and will be at half the expense of mind necessary for keeping up the cheerful, animated, elegant intercourse which forms so great a part of the bond of union between intel-seat of the court, the parliament, and the courts lectual and well bred persons. Had your mother been a woman of an uninformed, inelegant mind, virtuous and pious as she is, what abatement must there have been in the blessings of my lot! The exhibiting, the displaying wife may entertain your company, but it is only the informed, the refined, the cultivated woman who can entertain yourself; and I presume when ever you marry you will marry primarily for yourself, and not for your friends; you will want a companion: an artist you may hire.

of law, as well as the common centre of arts and talents of every kind, all these raise it above every other scene of intellectual improvement, or colloquial pleasure, perhaps in the whole world.

But this was only the secondary motive of my intended migration. I connected with it the hope, that in a more extended survey, I might be more likely to select a deserving companion for life. In such a companion,' said I, as I drove along in my post-chaise, 'I do not want a Helen, a Saint Cecilia, or a Madame Dacier ;

her; sensible, or I should not respect her; prudent, or I could not confide in her; well informed, or she could not educate my children; well bred, or she could not entertain my friends; consistent, or I should offend the shade of my mother; pious, or I should not be happy with her, because the prime comfort in a companion for life is the delightful hope that she will be a companion for eternity.

'But remember, Charles, that when I am insisting so much on mental delicacy, I am as-yet she must be elegant, or I should not love suming that all is right in still more essential points. Do not be contented with this superstructure, till you have ascertained the solidity of the foundation. The ornaments which decorate do not support the edifice! Guarded as you are by Christian principles, and confirmed in virtuous habits, I trust you may safely look abroad in the world. Do not, however, irrevocably dispose of your affections till you have made the long promised visit to my earliest, wisest, and best friend, Mr. Stanley. I am far from desiring that your friend should direct your choice. It is what even your father would not do but he will be the most faithful and most disinterested of counsellors.'

I resolved now for a few months to leave the Priory, the seat of my ancestors, to make a tour not only to London, but to Stanley Grove, in Hampshire, the residence of my father's friend; a visit I was about to make with him just before his last illness. He wished me to go alone, but I could not prevail on myself to desert his sick bed for any scheme of amusement.

After this soliloquy, I was frightened to reflect that so much was requisite; and yet when I began to consider in which article I could make any abatement, I was willing to persuade myself that my requisitions were moderate.

CHAP. III.

I had occasionally visited two or three families in our county, who were said to make a very genteel appearance on narrow fortunes. As I was known not to consider money as a I began to long earnestly for the pleasures of principal consideration, it had often been inticonversation, pleasures which, in our small, but mated to me what excellent wives the daugh. social and select circle of cultivated friends, I ters of these families would make, because on a had been accustomed to enjoy. I am aware very slender allowance their appearance was as that certain fine town-bred men would ridicule elegant as that of women of ten times their exthe bare mention of learned and polished con- pectations. I translated this respectable apversation at a village in Westmoreland, or in-pearance into a language not the most favouradeed at any place out of the precincts of the metropolis; just as a London physician, or lawyer, smiles superciliously at the suggested merits of a professional brother, in a provincial town. Good sense, however, is of all countries, and even knowledge is not altogether a mere local advantage. These, and not the topics of the hour, furnish the best raw materials for working up an improving intercourse.

It must be confessed, however, as I have since found, that to give a terseness and a polish to conversation; for rubbing out prejudices; for correcting egotism; for keeping self-importance out of sight, if not curing it; for bringing a man to condense what he has to say, if he intends to be listened to; for accustoming him to

ble, as I instantly inferred, and afterwards was convinced, that this personal figure was made by the sacrifice of their whole time to those decorations which procured them credit, by put ting their outward figure on a par with the most affluent. If a girl with a thousand pounds rivals in her dress one with ten thousand, is it not obvious, that not only all her time must be employed, but all her money devoted to this one object? Nothing but the clippings and parings from her personal adornments could enable her to supply the demands of charity; and these sacrifices, it is evident she is not disposed to make.

