fuch of my neighbours in that quarter, as may incline to patronize the fine arts, and reftore the credit of this drooping country.

"Still to be tattling, ftill to prate,

"No luxury in life fo great."

THE humours and characters of a populous county town at a distance from the capital furnish matter of much amusement to a curious obferver. I have now been fome weeks refident in a place of this description, where I have been continually treated with the private lives and little fcandalizing anecdotes of almost every person of any note in it. Having paffed moft of my days in the capital, I could not but remark the striking difference between it and thefe fubordinate capitals in this particular in London we are in the habit of looking to our own affairs, and caring little about thofe, with whom we have no dealings: here every body's business seems to be no lefs his neighbour's concern than his own: A fet of tattling goffips (including all the idlers in the place male as well VOL. IV. G

as

as female) seem to have no other employment for their time or tongue, but to run from houfe to house, and circulate their filly stories up and down. A few of thefe contemptible impertinents I fhall now describe.

Mifs Penelope Tabby is an antiquated maiden of at least forty years ftanding, a great obferver of decorum, and particularly hurt by the behaviour of two young ladies, who are her next-door neighbours, for a cuftom they have of lolling out of their windows and talking to fellows in the street: The charge cannot be denied, for it certainly is a practice these young ladies indulge themselves in very freely; but on the other hand it must be owned Mifs Pen Tabby is alfo in the habit of lolling out of her window at the fame time to ftare at them, and put them to flame for the levity of their conduct: They have alfo the crime proved upon them of being unpardonably handsome, and this they neither can nor will attempt to contradict. Mifs Pen Tabby is extremely regular at morning prayers, but the complains heavily of a young ftaring fellow in the pew next to her own, who violates the folemnity of the fervice by ogling her at her devotions: He has a way of leaning over the pew, and dangling a white hand ornamented with a flaming pafte ring, which fometimes plays the lights in her eyes, fo as to make them water with the reflection, and Mifs Pen has this very natural remark ever ready on the occafion— "Such things, you know, are apt to take off ❝one's attention."

Another of this illuftrious junto is Billy Bachelor, an old unmarried petit-maitre: Billy is a courter of antient standing; he abounds in anec

dotes

dotes not of the fresheft date, nor altogether of the most interesting fort; for he will tell you how fuch and fuch a lady was dreffed, when he had the honour of handing her into the drawing-room : he has a court-atalantis of his own, from which he can favour you with fome hints of fly doings amongst maids of honour, particularly of a certain dubious duchefs now deceased, (for he names no names) who appeared at a certain masquerade in puris naturalibus, and other wonderful difcoveries, which all the world has long ago known, and long ago been tired of. Billy has a fmattering in the fine arts, for he can net purfes and make admirable coffee and write fonnets; he has the best receipt in nature for a dentifrice, which he makes up with his own hands, and gives to fuch ladies, as are in his favour and have an even row of teeth: He can boaft fome fkill in mufic, for he can play Barberini's minuet to admiration, and accompanies the airs in the Beggar's opera on his flute in their original tafte: He is alfo a playhoufe critic of no mean pretenfions, for he remembers Mrs. Wollington, and Quin and Mrs. Cibber; and when the players come to town, Billy is greatly looked up to, and has been known to lead a clap, where nobody but himfelf could find a reafon for clapping at all. When his vanity is in the cue, Billy Bachelor can talk to you of his amours, and upon occafion ftretch the truth to fave his credit; particularly in accounting for a certain old lameness in his knee-pan, which fome, who are in the fecret, know was got by being kicked out of a coffee-houfe, but which to the world at large he afferts was incurred by leaping out of a window to fave a lady's reputation, and efcape the fury of an enraged hufband.

G 2

Dr.

Dr. Pyeball is a dignitary of the church, and a mighty proficient in the belles lettres: He tells you Voltaire was a man of some fancy and had a knack of writing, but he bids you beware of his principles, and doubts if he had any more chriftianity than Pontius Pilate: He has wrote an epigram against a certain contemporary hiftorian, which cuts him up at a ftroke. By a happy jargon of profeffional phrafes with a kind of Socratic mode of arguing, he has fo bamboozled the dons of the cathedral as to have effected a total revolution in their church mufic, making Purcell, Crofts and Handel give place to a quaint, quirkifh ftile, little lefs capricious than if the organift was to play cotillons and the dean and chapter dance to them. The doctor is a mighty admirer of those ingenious publications, which are intitled The flowers of the feveral authors they are selected from; this fhort cut to Parnaffus not only faves him a great deal of round-about riding, but fupplies him with many an apt couplet for off-hand quotations, in which he is very expert and has besides a clever knack of weaving them into his pulpit effays (for I will not call them fermons) in much the fame way as Tiddy-Dolt ftuck plumbs on his fhort pigs and his long pigs and his pigs with a curley tail. By a proper fprinkling of these spiritual nofegays, and the recommendation of a soft infinuating addrefs, Dr. Pyeball is univerfally cried up as a very pretty genteel preacher, one who understands the politenefs of the pulpit, and does not furfeit well-bred people with more religion than they have ftomachs for. Amiable Mifs Pen Tabby is one of his warmeft admirers, and declares Dr. Pyeball in his gown and caflock is quite the man of fashion: The ill-natured world

will have it fhe has contemplated him in other fituations with equal approbation.

Elegant Mrs. Dainty is another ornament of this charming coterie: She is feparated from her hufband, but the eye of malice never spied a speck upon her virtue; his manners were infupportable; fhe, good lady, never gave him the least provocation, for fhe was always fick and moftly confined to her chamber in nurfing a delicate conftitution: Noifes racked her head: company fhook her nerves all to pieces; in the country fhe could not live, for country doctors and apothecaries knew nothing of her cafe; in London the could not fleep, unless the whole ftreet was littered with ftraw. Her husband was a man of no refinement; all the fine feelings of the human heart were heathen Greek to him; he loved his friend, had no quarrel with his bottle, and, coming from his club one night a little fluftered, his horrid dalliances threw Mrs. Dainty into ftrong hysterics, and the covenanted truce being now broken, fhe kept no further terms with him and they feparated. It was a step of abfolute neceffity, for the declares her life could no otherwife have been faved: his boisterous familiarities would have been her death. She now leads an uncontaminated life, fupporting a feeble frame by medicine, fipping her tea with her dear quiet friends every evening, chatting over the little news of the day, fighing charitably when he hears any evil of her kind neighbours, turning off her femme-de-chambre once a week or thereabouts, fondling her lap-dog, who is a dear fweet pretty creature and fo fenfible, and taking the air now and then on a pillion behind faithful John, who is fo careful of her, and fo handy, and at

the