in the power of enjoying the ordinary pleafures of life, and in not being too easily hurt by the little difquietudes of it. There is a certain fineness of foul, and delicacy of fentiment, with which few fituations accord, to which many feeming harmless ones give the greatest uneafinefs. The art " defipere in loco," (by which I understand being able not only to trifle, upon occafion, ourselves, but also to bear the foolery of others) is a qualification extremely useful for fmoothing a man's way through the world.

I have been led into this train of thinking, by fome circumftances in a visit I had lately the pleasure of receiving from my friend Mr. Umphraville, with whom I made my readers acquainted in fome former Numbers. A particular piece of bufinefs occurred, which made it expedient for him to come to town; and though he was, at firft, extremely averse from the journey, having never liked great towns, and now relishing them less than ever, yet the remonftrances of his man of bufinefs, aided by very urgent requests from me, at length overcame him. He fet out, therefore, attended by his old family-fervant, John, whom I had

not

not failed to remember in my invitation to his

mafter.

At the first stage on the road, John told me, his mafter looked fad, eat little, and spoke lefs. Though the landlord ufhered in dinner in perfon, and gave his gueft a very minute defcription of his manner of feeding his mutton, Mr. Umphraville remained a hearer only, and fhewed no inclination to have him fit down and partake of his own difhes; and, though he defired him, indeed, to taste the wine, of which he brought in a bottle after dinner, he told him, at the fame time, to let the oftler know he should want his horfes as foon as poffible. The landlord left the room, and told John, who was eating his dinner, fomewhat more deliberately, in the kitchen, that his master seemed a melancholy kind of a gentleman, not half so good-humoured as his neighbour Mr. Jolly.

John, who is interested both in the happiness and honour of his master, endeavoured to mend matters in the evening, by introducing the hoftefs very particularly to Mr. Umphraville; and, indeed, venturing to invite her to fup with him. Umphraville was too fhy, or too civil, to decline the lady's company, and

John valued himself on having procured him fo agreeable a companion. His mafter complained to me, fince he came to town, of the oppreffion of this landlady's company; and declared his refolution of not stopping at the George on his way home.

The morning after his arrival at my house, while we were fitting together, talking of old ftories, and old friends, with all the finer feelings afloat about us, John entered, with a look of much fatisfaction, announcing the name of Mr. Bearskin. This gentleman is a first cousin of Umphraville's, who refides in town, and whom he had not feen these fix years. He was bred a mercer, but afterwards extended his dealings with his capital, and has been concerned in feveral great mercantile tranfactions. While Umphraville, with all his genius, and all his accomplishments, was barely preferving his eftate from ruin at home, this man, by dint of industry and application, and partly from the want of genius and accom plishments, has amaffed a fortune greater than the richest of his coufin's ancestors was ever poffeffed of. He holds Umphraville in fome respect, however, as the reprefentative of his mother's family, from which he derives all

his gentility, his father having sprung nobody knows whence, and lived nobody knows how, till he appeared behind the counter of a woollen-draper, to whofe fhop and business he fucceeded.

My friend, though he could have excufed his vifit at this time, received him with politenefs. He introduced him to me as his near relation; on which the other, who mixes the flippant civility of his former profeffion with fomewhat of the monied confidence of his present one, made me a handsome compliment, and congratulated Mr. Umphraville on the poffeffion of fuch a friend. He concluded, however, with a diftant infinuation of his house's being a more natural home for his cousin when in town, than that of any other perfon. This led to a description of that houfe, its rooms and its furniture, in which he made no inconfiderable eulogium on his own tafte, the tafte of his wife, and the taste of the times. Umphraville blushed, bit his lips, complained of the heat of the room, changed his feat, in fhort fuffered torture all the way from the cellar to the garret.

Mr. Bearskin clofed this defcription of his house with an expreffion of his and his wife's earneft

earneft defire to fee their coufin there. Umphraville declared his intention of calling to enquire after Mrs. Bearfkin and the young folks, mentioning, at the fame time, the fhortnefs of his proposed stay in town, and the hurry his business would neceffarily keep him in while he remained. But this declaration by no means fatisfied his kinfman; he insisted on his spending a day with them fo warmly, that the other was at last overcome, and the third day after was fixed on for that purpofe, which Mr. Bearskin informed us would be the more agreeable to all parties, as he should then have an opportunity of introducing us to his London correfpondent, a man of great fortune, who had just arrived here on a jaunt to see the country, and had promifed him the favour of eating a bit of mutton with him on that day. I would have excused myself from being of the party; but not having, any more than Umphraville, a talent at refusal, was, like him, overpowered by the folicitations of his

coufin.

The hiftory of that dinner I may poffibly give my readers hereafter, in a separate paper, a dinner, now-a-days, being a matter of confequence, and not to be managed in an episode.

The