Another inducement suggested to me was, that these young ladies would make better wives,

because they had never been corrupted by the | being too much considered as an institution of expensive pleasures of London, and had not decorum, of convention, of society; and not as been spoilt by the gay scenes of dissipation an institution founded on the condition of human which it afforded. This argument would have nature, a covenant of mercy for repairing the weighed powerfully with me, had I not observed evils which sin has produced. It springs from that they never abstained from any amusement the want of a conviction that Christianity is an in the country that came within their reach. individual as well as general concern; that reI naturally inferred, that she who eagerly ligion is a personal thing, previous to its being grasped at every petty provincial dissipation, a matter of example; that a man is not infalliwould with increased alacrity have plunged into bly saved or lost as a portion of any family, or the more alluring gaieties of the metropolis, had any church, or any community; but that, as he it been in her power. I thought she had even is individually responsible, he must be individuless apology to plead than the town lady; the ally brought to a deep and humbling sense of fault was equal, while the temptation was less; his own personal wants, without taking any reand she who was as dissipated as her limited fuge in the piety he may see around him, of bounds permitted, where there was little to at- which he will have no benefit if he be no partract, would, I feared, be as dissipated as she taker. possibly could be, when her temptations were multiplied, and her facilities increased.

I had met with several young ladies of a higher description, daughters of our country gentlemen, a class which furnishes a number of valuable and elegant women. Some of these, whom I knew, seemed unexceptionable in manner and mind. They had seen something of the world, without having been spoilt by it; had read with advantage; and acquitted themselves well in the duties which they had been called to practise. But I was withheld from cultivating that degree of intimacy which would have enabled me to take an exact measure of their minds, by the injunction of my father, that I would never attach myself to any woman till I had seen and consulted Mr. Stanley. This direction, which, like all his wishes was a law to me, operated as a sort of sedative in the slight intercourse I had had with ladies; and resolving to postpone all such intimacy as might have led to attachment, I did not allow myself to come near enough to feel with interest, or to judge with decision.

I regretted, even for inferior reasons, the little distinction which was paid to this sacred day. To say nothing of the elevating views which the soul acquires from devoting itself to its proper object; the man of business, methinks, should rejoice in its return; the politician should welcome its appearance, not only as a rest from anxiety and labour, but as an occasion of cooling and quieting the mind, of softening its irritation, of allaying its ferment, and thus restoring the repaired faculties of invigorated spirits to the demands of the succeeding week, in a frame of increased aptitude for meeting its diffi. culties and encountering its duties.

The first person whom I visited was a good natured, friendly man, whom I had occasionally seen in the north. As I had no reason to believe that he was religious in the true sense of the word, I had no intention of looking for a wife in his family. I, however, thought it not amiss to associate a little with persons of different descriptions, that by a wider range I might learn to correct my general judgment, as well as to guide my particular pursuit. Nothing, it is true, would tempt me to select a woman on whose pious disposition I could not form a reasonable dependance; yet to come at the reality of those dispositions was no easy matter.

As soon as I got to town, I visited some of my father's friends. I was kindly received for his sake, and at their houses soon enlarged the sphere of my acquaintance. I was concerned to remark that two or three gentlemen, whom I I had heard my father remark, that he had, had observed to be very regular in their attend-more than once, known a right-minded girl, ance on public worship in the country, seldom who seemed to have been first taught of heaven, went to church in London; in the afternoon and afterwards supported in herChristian course, never. 'Religion,' they said, by way of apology, under almost every human disadvantage; who was entirely a thing of example, it was of boldly, but meekly, maintained her own princigreat political importance; society was held to- ples, under all the hourly temptations and oppogether by the restraints it imposed on the lower sition of a worldly and irreligious family, and orders. When they were in the country it was who had given the best evidences of her piety highly proper that their tenants and workmen towards God, by her patient forbearance towards should have the benefit of their example, but in her erring friends. Such women had made adLondon the case was different. When there mirable wives when they were afterwards transwere so many churches, no one knew whether planted into families where their virtues were you went or not, and where no scandal was understood, and their piety cherished. While, given, no harm was done. As this was a logic on the other hand, he had known others, who which had not found its way into my father's accustomed from childhood to the sober habits religion, I was not convinced by it. I remem- of family religion, under pious but injudicious ber Mr. Burke, speaking of the English, who parents, had fallen in mechanically with the were so humane at home, and whom he unjustly domestic practices, without having ever been inaccused of wanting humanity in India, says, structed in Christian principles, or having ever 'that the humanity of Britain is a humanity of manifested any religious tendencies. The im points and parallels.' Surely the religion of the plantation of a new principle never having been gentlemen in question is not a less geographi-inculcated, the religious habit has degenerated cal distinction. into a mere form, the parents acting as if they

This error, I conceive, arises from religion thought that religion must come by nature or

infection in a religious family. The girls hav., that it is very possible for a woman to be toing never had their own hearts impressed, nor tally ignorant of the ordinary but indispensable their own characters distinctly considered nor duties of common life, without knowing one individually cultivated, but being taken out as word of Latin; and that her being a bad coma portion from the mass, have afterwards taken panion is no infallible proof of her being a good the cast and colour of any society into which economist. they have happened to be thrown; and they I am afraid the poor father saw something of who had lived religiously with the religious, my disappointment in my countenance, for have afterwards assimilated with the gay and when we were alone in the evening, he observ. dissipated, when thus thrown into their com-ed that a heavy addition to his other causes of pany, as cordially as if they had never been habituated to better things.

