when out of the giddy round of the fashionable town entertainments that used to fill up her hours, my Lucy feels a vacant mind, that affords no resources within itself. Her reflections of course are painful and bitter; or if lulled at all, only sink into a lassitude, and listless unconcern for every thing around her. Her few former amusements, her tambour and harpsichord, have long become insipid; and even the smiles of her child, which used to give delight, now I can observe force a sigh from her, and sometimes the tear will start into her eye, from the painful reflection, no doubt, of her inability to perform to him the duty of a mother.

In this situation, Mr. Lounger, judge of my distress and disappointment. Instead of family happiness and domestic enjoyment, I find at home a constant source of disquiet and melancholy. Perhaps I am more unhappy than husbands whose wives are more blamable. In the greater offences against the marriage duty, the injured party has the privilege of complaint, the support of resentment, the consolation of indifference, or of hatred. I have no contradiction of which to complain, no injuries to resent: I pity, nay I still love my wife; and yet I am most unhappy. Tell my situation, sir, to those young men, who or rather tell it to mothers, who, like Mrs. Lumber, have daughters to educate. Remind them, that, however important the education may be that teaches to adorn the mistress and captivate the lover, there is still another, and a higher, which requires some little attention;-that which instructs them to perform the duties of the wife, to retain the affections, and to constitute the happiness of the husband.

like me

No. 17. SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1785.

SIR,

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LOUNGER.

IF I am not misinformed, you have taken up the same sort of business which was formerly carried on by a gentleman who published his performances under the title of the Mirror, with whom I had once or twice occasion, not very agreeable ones, to correspond. As I suppose you have got that gentleman's good will, I am inclined to deal with you as his successor; and I trust you will use me as well as he did, by giving place to this letter, containing an account of grievances, which I know not where else to seek redress for. You will find my correspondence, though not elegant, at least authentic. The family of the Homespuns, though I say it who should not, were always to be trusted in a story; truth and plaindealing was their motto, and I hope will continue so, if bad neighbours don't spoil them.

The neglect of the great lady, which my daughter Elizabeth thought fit to complain of in the Mirror, was of singular use in my family. My young lady came back to the country so quiet and so reasonable a girl, that her mother and I had not once occasion to chide her for a twelvemonth; at the end of which we had proposals of marriage for her from her uncle's partner, whom she mentions in the paper I allude to; and she consented to become the wife of a plain, virtuous, thriving young man, though he had nothing of finery or fashion about him. They are as happy

as can be, and have two stout cherry-cheeked boys, who, I am told, are the pictures of their grandfather.

The rest of us remain as we were; at least we did so till within these two months. My Lady made some overtures towards a renewal of our acquaintance about a twelvemonth ago: but it was agreed to decline them; and I staid at home to lay down a field of spring-wheat, instead of going to vote for a parliament-man. The waists of my wife and daughters had returned to their natural size, and the heads of the latter had moulted of their feathers. Their hoops were sent to the lumber-garret, and powder and pomatum were scarcely ever used but on Sundays. I fondly thought that all the follies of the family were over, and that henceforth we should be reasonable and happy. Alas, sir, I have discovered, that opportunity only was wanting to renew them; the weeds were all in the ground, though my Lady

-'s coldness had chilled their growth. Within these two months they have sprung up with a

vengeance.

About this time my neighbour Mushroom's son, who had been sent out to India about a dozen years ago, returned home with a fortune, as we are told, of 100,000l., and has taken up his residence at his father's, till some finer place shall be found out for him. Before his arrival, he had made several large remittances to his father, for the purpose of dressing up the old house a little, so as to make it fit for his reception, and had sent a trunk full of fineries to dress up his mother and sisters for the same purpose. The good old lady, however, restrained her daughters from wearing them (as indeed they did not well know how to make them up or put them on) till her son should arrive. His arrival furnished them with a very able assistant: the young man had made a love-match before he left this country, with a good

looking girl of our neighbourhood, who, not altogether with his inclination, had gone out to him soon after his establishment in India. This lady returned hither with him, and has edified all the family amazingly.

But her instructions are not confined to her own family; mine is unluckily included. This is a favour which my wife is very proud of; as Mrs. Mushroom has forgot most of her old acquaintance in the parish, and associates only with us, and one or two more of her neighbours, who have what she calls capability; that is, sir, as I understand it, who will listen to all the nonsense she talks, and ape all the follies she practises. These are strong words; but it would put any man in a passion to see how she goes on. I don't know how it is, but I am ten times angrier at this new plague than I was with Lady

For

her I had many apologies; but to think of that little chit Peg Mushroom playing all this mischief among us! Why, sir, I remember her but as it were yesterday, when she used to come draggled to our house of a morning a-foot, and ride home double, on my blind mare, behind one of the plough-boys.

But I interrupt my account of things in my anger at them. The Sunday after these new-comers' arrival, they appeared in church, where their pew was all carpeted and cushioned over for their reception, so bedizened-there were flowered muslins and gold muslins, white shawls and red shawls, white feathers and red feathers; and every now and then the young Mushroom girls pulled out little bottles that sent such a perfume around them.-Nay, my old friend, their father, like a fool as he was, had such a mixture of black satin and pink satin about him, and was so stiff and awkward in his finery, that he looked for all the world like the king of clubs, and seemed, poor man! to have as little to say for himself.

But all this, sir, is no joking matter to me. Some of the neighbours, indeed, laugh at it; but we who are favourites say that is nothing but envy. My wife and daughter Mary have rummaged out their têtes and feathers; and the hoops, that had suffered a little from the moths, have been put in complete repair again. I was silly enough to let my wife get hold of a draught on town for the price of my last year's barley; and I verily believe she and Mary alone carry the produce of ten acres on their backs. My wife said, a shawl was a decent comfortable wear for a middle-aged woman like her (my Rachael, by the way, has been fifty these ten years); and so she gave orders to purchase one at a sale in town, which she got a monstrous bargain, though I am ashamed to tell you, that it stood me in two fat oxen and a year-old cow.

I am glad to take this estimate of things, because in the value of money we are now got into a style of expression which loses all idea of small sums. Hundreds and thousands of pounds carried a sound of some importance, and could easily be divided into lesser parts; but Madam Mushroom's lack, or half a lack, sounds like nothing at all; and she has stories which she tells to my poor gaping girls, of a single supper in the East, given by some nabob with half a dozen hard names, that cost one or two of those lacks, besides half a lack in trifling presents to the company. In those stories, the East Indian lady, being subject to no contradiction, goes on without interruption or commentary, till my poor wife and daughters' heads are turned quite topsy-turvy. Even mine, though reckoned tolerably solid, is really dizzy with hearing her. There are such accounts of nabobs, rajahs, and rajah-pouts, elephants, palanquins, and processions; so stuck full of gold, diamonds, pearls, and precious. stones, with episodes of dancing girls,