where there is fuch a crowd; why man, there's too much. What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but company! Lard, my dear, returned he, with the utmoft good-humour, you seem immemfely chagrined; but blaft me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and fo we are even. My lord Trip, Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I Sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and fo we fay and do a thousand things for the joke. But 1 fee you are grave, and if you are for a fine grave fentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my wife to-day, I must infift on't; Tll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, a lady of as elegant qualifications as any in Nature; fhe was bred, but that's between ourselves, under the inSpection of the Countess of All-night. A charming body of voice, but no more of that, he will give us a fong. You fhall fee my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelma Amelia Tibbs, a fweet pretty creature; I defign ber for my lord Drumftick's eldeft fon, but that's in friendship, let it go no farther; he's but fix years old, and yet fhe walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend fhe fhall be as perfect as poffible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purpofely to inftruct ber; but let that be a fecret.

Thus faying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and hauled me along. We paffed through many dark alleys and winding ways; for, from fome motives to me unknown, he feemed to have a particular averfion to every frequented street; at laft, however, we got to the door of a difinal looking house in the outlets of the town, where he informed me he chofe to refide for the benefit of the air.

We entered the lower door, which ever feemed to lie most hofpitably open; and I began to afcend

an old and creaking ftair-cafe, when, as he mounted to fhew me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in profpects, to which anfwering in the affirmative, Then, fays he, I shall fhew you one of the moft charming in the world out of my windows; we shall fee the fhips failing, and the whole country for twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for fuch a one; but as I fometimes pleafantly tell him, I always love to keep my proSpets at home, that my friends may fee me the oftener.

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to afcend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleafed to call the firft floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered, that it was him. But this not fatisfying the quereft, the voice again repeated the demand to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance.

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, afked where was her lady ? "Good troth," replied the, in a peculiar dialect, "fhe's wathing "your two fhirts at the next door, because they "have taken an oath against lending out the tub "any longer." My two fhirts, cries he in a tone that faultered with confufion, what does the ideot mean! "I ken what I mean well enough," replied the other, "fhe's washing your two fhirts at the next "door, becaufe-" Fire and fury, no more of thy ftupid explanations, cried he,-Go and inform her we bave got company. Were that Scotch bag to be for ever in the family, he would never learn politeness, nor forget that abfurd poisonous accent of hers, or testify the Smallest fpecimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is

very furprizing too, as I had her from a parliament-man, a friend of mine, from the highlands, one of the politeft men in the world; but that's a fecret.

We waited fome time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval I had a full opportunity of furveying the chamber and all its furniture; which confifted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he affured me were his wife's embroidery; a fquare table that had been once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the other; a broken fhepherdefs, and a mandarine without a head were stuck over the chimney; and round the walls feveral paltry, unframed pictures, which he obferved, were all his own drawing: What do you think, Sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grifoni? there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for its fellow: I refufed her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you know.

The wife at laft made her appearance, at once a flattern and a coquet; much emaciated, but ftill carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being feen in fuch odious difhabille, but hoped to be excufed, as fhe had ftaid out all night at the gardens with the countefs, who was exceffively fond of the horns. "And, indeed, my "dear," added fhe, turning to her husband," his lordship drank your health in a bumper.' Poor Jack, cries he, a dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there are but threee of us, fomething elegant, and little will do; a turbot, an ortolan, or a Or what do you think, my dear, interrupts the wife, of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dreffed with a little of my own fauce.-The very thing, replies he, it will eat beft with fome smart bottled beer; but be fure

tó

to let's have the fauce his grace was fo fond of. I hate your immenfe loads of meat, that is country all over; extreme difgufting to thofe who are in the leaft acquainted with high life.

By this time my curiofity began to abate, and my appetite to encrease; the company of fools may at firft make us fmile, but at laft never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement, and after having fhewn my refpect to the house, according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old fervant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs affuring me that dinner, if I ftaid, would be ready at least in lefs than two hours.

LETTER LV.

From Fum Hoam to Altangi, the difcontented wanderer, THE diftant founds of mufic that catch new sweetnefs as they vibrate through the long-drawn valley, are not more pleafing to the ear than the tidings of a far diftant friend.

I have juft received two hundred of thy letters by the Ruffian caravan, defcriptive of the manners of Europe. You have left it to geographers to determine the fize of their mountains, and extent of their lakes, feeming only employed in difcovering the genius, the government, and difpofition of the people.

In thofe letters I perceive a journal of the operations of your mind upon whatever occurs, rather than a detail of your travels from one building to another; of your taking a draught of this ruin, or

that

that obelifk; of paying fo many Tomans for this commodity, or laying up a proper store for the paffage of fome new wildernefs.

From your accounts of Ruffia I learn, that this nation is again relaxing into priftine barbarity, that its great emperor wanted a life of an hundred years more to bring about his vaft defign. A favage people may be resembled to their own forefts; a few years are fufficient to clear away the obftructions to agriculture; but it requires many .ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Ruffians, attached to their antient prejudices, again renew their hatred to ftrangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are flow and difficult, the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and eafy. We are not to be aftonished, fays Confucius*, that the wife walk more flowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; fince paffion drags us along, while wifdom only points out the way.

The German empire, that remnant of the majefty of antient Rome, appears from your account on the eve of diffolution. The members of its vaft body want every tye of government to unite them, and feem feebly held together only by their respect for antient inftitutions. The very name of country and countrymen, which in other nations makes one of the ftrongeft bonds of government, has been here for fome time laid afide, each of its inhabitants feeming more proud of being called from the petty ftate which gives him birth, than by the more wellknown title of German.

This government may be regarded in the light of a fevere mafter, and a feeble opponent. The states

*Though this fine maxim be not found in the Latin edition of the morals of Confucius, yet we find it afcribed to him by Le Comte, Etat present de la Chine. Vol. I. p. 342.