one another for many years, by their mutual expressions of joy at meeting. They both talked together, not with a design of opposing each other, but through eagerness to approve what each other said. I caught them frequently crying, "Yes," together, and "very true," "You are very "right, my dear Sir;" and at last, having exhausted their favourite topic of, what news, and the weather, they concluded with each begging to have the vast pleasure of an agreeable evening with the other very soon; but parted without naming either time or place.

I remember, at Westminster, a mighty good kind of boy, though he was generally hated by his school-fellows, was the darling of the dame where he boarded, as by his means she knew who did all the mischief in the house. He always finished his exercise before he went to play: you could never find a false concord in his prose, or a false quality in his verse; and he made huge amends for the want of sense and spirit in his compositions, by having very few grammatical errors. If you could not call him a scholar, you must allow he took great pains not to appear a dunce. At the university he never failed attending his tutor's lectures, was constant at prayers night and morning, never missed gates, or the hall at meal-times, was regular in his academical exercises, and took pride in appearing, on all occasions, with masters of arts, and he was happy, beyond measure, in being acquainted with some of the heads of houses, who were glad, through him, to know what passed among the under-graduates. Though he was not reckoned by the college to be a Newton, a Locke, or a Bacon, he was universally esteemed by the senior part, to be a mighty good kind of young man ; and this even placid turn of mind has recommended him to no small preferment in the church.

We may observe, when these mighty good kind of young men come into the world, their attention to appearances and externals, beyond which the generality of people seldom examine, procures them a much better subsistence, and a more reputable situation in life, than ever their abilities, or their merit, could otherwise entitle them to. Though they are seldom advanced very high, yet, if such a one is in orders, he gets a tolerable living, or is appointed tutor to a dunce of quality, or is made companion to him on his travels;

and then, on his return, he is a mighty polite, as well as a mighty good kind of man. If he is to be a lawyer, his being such a mighty good kind of man will make the attorneys supply him with special pleadings, or bills and answers to draw, as he is sufficiently qualified by his low genius to be a dray-horse of the law. But though he can never hope to be a chancellor, or an archbishop, yet, if he is admitted of the medical college in Warwick-lane, he will have a good chance to be at the top of their profession, as the success of the faculty depends chiefly on old women, fanciful and hysterical young ones, whimsical men, and young children; among the generality of whom, nothing recommends a person so much as his being a mighty good kind of man.

I must own, that a good man, and a man of sense, certainly should have every thing that this kind of man has: yet, if he possesses no more, much is wanting to finish and complete his character. Many are deceived by French paste: it has the lustre and brilliancy of a real diamond, but the want of hardness, the essential property of this valuable jewel, discovers the counterfeit, and shews it to be of no intrinsic value whatsoever. If the head and the heart are left out in the character of any man, you might as well look for a perfect beauty in a female face without a nose, as to expect to find a valuable man without sensibility and understanding. But it often happens that these mighty good kind of men are wolves in sheep's clothing; that their want of parts is supplied by an abundance of cunning, and the outward behaviour and deportment calculated to entrap the short-sighted and unwary.

Where this is not the case, I cannot help thinking that these kind of men are no better than blanks in the creation: if they are not unjust stewards, they are certainly to be reckoned unprofitable servants, and I would recommend, that this harmless, inoffensive, insipid, mighty good kind of man should be married to a character of a very different stamp, the mighty good sort of woman-an account of whom I shall give you in a day or two.

I am your humble servant, &c. B. Thornton. § 109. Character of a mighty good Sort of Woman.

I suppose the female part of my readers

are very impatient to see the character of a mighty good sort of a woman; and doubtless every mighty good kind of man is anxious to know what sort of a wife I have picked out for him.

The mighty good sort of woman is civil without good-breeding, kind without good-nature, friendly without affection, and devout without religion. She wishes to be thought every thing she is not, and would have others looked upon to be every thing she really is. If you will take her word, she detests scandal from her heart: yet, if a young lady happens to be talked of as being too gay, with a significant shrug of her shoulders, and a shake of her head, she confesses, "It is too true, and "the whole town says the same thing." She is the most compassionate creature living, and is ever pitying one person, and sorry for another. She is a great dealer in buts, and ifs, and half sentences, and does more mischief with a may be, and I'll say no more, than she could do by speaking out. She confirms the truth of any story more by her fears and doubts, than if she had given proof positive; though she always concludes with a "Let us hope otherwise."

One principal business of a mighty good sort of woman is the regulation of families; and she extends a visitatorial power over all her acquaintance. She is the umpire in all differences between man and wife, which she is sure to foment and increase by pretending to settle them; and her great impartiality and regard for both leads her always to side with one against the other. She has a most penetrating and discerning eye into the faults of the family, and takes care to pry into all their secrets, that she may reveal them. If a man happens to stay out too late in the evening, she is sure to rate him handsomely the next time she sees him, and takes special care to tell him, in the hearing of his wife, what a bad husband he is or if the lady goes to Ranelagh, or is engaged in a party at cards, she will keep the poor husband company, that he might not be dull, and entertains him all the while with the imperfections of his wife. She has also the entire disposal of the children in her own hands, and can disinherit them, provide for them, marry them, or confine them to a state of celibacy, just as she pleases; she fixes the lad's pocket-money at school, and allowance at the university; and has sent many

