ill-treated, should look for better usage among their equals.

Warm with thefe. generous fentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world, in which fhe endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beauty, nor wit, in any uncommon degree, fhe fuffered fuch mortifications from thofe who thought themfelves at liberty to return her infults, as reduced her turbulence to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only where the might hope to tyrannize without refiftance. She continued from her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with fo much diligence, that she has formed a principle of difapprobation, and finds in every place fomething to grate her mind, and difturb her quiet.

If fhe takes the air, fhe is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of the fun, or the gloom of the clouds; if the makes a vifit, the room in which the is to be received, is too light, or too dark, or furnifhed with fomething which he cannot fee without averlion. Her tea is never of the right fort; the figures on the China give her difguft. Where there are children, he hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, fhe cannot bear a place without fonie cheerfulnefs and rattle. If many fervants are kept in a houfe, fhe never fails to tell how lord Lai was ruined by a numerous retinue; if few, fhe relates the ftory of a mifer that made his company wart on themfelves. She quarrelled with one family, becaufe fhe had an unpleafant view from their windows; with another, because the squirrel leaped

within two yards of her; and with a third, because she could not bear the noise of the parrot.

Of milliners and mantua-makers fhe is the proverbial torment. She compels them to alter their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it after another fashion; then changes her mind, and likes it better as it was at firft; then will have a small improvement. Thus fhe proceeds till no profit can recompenfe the vexation; they at laft leave the clothes at her house, and refufe to ferve her. Her maid, the only being that can endure her tyranny, profeffes to take her own courfe, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the confequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised.

It fometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness, or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the underftanding, and teaches the mind to difcern faults with unhappy penetration. It is incident likewise to men of vigorous imagination to please themselves too much with futurities, and to fret because those expectations are difappointed, which should never have been formed. Knowledge and genius are often enemies to quiet, by fuggefting ideas of excellence, which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man rafhly determine, that his unwillingnefs to be pleased is a proof of understanding, unless his fuperiority appears from lefs doubtful evidence; for though peevishness may sometimes juftly boast its descent from learning or from wit, it is much oftener of base extraction, the child of vanity, and purfling of ignorance.

NUMB. 75. TUESDAY, December 4, 1750.

Diligitur nemo, nifi cui Fortuna fecunda eft,
Que, fimul intonuit, proxima quæque fugat.

When fmiling Fortune fpreads her golden ray,
All crowd around to flatter and obey :
But when the thunders from an angry iky,
Our friends, our flatterers, our lovers fly.

SIR,

TH

To the RAMBLER.

Ovid.

Mifs A. W.

HE diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay fome regard to the obfervations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whofe opinions are the refult, not of folitary conjectures, but of practice and experience.

I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of thofe arts which are fuppofed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the perfon of a woman. To thefe attainments, which cuftom and education almoft forced upon me, I added fome voluntary acquifitions by the ufe of books, and the converfation of that fpecies of men whom the ladies generally mention with terror and averfion under the name of fcholars, but whom I have found a harmlefs and inoffenfive order of beings, not fo much. wifer than ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge, and more inclined

to

to degrade their own character by cowardly fubmiffion, than to overbear or opprefs us with their learning or their wit.

From thefe men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk, fomething may be gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and foftened by modefty, will always add dignity and value to female converfation; and from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world I derived many principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were remembered by those who defired the fecond degree of fame, my mien was ftudied, my drefs was imitated, my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by those who copied them as fent to themfelves; my vifits were folicited as honours, and multitudes boafted of an intimacy with Melissa, who had only feen me by accident, and whose familiarity had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of a courtesy.

I fhall make no fcruple of confeffing that I was pleased with this univerfal veneration, because I always confidered it as paid to my intrinfick qualities and infeparable merit, and very eafily perfuaded myfelf, that fortune had no part in my fuperiority. When I looked upon my glass I faw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to hope their continuance; when I examined my mind, I found fome ftrength of judgment, and fertility of fancy;

and

and was told that every action was grace, and that évery accent was perfuafion.

In this manner my life paffed like a continual triumph amidst acclamations, and envy, and courtfhip, and careffes: to please Meliffa was the general ambition, and every ftratagem of artful flattery was practifed upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praifes are not believed by those who pronounce them: for they prove, at leaft, our power, and fhew that our favour is valued, fince it is purchafed by the meannefs of falfehood. But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected, for an honeft mind is not apt to fufpect, and no one exerts the power of difcernment with much vigour when felf-love favours the deceit.

The number of adorers, and the perpetual diftraction of my thoughts by new fchemes of pleasure, prevented me from liftening to any of those who crowd in multitudes to give girls advice, and kept me unmarried and unengaged to my twenty-feventh year, when, as I was towering in all the pride of uncontefted excellency, with a face yet little impaired, and a mind hourly improving, the failure of a fund, in which my money was placed, reduced me to a frugal competency, which allowed little beyond neatnefs and independence.

I bore the diminution of my riches without any outrages of forrow, or pufillanimity of dejection. Indeed I did not know how much I had loft, for, having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of my fortune, it did not fuddenly enter my imagination, that Melia could fink beneath her established