upon me, as long as my pipe of excellent port lasted, yet I was not to be admitted a member of their jolly society.

It is true, I visit, and am visited; but as I really do not take much pleasure in a drunken bout; as I am not very well skilled in farming or fox-hunting; and from a tenderness of constitution, am obliged to be abstemious in the articles of eating and drinking, we commonly have more form in our meetings than cordiality. To assemble together for the sake of liberal and manly conversation, is held insipid. My sons are never at home; and my daughters, who have been taught to set a high value on mental accomplishments, neither give nor receive much satisfaction in the company of those, who think it the very summit of education, to have learned, at a boarding-school, to dance and play a minuet.

The envy, the jealousy, and the impertinence of the lower sort of people is not less conspicuous and troublesome than that of their superiors. If we send to buy any thing, we are forced to pay something more than any body else, because we are the rich new-comers. If my cow happens to break into neighbour Hodge's field, she is pounded without notice, because, forsooth, she is the Londoner's cow. If we walk down the town, all the doors and windows are flung open, and crowded with spectators, just as it is in London at my lord mayor's show. My poor wife and daughters silks and satins are criticised and pulled to pieces with unrelenting se verity.

Whenever my servants go to any shop, a set of gossips make a point of meeting them, in order to

ask what I had for dinner, how much small-beer is consumed by us in a week, and a thousand similar questions. No little art is made use of to persuade them that I am stingy, and that my place is the worst in the town; though to my certain knowledge, I am so far imposed upon, being a stranger, as that I am forced to pay a third more wages than any body else in the neighbourhood.

Nothing passes in my house which does not become matter of general conversation. If a cousin or an old acquaintance comes from London to spend a few days with me, no pains are spared to learn of the servants who and what he is; and if my servants know nothing about him, Miss Prue takes care to suggest that he is in some low trade, a mere mechanic in his best suit of clothes. If he should take an evening walk with my daughters, unaccompanied with me or my wife, he is going to be married to one of them directly. His name, his age, his origin, are immediately divulged; the fortunes on both sides ascertained, and the day fixed.

If my wife and I happen to spar a little, as is usual among those who love one another with the sincerest affection, a report is immediately circu lated that I use my wife, or that she uses me ill, and that, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, we do not live happily together. I can never buy nor sell a horse, a cow, or a pig, nor change a servant, but I am called behind my back a fool for my pains, and it is hinted that I do not know what I am about; and indeed, how should I, since I am a cit? If I make an alteration in my garden, dig a ditch, mend a pig-stye, or thatch a

hovel, my taste, my judgment, my prudence, are called in question, and it is charitably wished that I do not bring my noble to nine-pence, and my ninepence to nothing. If, by the carelessness of my cook-maid, a joint of meat should happen to be a little tainted in the dog-days, it gets wind, and it is immediately said that I feed my family on stinking meat for cheapness. If a loaf should be a little mouldy in damp weather, I am railed at for keeping my bread till it is spoiled, rather than give it to a poor creature who is perishing with hunger. In short, hardly a mouse can stir in any part of the house, from the parlour to the scullery, but the barber, the chandler's-shop keeper, the landlady at the ale-house, the mantua-maker, and the char-woman, find means to get a knowledge of it, for the entertainment of their customers.

Till I lived in this place, I never thought myself of such consequence as to merit general attention. In London, my next door neighbour neither knew nor cared what passed in my parlour and kitchen. I can, however, easily account for this difference. In a market-town, of no great opulence or extent, there are not objects enough to divert the idle. No plays, no auctions, no fine shops, no show-glasses. Scarcely any amusements for sots, gossips, and old maids, but thinking and talking on the affairs and families of other people. The settlement of a stranger in their town is food to them for years. They have been too long used to the natives to find any novelty in their concerns, and perhaps have been induced to regard them with that partiality of long acquaintance or of relationship, which precludes

malevolence. But strangers are lawful game: and the cruelty of little minds is found to take a pleasure in detracting from their characters, and defeating, by false and malignant representations, those schemes of happiness with which they flattered themselves in retirement.

Sick of such impertinence, and disgusted with the ill-nature of all around me, I have resolved to quit the market-town, and have just hired a house delightfully situated in a distant village. It is the paternal habitation of a man, who, having hopes of rising at court, chuses to leave his charming retreat, for a small dark house in one of the dismal lanes that lead into the Strand. I shall have no near neighbours, but the vicar, who is not only a learned, virtuous, religious, and benevolent, but also an agreeable man. His family, all of whom have that elegance of mind which results from a taste for letters, will be much with mine. They have already formed a reciprocal attachment. And I hope to have found at last, in this place, that happiness which I vainly sought in a more frequented situ ation. Of this I am confident, that the honest simplicity of the rustics, if it is not agreeable, is far less disgusting, than the pert, affected, ill-natured airs and manners of the little half-bred gentry in little country-towns.

The beauties of nature untouched by art, an air sweet as it blows over the blossomed vale, peaceful hours, social cheerfulness, domestic joys, rural dignity-these are mine in my village retreat. Nor do regret the loss of formal visits, and that wretched intercourse with little minds, which, while it wore

I

away life in insipidity, exposed me to the envenomed shafts of unmerited calumny.

NO. CLXIX. CURSORY THOUGHTS ON EPISTOLARY

WRITERS.

WHEN a writer has distinguished himself in his studied performances, and pleased us in those. works which he intended for our perusal, we become interested in all that concerns him, and wish to be acquainted with his ideas, as they flowed without any view to their publication, in the open communications of a private and friendly correspondence. Beautiful minds, like beautiful bodies, appear graceful in an undress. The awe which they inspire, when surrounded with all their dignity, is sometimes more striking than pleasing; but we feel ourselves relieved when admitted to their familiarity. We love to retire behind the scenes, and to observe the undisguised appearance of those who please us when industriously decorated for public exhibition. From this cause it has arisen, that the private letters of great men have been always read with peculiar avidity.

The Greeks, remarkable as they were for diversity of composition, have not left many models in the epistolary style. There is no doubt but that Xenophon excelled in it, though most of the letters which he wrote have either not been collected or preserved. Those of Socrates, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Xenophon, Æschines, and Philo, have never been popular. Those which pass under the name of Aristænetus are of a taste less resembling the