can adorn the female character: music and drawing, the French and Italian languages, she is mistress of; her reading is extensive, her taste exquisite, her judgment delicate and yet, I confess, I am not less afraid than I am interested about this girl's fate. Her soul is too refined for the common, but useful and necessary departments of life; and that imagination which she has enlivened and cultivated, may be to her the source of infinite distress.While her mother lives, even her support may not always pro tect her daughter, nor ensure that peace of mind, which feeling may betray or fancy mislead. But what a change in her situation must that parent's death produce! If she remains unmarried, I fear she will be little able to struggle with the harsh difficulties of a single state; for reading and refinement, far from enabling the female mind to grapple with its situation, have rather a tendency to soften and enfeeble it. Should she marry, and I am persuaded she never will, unless she finds a man whom she thinks worthy of her most ardent affection, in that state also she is not less exposed to unhappiness. Even supposing she should meet with a husband (and there are few such) every way worthy of her, it is to be feared that her extreme delicacy may give her many uneasinesses, and create an anxiety which it will not easy to cure. If from that ignorance of the cha racters of the men, to which every woman is exposed, she should be unlucky in her choice, her danger is dreadful.

be

But I have wandered somewhat from my purpose, which was to illustrate the difference between the two ladies in question; and to shew, against the too decisive apophthegm of the Poet, the possible dis'crimination of female character. Yet, in tracing those different persons through the different plans of "education for their children, I am not sure if I have

not stumbled upon something intimately as well as usefully connected with my subject. If there are very distinguishing features in female as well as in male characters, it is for mothers to mark their features, to watch betimes their different propensities. Education can do much to confirm goodness, to correct depravity of temper and of disposition: and in characters more common than either of those extremes, education can give exertion to indolence, refinement to insensibility, strength to the weak, and support to the too susceptible mind,-can call forth talents into usefulness, and bestow happiness upon

virtue.

P

N° 53. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1786.

Minime contentos nocte Britannos.

JUV..

IN a late paper, I laid before my readers a letter from a correspondent, subscribing himself Senex, on the little attention which is now-a-days paid to the rights and jurisdiction of Time. Since the publication of that paper, I received the following application from a personage who claims my attention and regard, by desiring me to observe, that she is still older than Senex, and has had more opportunities of witnessing that corruption of modern manners, of which he so warmly complains.

To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF NIGHT.

SHEWETH,

THAT from the remotest antiquity your Petitioner was acknowledged and understood to have right to the undisturbed possession of silence and quiet, and, in company with her relation Darkness, was invested with the power of staying the works and labours of men, and of consigning them to the dominion of your Petitioner's ancient and approved ally Sleep. Sleep in his turn yielded them to the renewed power of Day, to whom was committed the charge of their active employments. That this regular distribution of Time was agreeable to the laws of Nature, and highly conducive to the interests of society and the welfare of individuals.

That, this notwithstanding, your Petitioner has to complain, that for a considerable time past, in civilized and polite nations, there have been many violent and unjust inroads made into that province, which, in the order of nature, has been assigned her. That in the metropolis of the British empire, in particular, the distinguishing privileges above set forth, to which the Petitioner conceives herself well entitled, have been violently infringed, insomuch that the hours over which she and her associates above named ought to have had command and control, have been almost entirely appropriated to action, bustle, and disquiet, to the great disturbance of your said Petitioner and her friends before mentioned.

That certain persons, assuming to themselves the style and title of Men of Pleasure, had long since a

licence of acting in their several occupations in des pite of your Petitioner's exclusive privileges, herein before recited; and being confederated with the powers of Wine, Play, and other disorderly associates, had made forcible entries into the territories of your Petitioner, and subjected her faithful vassals to much vexation and annoyance. But as those men of pleasure were in some sort acknowledged to be independent of Reason and Nature, from whom your Petitioner holds in fief, she was contented to pass over their enormities for the present; being assured, from very great and respectable authority, that most of those persons would, at a future period, be parti cularly consigned to her power and dominion.

But of late your Petitioner has observed, with the greatest alarm, that persons of business, and even those from whose high sanction such irregular proceedings will be most apt to come into example and precedent, have made very unwarrantable encroachments on her most acknowledged and determinate boundaries. Such persons, in order to conceal the injuries done by them to your Petitioner, have added the crime of falsehood and forgery to their other offences; and have marked their proceedings, as if carried on under the sanction of Day, with the Latin words, Die Martis,'- Die Jovis,'-and so forth; though it is an undoubted fact, and can be proved by the most indisputable authority, that these were transacted within the jurisdiction and precincts of your Petitioner. Some of the persons, indeed, chiefly and principally concerned in such transactions, were frequently observed to have in some sort allowed the authority of your Petitioner, by submitting to the control and dominion of Sleep, her well-known and faithful associate above mentioned.

6

That your Petitioner, amidst all those injuries

ing that they were chiefly confined to the city of London and liberties of Westminster; but that in the country, and the metropolis of this ancient kingdom of Scotland, her proper and just rights were more acknowledged and attended to; and that there, associations both of business and amusement generally preserved a certain degree of respect for her dominion, and did not wantonly and violently encroach upon her boundaries. But within these few years she has seen, with equal surprise and regret, à remarkable alteration in this matter; and that in particular the last mentioned persons, the partisans and followers of amusement in this city, never begin their course of action till that period arrives, which, by the original charter of your Petitioner, was granted to her and her fellow proprietors herein before particularly enumerated.

That your Petitioner is not hardy enough to imagine, that she can prevail on those persons to relinquish the encroachments herein complained of. She is willing, therefore, for the sake of peace, to which she has always had a strong propensity, to give up such a portion of her territory and domain, as to accommodate them in their avocations and employments, provided she shall be ascertained in certain limits, to be henceforward observed without infringement; and she submits to you, on behalf of herself and her sister Day, the under-written propositions on the subject. They contain a new Table of Time, to be observed by the polite and fashionable classes only, reserving to the good folks in the country, and the lower orders of mankind, their ancient and accustomed reckoning.

It is proposed then,

Ist. That the year in Edinburgh shall commence from the 18th day of January, and shall end and determine the 18th of April. The lesser divisions