ed I am growing almoft quite eafy; which is owing to my following your good advice, and the kindness that is already fhown me in the family. Betty and I are bed-fellows; and fhe, and Robin, and Thomas, are all fo kind to me, that I can fcarcely fay which is the kindeft. My mafter is fixty-five years of age next April; but by his looks you would hardly take him to be fifty. He has always an eafy fmiling countenance; and he is very good to all his fervants. When he has happened to pass by me, as I have been dufting out the chambers, or in the paffage, he generally fays fomething to encourage me; and that makes one's work go on more pleasantly. My mistress is as thin as my mafter is plump not much fhort of him in age, and more apt to be a little peevish. Indeed that may eafily be borne; for I have never heard my mafter fay a fingle word of any of us, but what was kind and encouraging. My mafter, they fay, is vaftly rich; for he is a prudent man, and laid up a great deal of money while he was in business, with which he pur chafed this eftate here, and another in Suffex, fome time before he left off. And they have, I find, a very good houfe in London, as well as this here; but my mafter and mistress both love the country beft, and fo they fometimes ftay here for a whole winter, and all the fummer conftantly; of which I am very glad, because I am fo much the nearer you: and I have heard fo much of the wickedness of London, that I don't at all defire to go there. As to my fellow-fervants, it is thought that Betty (who is very good-natured, and as merry as the day is long) is to be married to the jovial landlord over the the way; and, to say the truth, I am apt to believe that they are actually promifed to one another. Our coach man, Thomas, feems to be a very good worthy man; you may fee by his eyes, that it does his heart good. whenever he can do a kind thing for any of the neighbours. He was born in the parish, and his father has a good farm of his own in it, and rents another. Robin, the footman, is good-natured too; he is always merry, and loves to laugh as much as he loves to eat, and I'm fure he has a good ftomach. But I need not talk of F that, that, for now mine is come again; I eat almost as hearty as he does. With fuch fellow-fervants, and fuch a mafter, I think it would be my own fault if I am not happy. Well in health, I affure you, I am, and begin to be pretty well in fpirits; only my heart will heave a little still every time I look towards the road that goes to your houfe. Heaven bless you all there! and make me a deferving daughter of fo good a mother! LETTER XV. The mother's anfwer and advice. Dear Child, TH HE next piece of advice that I gave you was, "To think often how much a life of virtue is to be preferred to a life of pleasure; and how much better, and more lafting, a good name is than beauty." If we call things by their right names, there is nothing that deferves the name of pleasure fo truly as virtue: but one must talk as people are used to talk; and I think, by a life of pleasure, they generally mean a life of gaiety. Now, our gaieties, God knows, are, at beft, very trifling, always unfatisfactory, often attended with difficulties in the procuring them, and fatigue in the very enjoyment, and too often followed by regret and selfcondemnation. What they call a life of pleafure among the great, muft be a very laborious life: they spend the greateft part of the night in balls and affemblies, and fling away the greatest part of their days in fleep: their life is too much oppofed to nature, to be capable of happinefs: 'tis all hurry of vifits, twenty or thirty perhaps in a day, to perfons of whom there are not above two or three that they have any real friendship or esteem for, (fuppofing them to be capable of either): a perpetual feeking after what they call diverfions; an infipidity, and want of taste, when they are engaged in them, and a certain certain languishing and reftleffnefs when they are without them. This is not living, but a conftant endeavour to cheat themfelves out of the little time they have to live; for they generally inherit a bad conftitution, make it worse by their abfurd way of life, and deliver a still weaker and weaker thread down to their children. I don't know any one thing more ridiculous, than feeing their wrinkled fallow faces all fet off with diamonds. Poor mistaken gentlewomen! they fhould endeavour to avoid people's eyes as much as poffible, and not to attract them; for they are really a quite deplorable fight, and their very faces are a ftanding leffon against the ftrange lives they lead. : People in a lower life, it is true, do not act fo ridiculously as thofe in a higher; but, even among them too, there is a vast difference between the people that live. well, and the people that live ill the former are more healthy, in better fpirits, fitter for bufinefs, and more attentive to it; the latter are more negligent, more uneafy, more contemptible, and more difeafed. In truth, either in high or low life, virtue is only another name for happiness, and debauchery is the high road to mifery; and this, to me, appears juft as true and evident, as that moderation is always good for us, and excess always hurtful. But is it not a charming thing to have youth and beau-, ty,-to be followed and admired, to have prefents offered from all fides to one,-to be invited to all diverfions, and to be diftinguished by the men from all the rest of the company!-Yes, my dear child: all this would be charming, if we had nothing to do but to dance, and receive presents, and if this diftinction of you was to last always. But the mifchief of it is, that these things cannot be enjoyed without increafing your vanity every time you enjoy them, and fwelling up a paffion in you that muft foon be balked and difappointed. How long is this beauty to laft? There are but few faces that can keep it to the other fide of five and twenty; and how would you bear it, after having been used to be thus diftinguished and admired for fome time, to fink out of the notice of people, people, and to be neglected, and, perhaps, affronted, by the very perfons who used to pay the greatest adoration to you? Do you remember the gentleman that was with us laft autumn, and his prefenting you with that pretty flower one day, on his coming out of the garden? I don't know whether you understood him or not; but I could read it in his looks, that he meant it for a leffon to you. It is true, the flower was quite a pretty one; but though you put it in water, you know it faded, and grew difagreeable, in four or five days; and had it not been cropped, but fuffered to grow on in the garden, it would have done the fame in nine or ten. Now, a year is to beauty what a day was to that flower; and who would value themfelves much on the poffeffion of a thing, which they are sure to lofe in fo thort a time? Nine or ten years are what one may call the natural term of life for beauty in a young woman; but by accidents, or misbehaviour, it may die long before its time. The greater part of what people call beauty in your face, for instance, is owing to that air of innocence and modefty that is in it: if once you fhould fuffer yourself to be ruined by any base man, all that will foon vanish, and affurance and uglinefs would come in the room of it. And if other bad confequences fhould follow, (for other bad ones there are, of more forts than one,) you would lose your bloom too, and then all is gone! but keep your reputation as you have hitherto kept it, and that will be a beauty which will laft to the end of your days; for it will be only the more confirmed and brightened by time; that will fecure you efteem when all the prefent form of your face is vanished away, and will be always mellowing into greater and greater charms. Thefe, my fentiments, you'll take as a bleffing, and remember, they come from the heart of a tender and affectionate mother. E. C. LET. I LETTER XVI. A fon's letter at fchool, to his father. Honoured Sir, AM greatly obliged to you for all your favours; all I have to hope is, that the progrefs I make in my learning will be no difagreeable return for the fame. Gratitude, duty, and a view of future advantages, all contribute to make me thoroughly fenfible how much I I ought to labour for my own improvement and your fatisfaction, and to fhew myfelf, upon all occafions, Your most obedient and ever dutiful fon, R- -M LETTER XVII. A letter of excufe to a father or mother.. Honcured Sir, or, Madam, AM informed, and it gives me great concern, that I you have heard an ill report of me, which, I fuppofe, was raised by fome of my fchool-fellows, who either envy my esteem, or by aggravating my faults, would endeavour to leffen their own; though, I must own, I have been a little too remifs in my school-business, and am now fenfible I have loft in fome measure my time and credit thereby; but, by my future diligence, I hope to recover both, and to convince you that I pay a ftrict regard to all your commands, which I am bound to, as well in gratitude as duty: and hope I shall ever have leave, and with great truth, to fubfcribe my felf, Your most dutiful fon, |