about her, has retained a very eafy and unaffected manner. The first converfation we had together, equally pleased us both; and when we parted I defired leave to pay my refpects to her; which fhe granted in fo obliging a manner, that I waited with impatience for the time to avail myself of it. She is not of this place, but lives here with an aunt. The countenance of the old virago displeased me at first fight; however I paid her great attention, and often addreffed myself to her. In about half an hour, I pretty nearly gueffed what her niece has fince acknowledged. This good aunt, who is in

I

years,

years, with a fmall fortune, and ftill smaller share of understanding, has no fatisfaction but in the long lift of her ancestors; no protection but her noble birth; this is the defence, the rampart with which fhe furrounds herself; and her only amusement is standing at her window to look down with fovereign contempt on the ignoble heads which pafs under it in the street. This ridiculous old woman was formerly handfome, and many a young man was the fport of her caprice that was the golden age. Her charms faded, fhe was forced to accept of an old half-pay officer, and be fubfervient to his

will that was the age of brafs. Now he is a widow, and deserted; was it not for her agreeable niece nobody would take notice of her :this may truly be called the iron age.

LETTER XLI.

January 8, 1772.

WHAT men are thefe!-Form

occupies their whole fouls;

they can employ their time and thoughts for a whole year together, in contriving how to get nearer, by one chair only, to the upper end of the table. And don't call it idleness;

VOL. II.

C

for

for on the contrary they increase their labour, by giving to these trifles the time they ought to employ in bufinefs. Last week, in a party upon the ice in fledges, there was a dif pute for precedence, and the party was immediately broken up.

The idiots they do not fee that 'tis not the place which conftitutes real greatness the man who enjoys the highest post very rarely acts the principal part; many a king is governed by his minifter, and many a minifter by his fecretary. Who is, in that cafe to be accounted the first, and chief? Is it not the man who

has

has the power or the address to make the paffions of others fubfervient to his own designs?

I

LETTER XLII.

January 20.

MUST write to you from hence, my dear Charlotte; from a cottage where I have been obliged to take fhelter from a violent form. In all the time that I have spent in that melancholy town, amidst strangers-strangers indeed to this heartI have not been compelled to write to you: but in this cottage, in this retirement, in this fort of imprisonC 2

ment,