He borrows every help from every art,
To stir the passions and mislead the heart:
But from the subject let us soon escape,
Nor give this feature all its ugly shape;
Some to their crimes escape from satire owe;
Who shall describe what Blaney dares to show?
While thus the man, to vice and passion slave,
Was, with his follies, moving to the grave,
The ancient ruler of this mansion died,
And Blaney boldly for the seat applied:

Sir Denys Brand, then guardian, join'd his suit;
"'Tis true," said he, " the fellow's quite a brute-
"A very beast; but yet, with all his sin,
"He has a manner-let the devil in."

They half complied, they gave the wish'd retreat, But raised a worthier to the vacant seat.

Thus forced on ways unlike each former way,
Thus led to prayer without a heart to pray,
He quits the gay and rich, the young and free,
Among the badge-men with a badge to be:
He sees an humble tradesman raised to rule
The grey-beard pupils of this moral school;
Where he himself, an old licentious boy,
Will nothing learn, and nothing can enjoy ;
In temp'rate measures he must eat and drink,
And, pain of pains! must live alone and think.

In vain, by fortune's smiles, thrice affluent made, Still has he debts of ancient date unpaid;

Thrice into penury by error thrown,

Not one right maxim has he made his own;
The old men shun him, some his vices hate,

And all abhor his principles and prate;

Nor love nor care for him will mortal show,
Save a frail sister in the female row.

.(1)

(1) Blayney and Clelia, a male and female inhabitant of this mansion, are drawn at some length; and I may be thought to have given them attention which they do not merit. I plead not for the originality, but for the truth of the character; and though it may not be very pleasing, it may be useful to delineate (for certain minds) these mixtures of levity and vice; people who are thus incurably vain and determinately worldly; thus devoted to enjoyment and insensible of shame, and so miserably fond of their pleasures, that they court even the remembrance with eager solicitation, by conjuring up the ghosts of departed indulgences with all the aid that memory can afford them. These characters demand some attention, because they hold out a warning to that numerous class of young people who are too lively to be discreet; to whom the purpose of life is amusement, and who are always in danger of falling into vicious habits, because they have too much activity to be quiet, and too little strength to be steady.

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XV.

INHABITANTS OF THE ALMS-HOUSE.

CLELIA.

She early found herself mistress of herself. All she did was right: all she said was admired. Early, very early, did she dismiss blushes from her cheek she could not blush because she could not doubt: and silence, whatever was her subject, was as much a stranger to her as diffidence.. RICHARDSON.

:

Quo fugit Venus? heu! Quove color? decens

Quo motus? Quid habes illius, illius,

Quæ spirabat amores,

Quæ me surpuerat mihi?- HORAT. lib. iv. od. 13.

Her lively and pleasant Manners—Her Reading and Decision

-

Her Intercourse with different Classes of Society — Her Kind of Character - The favoured Lover- Her Management of him: his of her After one Period, Clelia with an Attorney her Manner and Situation there - Another such Period, when her Fortune still declines - Mistress of an Inn

A Widow Another such Interval: she becomes poor and infirm, but still vain and frivolous — The fallen Vanity - Admitted into the House: meets Blaney.