an untoward boy to sea for education. But the young ladies are more immediately under her eye, and, in the grand point of matrimony, the choice or refusal depends solely upon her. One gentleman is too young, another too old; one will run out his fortune, another has too little; one is a professed rake, another a sly sinner; and she frequently tells the girl, ""Tis time enough to marry yet," till at last there is nobody will have her. But the most favourite occupation of a mighty good sort of woman is, the superintendence of the servants: she protests, there is not a good one to be got; the men are idle, and thieves, and the maids are sluts, and good-for-nothing hussies. In her own family, she takes care to separate the men from the maids at night, by the whole height of the house; these are lodged in the garret, while John takes up his roosting-place in the kitchen, or is stuffed into the turn-up seat in the passage, close to the street-door. She rises at five in the summer, and at day-light in the winter, to detect them in giving away broken victuals, coals, candles, &c. and her own footman is employed the whole morning in carrying letters of information to the masters and mistresses, wherever she sees, or rather imagines, this to be practised. She has caused many a man-servant to lose his place for romping in the kitchen, and many a maid has been turned away, upon her account, for dressing at the men, as she calls it, looking out at the window, or standing at the street-door, in a summer's evening. I am acquainted with three maiden-sisters, all mighty good sort of women, who, to prevent any ill consequences, will not keep a footman at all; and it is at the risk of their place, that the maids have any comers after them, nor will, on any account, a brother or a male cousin be suffered to visit them.

A distinguishing mark of a mighty good sort of a woman is, her extraordinary pretensions to religion: she never misses church twice a-day, in order to take notice of those who are absent; and she is always lamenting the decay of piety in these days. With some of them, the good Dr. Whitfield, or the good Dr. Romaine, is ever in their mouths: and they look upon the whole bench of bishops to be very Jews in comparison of these saints. The mighty good sort of woman is also very charitable in outward appearance,

what contempt these younger brothers of quality speak of persons in the three learned professions, even those at the top of each. The bench of bishops are never distinguished by them with any higher appellation, than-those parsons: and when they speak of the judges, and those who hold the first places in the courts of justice to a gentleman at the bar, they say-your lawyers: and the doctors Heberden, Addington, andAskew, are, in their genteel dialect called-these physical people. Trade is such a disgrace, that there is no difference with them between the highest and lowest that are concerned in it; they rank the greatest merchants among common tradesmen, as they can see no difference between a counting house and a chandler's shop. They think the run of their father's or their brother's kitchen, a more genteel means of subsistence than what is afforded by any calling or occupation whatsoever, except the army or the navy; as if nobody was deserving enough of the honour to cut a Frenchman's throat but persons of the first rank and distinction.

As I live so far from the polite end of the town as Bedford-row, I undergo much decent raillery on that account, whenever I have the honour of a visit from one of these younger brothers of quality: he wonders who makes my wigs, my clothes, and my liveries; he praises the furniture of my house, and allows my equipage to be handsome but declares he discovers more of expense than taste in either; he can discover that Hallat is not my upholsterer, and that my chariot was not made by Butler: in short, I find he thinks one might as well compare the Banqueting-house at Whitehall with the Mansion-house for elegance, as to look for that in Bedford-Row, which can only be found about St. James's. He will not touch any thing at my table but a piece of mutton: he is so cloyed with made dishes, that a plain joint is a rarity; my claret too, though it comes from Messrs. Brown ond Whiteford, and no otherwise differs from my lord's than in being bought for ready money, is put by for my port. Though he politely hobs or nobs with my wife, he does it as if I had married my cook; and she is further mortified with seeing her carpet treated with as little ceremony as if it was an oil-cloth. If, after dinner, one of her damask chairs has the

honour of his lordly breech, another is indulged with the favour of raising his leg. To any gentleman who drinks to this man of fashion, he is his most obedient humble servant, without bending his body, or looking to see who does him this honour. If any person even under the degree of a knight speaks to him, he will condescend to say Yes or No; but he is as likely as Sir Francis Wronghead to say the one when he should say the other. If I presume to talk about any change in the ministry before him, he discovers great surprize at my ignorance, and wonders that we, at this end of the town, should differ so much from the people about Grosvenorsquare. We are absolutely, according to him, as little alike as if we were not of the same species; and I find, it is as much impossible for us to know what passes at court, as if we lived at Rotherhithe or Wapping. I have very frequent opportunities of contemplating the different treatment I receive from him and his elder brother. My lord, from whom I have received many favours, behaves to me as if he was the person obliged; while his lordship's brother, who has conferred no favour on me but borrowing my money, which he never intends to pay, behaves as if he was the creditor, and the debt was a forlorn one.

The insolence which is so much complained of among nobleman's servants, is not difficult to account for: ignorance, idleness, high-living, and a consciousness of the dignity of the noble person they serve, added to the example of my lord's brother, whom they find no less dependent in the family than themselves, will naturally make them arrogant and proud. But this conduct in the younger brother must for ever remain unaccountable. I have been endeavouring to solve this phenomenon to myself, ever since the following occurrence happened to me.

When I came to settle in town, about five-and-twenty-years ago, I was strongly recommended to a noble peer, who promised to assist me. On my arrival I waited upon his lordship, and was told by the porter, with an air of great indifference, that he was not at home; and I was very near receiving the door in my face, when I was going to acquaint this civil person, that I had a letter in my pocket for his lord: upon my producing it, he said I might leave it; and immediately snatched