regret for the loss of his wife, was her excellent management of his family. I found afterwards At dinner there appeared two pretty looking that though she had brought him a great foryoung ladies, daughters of my friend, who had tune, she had a very low education. Her father, been sometime a widower. I placed myself a coarse country Squire, to whom the pleasures between them, for the purpose of prying a little of the table were the only pleasures for which into their minds, while the rest of the company he had any relish, had no other ambition for his were conversing on indifferent subjects. Hav- daughter but that she should be the most faing formerly heard this gentleman's deceased mous housewife in the country. He gloried in wife extolled as the mirror of managers, and her culinary perfections, which he understood; the arrangements of his table highly commend. of the deficiencies of her mind he had not the ed, I was surprised to see it so ill appointed, and feast perception. Money and good eating, he every thing wearing marks of palpable inele-owned, were the only things in life, which had gance. Though no epicure, I could not forbear a real intrinsic value; the value of all other observing that many of the dishes were out of things, he declared, existed in the imagination season, ill chosen, and ill dressed. only.

While I was puzzling my head for a solution, I recollected that I had lately read in a most respectable periodical work, a paper (composed, I believe, however, by a raw recruit of that well disciplined corps) which insisted that nothing tended to make the ladies so useless and inefficient in the menage as the study of the dead languages. I jumped to the conclusion, and was in an instant persuaded that my young hostesses must not only be perfect mistresses of Latin, but the tout ensemble was so ill arranged as to induce me to give them credit for Greek also.

Finding, therefore, that my appetite was baulked, I took comfort in the certainty that my understanding would be well regaled; and after secretly regretting that learning should so effectually destroy usefulness, I was resolved to derive intellectual comfort from this too classical repast. Turning suddenly to the eldest lady, I asked her at once if she did not think Virgil the finest poet in the world. She blushed, and thus confirmed me in the opinion that her modesty was equal to her erudition. I repeated my question with a little circumlocution. She stared, and said she had never heard of the person I mentioned, but that she had read Tears of Sensibility, and Rosa Matilda, and Sympathy of Souls, and Too Civil by Half, and the Sorrows of Werter, and the Stranger, and the Orphan of Snowden.

Yes, Sir,' joined in the younger sister, who did not rise to so high a pitch of literature, and we have read Perfidy Punished, and Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, and the Fortunate Footman, and the Illustrious Chambermaid.' I blushed and stared in my turn; and here the conversation, through the difficulty of our being intelligible to each other, dropped; and I am persuaded that I sunk much lower in their esteem for not being acquainted with their favourite authors, than they did in mine for never having heard of Virgil.

I arose from the table with a full conviction

The poor lady, when she became a mother, and was brought out into the world, felt keenly the deficiencies of her own education. The dread of Scylla, as is usual, wrecked her on Charybdis. Her first resolution, as soon as she had daughters, was that they should learn every thing. All the masters who teach things of little intrinsic use were extravagantly paid for supernumerary attendance; and as no one in the family was capable of judging of their improvements, their progress was but slow. Though they were taught much they learnt but little, even of these unnecessary things; and of things necessary they learnt nothing. The well-intentioned mother was not aware that her daugh ter's education was almost as much calculated to gratify the senses, though in a different way, and with more apparent refinement, as her own had been; and that mind is left nearly as much out of the question in making an ordinary artist as in making a good cook.

CHAP. IV.

FROM my fondness for conversation, my imagination had been early fired with Dr. Johnson's remark that there is no pleasure on earth comparable to the fine full flow of London talk. I, who, since I had quitted college, had seldom had my mind refreshed, but with the petty rills and penurious streams of knowledge which country society afforded, now expected to meet it in a strong and rapid current, fertilizing wherever it flowed, producing in abundance the rich fruits of argument, and the gay flowers of rhetoric. I look for an uninterrupted course of profit and delight. I flattered myself that every dinner would add to my stock of images; that every debate would clear up some difficulty, every discussion elucidate some truth; that every allusion would be purely classical, every

sentence abound with instruction, and every | withdraw, we got into a sort of attitude of conperiod be pointed with wit.

versation; all except the eulogist of l'Almanac des Gourmands, who, wrapping himself up in the comfortable consciousness of his own superior judgment, and a little piqued that he had found neither support nor opposition, (the next best thing to a profound talker,) he seemed to have a perfect indifference to all topics except that on which he has shown so much eloquence, with so little effect.

