seasoning a simper and the newest fashion of twisting words from their meaning.

Lady Hon. But pray, Sir, always remember on these occasions to look serious. Nothing sets off a compliment so much as a long face. If you are tempted to an unseasonable laugh, think of Delvill castle; 'tis an expedient I commonly make use of myself, when I am afraid of being too frolicsome; and it always succeeds, for the very thought of it gives me the head-ach in a moment. I wonder Mr. Delvill you keep your health so good, after living in that horrible place so long. I have expected to hear of your death at the end of every summer, and I assure you, I was once very nearbuying mourning. - Del. The estate which descends to a man from his ances, tors, Lady Honoria, will seldom be apt to injure his health, if he is conscious of committing no misdemeanor which has degraded their memory.

Lady Hon. [In a low voice to Cecilia.] How vastly odious is this new father of yours! What could ever induce you to give up your charming estate for the sake of coming into his fusty old family? I would really advise you to have your marriage annulled. You know, you have only to take an oath that you were forcibly run away with; and as you are an heiress, and the Delvills are all so violent, it will easily be believed. And then, as soon as you are at liberty, I would advise you to marry my little Lord Derford.

Gec. Would you only then have me regain my freedom in order to part with it?

Lady Hon. Certainly, for you can do nothing at all without being married. A single woman is a thousand times more shackled than a wife; for she is accountable to every body; and a wife you know has nothing to do but just to manage her husband.

Cec. (smiling) And that you consider as a trifle ?

Lady Hon. Yes, if you do but marry a man you don't

care for.

Cec. You are right then, indeed, to recommend to me my Lord Derford.

Lady Hon. O yes, he will make the prettiest husband in the world; you may fly about yourself as wild as a lark, and keep him the whole time as tame as a jack-daw. And though he may complain of you to your friends, he will never have the courage to find fault to your face. But as to Mortimer,

R

you will not be able to govern him as long as you live; for the moment you have put him upon the fret, you will fall into the dumps yourself, hold out your hand to him, and losing the opportunity of gaining some material point, make up with him at the first soft word.

Cec. You think then the quarrel more amusing than the reconciliation.

Lady Hon. O, a thousand times! for while you are quartelling, you may say any thing, and demand any thing, but when you are reconciled, you ought to behave pretty, and seem contented.

Cec. If any gentleman has any pretensions to your ladyship, he must be made very happy indeed to hear your principles. Lady Hon. O, it would not signify at all; for one's fathers and uncles and such people always make connections for one, and not a soul thinks of our principles till they find them out by our conduct; and nobody can possibly find them out till we are married, for they give us no power beforehand. The most know nothing of us in the world, while we are single, but how we can dance a minuet or play a lesson upon the harpsichord.

Del. And what else need a young lady of rank desire to be known for? Your ladyship surely would not have her degrade herself by studying like an artist or professor.

Lady Hon. O, no Sir, I would not have her study at all; its mighty well for children; but really after sixteen, and when one is come out, one has quite fatigue enough in dressing and going to public places and ordering new things, without all the torment of first and second position, and E the first line, and F upon the first space.

upon

Del. But pardon me, Madam, for hinting that a young lady of condition, who has a proper sense of her dignity, cannot be seen too rarely or known too little.

Lady Hon. O, but I hate dignity, for it is the dullest thing in the world. I have always thought, Sir, it was owing to that you was so little amusing-really I beg your pardon, Sir, I meant to say so little talkative.

Del. I can easily believe your ladyship spoke hastily; for it will hardly be supposed that a person of my family came into the world for the purpose of amusing it.

Lady Hon. O no, Sir, nobody, I am sure, ever knew you to have such a thought. [Turning to Cecilia with a low voice] You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs. Mortimer, how I detest

this old cousin of mine! Now pray tell me honestly if you don't hate him yourself?

