fine her arts of vexation, to those whom she might hope to harrafs without controul. She continued from her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year, to torment all her inferiors with fo much diligence, that she has contracted a fettled principle of difapprobation, and finds in every place fomething to grate her mind and disturb her quiet. If fhe takes the air, fhe is always 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 furnished with fomething which the cannot fee without averfion. Her tea is never of the right fort; the figures on the china give her difguft. Where there are children, the hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, she cannot bear a place without variety. If many fervants are kept in a houfe, fhe never fails to tell how Lord Lavish was ruined by a numerous retinue; if few, fhe relates the ftory of a miser that made his company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because fhe had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the fquirrel 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 work at her house, and refuse to ferve her at any price. price. Her maid, who is the only being that can endure the tyranny, profeffes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the confequence of peevifhnefs; it can only be born when it is defpifed. It fometimes happens, that too close an attention to minute exactnefs, or too rigorous habits of examining every thing by the standard of perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding, and teaches the mind to difcern faults with unhappy penetration. It is incident likewife to men of vigorous imagination, to please themfelves too much with futurities, and to fret because the expectation is disappointed which ought never to have been formed. Knowledge and genius are often enemies to quiet, by fuggesting ideas of excellence, which men, and the performances of men, cannot attain. But let no man rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased, is a proof of understanding, unless his fuperiority appears from lefs doubtful evidence; for though peevishness may fometimes juftly boast its descent from Learning or from Wit, it is much oftener of bafe extraction, the child of Vanity, and nurfling of Ignorance. THE RAMBLER. NUMBER LXXV. LONDON, Tuesday, December 4. 1750. Diligitur nemo, nifi cui Fortuna fecunda eft, OVID. To the RAMBLER. SIR, T 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 VOL. III. information, 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 supposed to accomplish the mind or adorn the perfon of a woman. To these attainments, which custom and education almost 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 horror and averfion, by the name of fcholars; but whom I have found, for the most part, a harmless 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 degrade their own character by cowardly fubmiffion, than to overbear or opprefs us with their learning or their wit. From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk, fomething may be gained, which, embellished with elegance, 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 knowledge, by which I was enabled to excel all my competitors, and draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourfe 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 studied, my drefs was imitated, my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by thofe who copied them, as fent to themfelves; my vifits were |