On the tiptoe of expectation I went to dine with Sir John Belfield, in Cavendish-square. I looked at my watch fifty times. I thought it would never be six o'clock. I did not care to show my country-breeding, by going too early to incommode my friend, nor my town-breeding, by going too late and spoiling his dinner. Sir John is a valuable, elegant minded man, and, next to Mr. Stanley, stood highest in my father's The last tray was now carried out, the last esteem for his mental accomplishments and cor- lingering servant had retired. I was beginning rect morals. As I knew he was remarkable for to listen with all my powers of attention to an assembling at his table men of sense, taste, and ingenious gentleman who was about to give an learning, my expectations of pleasure were very interesting account of Egypt, where he had high. Here at least,' said I, as I heard the spent a year, and from whence he was lately name of one clever man announced after an-returned. He was just got to the catacombs, other, here, at least, I cannot fail to find.

The feast of reason and the flow of soul:

Here at least all the energies of my mind will be brought into exercise. From this society I shall carry away documents for the improvement of my taste; I shall treasure up hints to enrich my understanding, and collect aphorisms for the conduct of life.'

At first there was no fair opportunity to introduce any conversation beyond the topics of the day, and to those, it must be confessed, this eventful period gives a new and powerful interest. I should have been much pleased to have had my country politics rectified, and any prejudices, which I might have contracted, removed, or softened, could the discussion have been carried on without the frequent interruption of the youngest man in the company. This gentleman broke in on every remark, by descanting successively on the merits of the various dishes; and if it be true that experience only can determine the judgment, he gave proof of that best right to peremptory decision, by not trusting to delusive theory, but by actually eating of every dish at table.

When on a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, the mahogany folding doors, and in at once, struggling who should be first, rushed half a dozen children, lovely, fresh, gay, and noisy. This sudden and violent irruption of the pretty barbarians necessarily caused a total interruption of conversation. The sprightly creatures ran round the table to choose where they would sit. At length this great difficulty of courts and cabinets, the choice of places, was settled. The little things were jostled in between the ladies, who all contended who should get possession of the little beauties. One was in raptures with the rosy cheeks of a sweet little girl she held in her lap. A second exclaimed aloud at the beautiful lace with which the frock of another was trimmed, and which she was sure mamma had given her for being good. A profitable, and doubtless a lasting and inseparable association, was thus formed in the child's mind between lace and goodness. A third cried out, 'Look at the pretty angel!-do but observeher bracelets are as blue as her eyes. Did you ever see a match? Surely, lady Bedfield,' cried a fourth, you carried the eyes to the shop, or there must have been a shade of difference. I myself, who am passionately fond of children, eyed the sweet little rebels with complacency, notwithstanding the unseasonableness of their interruption.

His animadversions were uttered with the gravity of a German philosopher, and the science of a French cook. If any of his opinions happened to be controverted, he quoted, in confirmation of his own judgment, l' Almanac des Gourmands, which he assured us was the most valuable work that had appeared in France since At last, when they were all disposed of, I the Revolution.-The author of this book he resumed my inquiries about the resting place seemed to consider of as high authority in the of the mummies. But the grand dispute, who science of eating, as Coke or Hale in that of should have oranges, and who should have jurisprudence, or Quintilian in the art of criti-almonds and raisins, soon raised such a clamour cism. To the credit of the company, however, that it was impossible to hear my Egyptian be it spoken, he had the whole of this topic to friend. This great contest was, however, at himself. The rest of the party were, in gene-length settled, and I was returning to the anral of quite a different caliber, and as little acquainted with his favourite author, as he probably was with theirs.*

The lady of the house was perfectly amiable and well bred. Her dinner was excellent; and every thing about her had an air of elegance and splendour of course she completely escaped the disgrace of being thought a scholar, but not the suspicion of having a very good taste. I longed for the removal of the cloth, and was eagerly anticipating the pleasure and improvement which awaited me.

As soon as the servants were beginning to

tiquities of Memphis, when the important point, who should have red wine, and who should have white, who should have half a glass, and who a whole one, set us again in an uproar. Sir John was visibly uneasy, and commanded silence. During this interval of peace, I gave up the catacombs, and took refuge in the pyramids. But I had no sooner proposed my question about the serpent said to be found in one of them, than the son and heir, a fine little fellow, just six years old, reaching out his arm to dart an apple across the table at his sister, roguishly intending to overset her glass, unluckily over

threw his own, brimful of port wine. The whole | contents were discharged on the elegant drapery of a white robed nymph.

