have here none with whom I can freely converfe. While I am thus employed, fome tedious hours will flip away, and when I return to watch the clock, I fhall find that I have difburdened myself of part of the day.

You perceive that I do not pretend to write with much confideration of any thing but my own convenience; and, not to conceal from you my real fentiments, the little time which I have spent, against my will, in folitary meditation, has not much contributed to my veneration for authors. I have now fufficient reason to fufpect that, with all your fplendid profeffions of wisdom, and feeming regard for truth, you have very little fincerity; that you either write what you do not think, and willingly impofe upon mankind, or that you take no care to think right, but while you fet up your felves as guides, miflead your followers by credulity, or negligence; that you produce to the publick whatever notions you can fpeciously maintain, or clegantly exprefs, without enquiring whether they are juft; and tranfcribe hereditary falfehoods from old authors perhaps as ignorant and carelefs as yourfelves.

You may perhaps wonder that I exprefs myself with fo much acrimony on a question in which women are fuppofed to have very little intereft; and you are likely enough, for I have feen many inftances of the faucinefs of fcholars, to tell me, that I am more properly employed in playing with my kittens, than in giving myfelf airs of criticifin, and cenfuring the learned. But you are mistaken, if you imagine that I am to be intimidated by your contempt, or filenced by your reproofs. As I read, I have a right to judge; as I am injured, have a right to complain; and these privileges, which I have purchased at fo dear a rate, I fhall not eally be perfuaded to refign. To read has, indeed, never been my business; but as there are hours of leifure in the most active life, I have paffed the fuperfluities of time, which the diverfions of the town left upon my hands, in turning over a large collection of tragedies and romances, where, amongst other fentiments, cominon to all authors of this class, I have found almoft every page filled with the charms and happinefs of a country life; that life to which every ftatefman in the higheft elevation of his profperity is contriving to retire; that life to which every tragick heroine in fome

fcene or other wishes to have been born, and which is reprefented as a certain refuge from folly, from anxiety, from paffion, and from guilt.

It was impoffible to read fo many paffionate exclamations, and foothing de fcriptions, without feeling fome defire to enjoy the state in which all this felicity was to be enjoyed; and therefore I received with raptures the invitation of my good aunt, and expected that by fome unknown influence I fhould find all hopes and fears, jealoufies and competitions, vanish from my heart upon my first arrival at the feats of innocence and tranquillity; that I fhould fleep in halcyon bowers, and wander in elyan gardens, where I fhould meet with nothing but the foftness of benevolence, the candour of fimplicity, and the cheerfulness of content; where I should fee reafon exerting her fovereignty over life, without any interruption from envy, avarice, or ambition, and every day paffing in fuch a manner as the feverett 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 uneafinefs, without any other comfort than that of hoping to return to London.

Having, fince I wrote iny former letter, been driven, by the mere neceffity of efcaping from abfolute inactivity, to make myself more acquaintedwith the affairs and inhabitants of this place, I am now no longer an absolute stranger to rural converfation and employments, but am far from difcovering in them more innocence or wifdom, than in the fentiments or conduct of thofe with whom I have paffed more cheerful and more fafhionable hours.

It is common to reproach the teatable, and the park, with giving opportunities and encouragement to fcandal. I cannot wholly clear them from the charge; but muit, however, observe, in favour of the modifh prattlers, that, if not by principle, we are at leaft by accident, lefs guilty of defamation than the country ladies. For having greater numbers to obferve and cenfure, we are commonly content to charge them only with their own faults or follies, and fe! dom give way to malevolence, but fuch as arifes from fome injury or affront, real or imaginary, offered to ourselves.

O 2

But

But in thefe diftinct provinces, where the fame families inhabit the fame houses from age to age, they tranfmit and recount the faults of a whole fucceffion. I have been informed how every estate in the neighbourhood was originally got, and find, if I may credit the accounts given me, that there is not a fingle acre. in the hands of the right owner. I have been told of intrigues between beaus and toafts that have been now three centu ries in their quiet graves; and am often entertained with traditional fcandal on perfons of whofe names there would have been no remembrance, had they not committed fomewhat that might difgrace their defcendants.

In one of my vifits I happened to commend the air and dignity of a young lady, who had juft left the company; upon which two grave matrons looked with great finefs at each other, and the elder asked me whether I had ever feen the picture of Henry the Eighth. You may iinagine that I did not immediately perceive the propriety of the question; but after having waited awhile for information, I was told that the lady's grandmother had a great great grandmother that was an attendant on Anna Bullen, and fupposed to have been too much a favourite of the king.

If once there happens a quarrel between the principal perfons of two families, the malignity is continued without end, and it is common for old maids to fall out about fome election, in which their grandfathers were competitors: the heart-burnings of the civil war are not yet extinguished; there are two families in the neighbourhood who have destroyed each other's game from the time of

Philip and Mary; and when an account came of an inundation, which had injured the plantations of a worthy gentleman, one of the hearers remarked, with exultation, that he might now have fome notion of the ravages committed by his ancestors in their retreat from Bofworth.

