than human their efforts of courage and resolution in the promotion of this melancholy but generous duty, that all that has been said, or could be spoken in their praise, must, and does, fall far short of their great merit.”

FEMALE MENTOR, No. 38.

No. CXLI.

Quid faciam Romæ ?

JUVENAL.

What business have I in Rome?

Sir,

I SUCCEEDED, in my twenty-third year, to a small paternal estate, in a remote corner of the kingdom, where I have since passed forty years, without finding any of them hang heavy on my hands; and which I, last spring, reluctantly quitted to spend a few days in town, where my presence was rendered necessary by a law-suit, the decision of which was of great importance to my family. I will not deny but the first fortnight passed off tolerably well; I felt myself agreeably entertained at the places of public festivity, and enjoyed a still higher pleasure in the society of two or three old acquaintance, with whom I talked over our school-boy tricks, and Oxford schemes, with a degree of pleasure, which, perhaps, we never experienced from the actual execution of either. Short, however, was the time, during which any thing could render a life of irregularity, noise, and hurry, tolerable

to one, who had passed forty years in the enjoyment of tranquillity, health, and leisure.

The late hours which even the most orderly families were obliged to keep, the strange mixture of modern society, where they are all acquaintance and no friends, and the general dissipation of all ranks, together with some untoward accidents which protracted my law-suit far beyond the expected time, made me so completely disgusted with London, that, for the last week, I never closed my eyes without mentally exclaiming, "Oh rus, quando te aspi

ciam!"

One day, as I was returning from Westminster-hall, inwardly fretting at the chicane of law, and good-naturedly giving all its professors to the devil, I was struck with the title of your Paper, which cut a most conspicuous figure, as it lay in the window of your publisher, Mr. Egerton, at White-hall.

As I had been all my life a kind of loiterer, and was then more particularly one, I immediately purchased all the numbers, and have regularly taken it in ever since. I will not hurt your modesty by expatiating on the pleasure I received from your publication in general, and shall only observe, that I was more particularly pleased with the history of your corre

spondent Agrestis; whose adventures you have recorded, and which, indeed, has principally induced me to trouble you with this letter, imagining that our similarity of thinking would entitle the writer to your approbation, if not the work to your acceptance. But to return to my subject-In process of time, after various motions and adjournments, my cause finally came on, and my counsel (to do him justice) having in a learned speech, of two hours, proved to the satisfaction of the court, that black was not white, a verdict, with complete costs of suit, was given in my favour; an event which I assure you scarce gave me so much pleasure, as the idea of escaping from the regions of ceremony and smoke, and revisiting my small but neat cottage, whose attractions I am unfashionable enough to think improved by the society of an amiable woman, and a large circle of affectionate children.

So eager, indeed, was I to quit a place to which half the British nation appear to be running, that I ordered Peter to be at the door, with the horses, by seven the next morning.

Peter, equally tired of London with his master, was punctual to his time; and, hastily passing through the empty and silent streets, I got clear of town before the chimney-sweeper and

the milk-maid had commenced their early scream, to the annoyance of its peaceable and sleepy inhabitants.

It was not, however, till I had passed through those adjacent villages, whose rows of houses, scarce broken by a few interwoven nurserygrounds and gardens, make the road for miles an almost continued street, that I could be satisfied that I was fairly out of London; but, having at length emerged into something like the country, and gained a purer atmosphere, I could not forbear looking back on that receptacle of dissipation, folly, and vice, which I had just quitted, with an emotion not much unlike those of a state prisoner who has escaped from the horrors of the Bastile.

But, though I could not but reflect on my own emancipation with a light heart, it was not without a melancholy sensation, that I remarked the rapidity with which the already overgrown capital is daily extending its limits, and edging into the country on every side. Which way şoever I turned my eyes, nothing was to be seen but buildings or preparations for building: new houses and even new streets, rising like exhalations. Rows of buildings so huddled as to intercept all prospect, and country seats without one rural attribute. So numerous, in