But I was much concerned to observe, that they were not only dressed to the very extremity of the fashion, but their drapery was as transpa. rent, as short, and as scanty; there was as sedulous a disclosure of their persons, and as great a redundancy of ornaments, as I had seen in the gayest circles.

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All was now agitation and distress, and dis. turbance and confusion; the gentlemen ringing for napkins, the ladies assisting the dripping fair one; each vying with the other who should recommend the most approved specific of getting Expect not perfection,' said my good mother," out the stain of red wine, and comforting the but look for consistency.' This principle my sufferer by stories of similar misfortunes. The parents had not only taught me in the closet, poor little culprit was dismissed, and all difficul- but had illustrated by their deportment in the ties and disasters seemed at last surmounted. family and in the world. They observed a uniBut you cannot heat up again an interest which form correctness in their general demeanor. has been so often cooled. The thread of conver- They were not over anxious about character for sation had been so frequently broken, that I its own sake, but they were tenderly vigilant despaired of seeing it tied together again. I not to bring any reproach on the Christian name sorrowfully gave up catacombs, pyramids, and by imprudence, negligence, or inconsistency, serpents, and was obliged to content myself with even in small things. Custom,' said my moa little desultory chat with my next neighbour; ther, can never alter the immutable nature of sorry and disappointed to glean only a few scat right; fashion can never justify any practice tered ears, where I had expected so abundant a which is improper in itself; and to dress indeharvest; and the day from which I had pro- cently is as great an offence against purity and mised myself so much benefit and delight, passed modesty, when it is the fashion, as when it is away with a very slender acquisition of either. obsolete. There should be a line of demarcation somewhere. In the article of dress and appearance, Christian mothers should make a stand. They should not be so unreasonable as to expect that a young girl will of herself have courage to oppose the united temptations of fashion without, and the secret prevalence of corruption within; and authority should be called in where admonition fails.'

CHAP. V.

I WENT almost immediately after, at the invitation of Mr. Ranby, to pass a few days at his villa at Hampstead. Mr. and Mrs. Ranby were esteemed pious persons, but having risen to great affluence by a sudden turn of fortune in a commercial engagement, they had a little self-sufficiency, and not a little disposition to ascribe an undue importance to wealth. This I should have thought more pardonable under their circumstances, had I not expected that religion would in this respect have more than supplied the deficiencies of education. Their religion, however, consisted almost exclusively in a disproportionate zeal for a very few doctrines. And though they were far from being immoral in their own practice, yet, in their discourse, they affected to undervalue morality.

This was, indeed, more particularly the case with the lady, whose chief object of discourse seemed to be, to convince me of her great superiority to her husband in polemical skill. Her chaste conversation certainly was not coupled with fear. In one respect she was the very reverse of those Pharisees who were scrupulously exact about their petty observances. Mrs. Ranby was, on the contrary, anxious about a very few important particulars, and exonerated herself from the necessity of all inferior attentions. She was strongly attached to one or two preach. ers, and discovered little candour for all others, or for those who attended them. Nay, she some. what doubted of the soundness of the faith of her friends and acquaintance, who would not incur great inconvenience to attend one or other of her favourites.

Mrs. Ranby's table was more than hospitably good.' There was not the least suspicion of Latin here. The eulogist of female ignorance might have dined in comfortable security against the intrusion and vanity of erudition. She had three daughters, not unpleasing young women. I VOL. II.

27

The conversation after dinner took a religious turn. Mrs. Ranby was not unacquainted with the subject, and expressed herself with energy on many serious points. I could have been glad, however, to have seen her views a little more practical, and her spirit a little less censorious. I saw she took the lead in debate, and that Mr. Ranby submitted to act as subaltern; but whether his meekness was the effect of piety or fear, I could not at that time determine. She protested vehemently against all dissipation, in which I cordially joined her, though I hope with something less intemperance of manner, and less acrimony against those who pursued it. I began, however, to lose sight of the errors of the daughters' dress in the pleasure I felt at conversing with so pious a mother of a family. For pious she really was, though her piety was a little debased by coarseness, and not a little disfigured by asperity.

I was sorry to observe that the young ladies not only took no part in the conversation, but that they did not even seem to know what was going on; and I must confess the manner in which it was conducted was not calculated to make the subject interesting. The girls sat jogging and whispering each other, and got away as fast as they could.

As soon as they were withdrawn-There, sir,' said the mother, are three girls who will make excellent wives.-They never were at a ball or a play in their lives; and yet, though I say it, who should not say it, they are as highly accomplished as any ladies at St. James's. I cordially approved the former part of her assertion, and bowed in silence to the latter.

I took this opportunity of inquiring what had been her mode of religious instruction for her Rr