'Thus malice and hatred defcend here with an inheritance; and it is necessary to be well versed in history, that the various factions of this county may be understood. You cannot expect to be on good terms with families who are refolved to love nothing in common; and, in felecting your intimates, you are perhaps to confider which party you most favour in the barons wars. I have often loft the good opinion of my aunt's vifitants by confounding the interests of York and Lancaster; and was once cenfured for fitting filent when William Rufus was called a tyrant. I have, however, now thrown afide all pretences to circumfpection, for I find it impossible in lefs than feven years to learn all the requifite cautions. At London, if you know your company, and their parents, you are fafe; but you are here fufpected of alluding to the flips of great-grandmothers, and of reviving contests which were decided in armour by the redoubted knights of ancient times. I hope therefore that you will not condemn my impatience, if I am weary of attending where nothing can be learned, and of quarrelling where there is nothing to conteft, and that you will contribute to divert me while I ftay here by fome facetious performance. I am, Sir,

EUPHELIA.

N° XLVII.

"

worn themfelves out in unavailing mifery.

Yet fo much is this paflion the natural confequence of tenderness and endearment, that however painful and however mieless, it is justly reproachful not to feel it on fome occafions; and so widely and conftantly has it always prevailed, that the laws of fome nations, and the cuftoms of others, have limited a time for the external appearances of grief caufed by the diffolution of close alliances, and the breach of domestick union. It feems determined by the general fuffrage of mankind, that forrow is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love, or at leaft pardonable as the effect of weakness; but that it ought not to be fuffered to increase by indulgence, bat must give way after a ftated time to focial duties, and the common avocations of life. It is at first unavoidable, and therefore must be allowed, whether with or without our choice; it may afterwards be admitted as a decent and affectionate teftimony of kindness and esteem; fomething will be extorted by nature, and fomething may be given to the world. But all beyond the bursts of paffion, or the forms of folemnity, is not only ufekfs but culpable; for we have no right to facrifice, to the vain longings of affection, that time which Providence allows us for the task of our ftation.

Yet it too often happens that forrow, thus lawfully entering, gains fuch a firm poffeffion of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected; the mournful ideas, firft violently impreffed, and afterwards willingly received, fo much engrofs the attention, as to predominate every thought, to darken gaiety, and perplex ratiocination. An habitual fadnels feizes upon the foul, and the faculties are chained to a single object, which can never be contemplated but with hopelefs uneafinefs.

From this ftate of dejection it is very difficult to rife to cheerfulness and alacrity, and therefore many who have laid down rules of intellectual health, think prefervatives eafier than remedies, and teach us not to trust ourselves with favourite enjoyments, not to indulge the luxury of fondness, but to keep our minds always fufpended in such indifference, that we may change the objects about us without emotion.

An exact compliance with this rulę

might perhaps contribute to tranquillity, but furely it would never produce happinefs. He that regards none fo much as to be afraid of lofing them, must live for ever without the gentle pleasures of fympathy and confidence; he muft feel no melting fondnets, no warmth of benevolence, nor any of thofe honeft joys which nature annexes to the power of pleafing. And as no man can juftly claim more tenderness than he pays, he must forfeit his fhare in that officious and watchful kindness which love only can dictate, and thofe lenient endearments by which love only can foften life. He may justly be overlooked and neglected by fuch as have more warmth in their heart; for who would be the friend of him, whom, with whatever affiduity he may be courted, and with whatever fervices obliged, his principles will not fuffer to make equal returns, and who, when you have exhausted all the inftances of good-will, can only be prevailed on not to be an enemy?

An attempt to preferve life in a ftate of neutrality and indifference, is unreafonable and vain. If by excluding joy we could fhut out grief, the fcheme would deferve very ferious attention; but fince, however we may debar ourfelves from happiness, mifery will find it's way at many inlets, and the affaults of pain will force our regard, though we may withhold it from the invitations of pleafure, we may furely endeavour to raife life above the middle point of apathy at one time, fince it will neceffarily fink below it at another.

But though it cannot be reasonable not to gain happiness for fear of losing it, yet it must be confefed, that in proportion to the pleature of poffeffion, will be for fome time our forrow for the lofs; it is therefore the province of the moralift to enquire whether fuch pains may nat quickly give way to mitigation. Some have thought that the most certain way to clear the heart from it's embarraffinent is to drag it by force into scenes of merriment. Others imagine, that fuch a tranfition is too violent, and recommend rather to footh it into tranquillity, by making it acquainted with miferies more dreadful and afflictive, and diverting to the calamities of others the regard which we are inclined to fix too clofely upon our own misfortunes.

It

may be doubted whether either of

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