Cec. I hope, Madam, you have no reason to hate him. Lady Hon. La, how you are always upon your guard! If I were half as cautious, I should die of the vapours in a month the only thing that keeps me at all alive, is now and then making people angry: for the folks at our house let me go out so seldom, and then send me with such stupid company, that giving them a little torment is really the only entertainment I have. O-but I had almost forgot to tell you a most delightful thing!

Cec. What is it?

Lady Hon. Why you must know I have the greatest hopes in the world that my father will quarrel with old Mr. Delvill! Gec. And is that such a delightful thing?

Lady Hon. O yes; I have lived upon the very idea this fortnight; for then you know, they'll both be in a passion, and I shall see which of them looks frightfullest.

Mortimer Del. When Lady Honoria talks aside, I always suspect some mischief.

Lady Hon. No, no, I was only congratulating Mrs. Mor timer about her marriage, Tho' really upon second thoughts I don't know but I ought to condole with her, for I have long been convinced she has a prodigious antipathy to you. I saw it the whole time I was at Delvill Castle, where she used to change colour at the very sound of your name; a symptom I never perceived when I talked to her of Lord Derford, who would certainly have made a thousand times better husband.

Del. If you mean on account of his title, Lady Honoria, your ladyship must be strangely forgetful of the connections of your family; for Mortimer after the death of his uncle and myself, must inevitably inherit a title far more honourable than any which can be offered by a new sprung up family, like my lord Erinolf's.

Lady Hon. Yes, Sir, but then you know she would have kept her estate, which would have been a vastly better thing than an old pedigree of new relations. Besides, I don't find that any body cares for the noble blood of the Delvills but themselves; and if she had kept her fortune, every body I fancy would have cared for that.

Del. Every body then, must be highly mercena yandigno

ble, or the bloot of an ancient and honourable house, would be thought contaminated by the most distant hint of so degrading a comparison.

Lady Hon. Dear Sir, what should we all do with birth if it was not for wealth? It would neither take us to Ranelagh nor the Opera; nor buy us caps nor wigs, nor supply us with dinners nor boquets.

Del. Caps and wigs, dinners and boquets! Your ladyship's estimate of wealth is extremely minute indeed!

Lady Hon. Why you know, Sir, as to caps and wigs, they are very serious things, for we should look mighty droll figures to go about bareheaded; and as to dinners, how would the Delvills have lasted all these thousand centuries, if they had disdained eating them?

Del. Whatever may be your ladyship's satisfaction in depreciating a house that has the honour of being nearly allied to your own, you will not, I hope at least, instruct this lady (turning to Cecilia) to imbibe a similar contempt of its antiquity and dignity.

Mort. Del. This lady by becoming one of it will at least secure us from the danger that such contempt will spread further.

Cec. Let me only be as secure from exciting, as I am from feeling contempt, and I can wish no more.

Dr. Lys. Good and excellent young lady; the first of blessings indeed is your's in the temperance of your own mind. When you began your career in life you appeared to us short sighted mortals, to possess more than your share of good things. Such a union of riches, beauty, independence, talents, education, virtue, seemed a monoply to raise gener al envy and discontent; but mark with what exactness the good and the bad are ever balanced! You have had a thousand sorrows to which those who looked up to you, have been total strangers, and which balance all your advantages for happiness. There is a levelling principle in the world at war with pre-eminence, which finally puts us all upon a footing. Del. Not quite; I think an ancient and respectable familyLady Hon. With a handsome income and high life, gives one a mighty chance for happiness. Don't you think so, Mortimer?

Mort. Del. I do, indeed; but add, a connection with an

amiable woman, and I think the chances for happiness are more than doubled.

Dr. Lys. Right, Mortimer; we are well agreed.

1.

WE

LXXVII. DIRECTIONS HOW TO SPEND OUR TIME. TE all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them. That noble philosopher has de-. scribed our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thought which are peculiar to his writings.

2. I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with themselves in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious.

3. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and the next quarter day. The politician would be contented to loose three years in his life could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time.

4. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives, that it should run much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlments or imaginary points of rest, which are dispersed up and down it.

5. If we may divide the life of most men into twenty parts,