and in such a case we are never more at home than when we are abroad. Now, however little disposed my readers may be to acknowledge it, I cannot help feeling myself in this latter predicament; and as I walk along in this great market of human souls, in the midst of this fermentation of business and pleasure, among shops, and theatres, and taverns, and churches, and horses, and houses, and shows, and funerals, and forums, and halls, and palaces, I consider them all as administering to my undertaking, and under a kind of contribution to my plan, as well as under my special controul and cognisance.

I was a good deal amused and surprised by the numerous changes which had taken place since my last visit, and which appeared in every circumstance of life; and though upon the whole the balance was much on the side of improvement, I had not got to the end of my street before I encountered a vast deal that was ridiculous and discommendable. The first observation I was led to make on the state of the. capital, was the very promising symptoms of an increasing population, in the shapes of the young ladies; and I own I was much delighted to behold so much elegance and fashion enlisted in the cause of matrimony. I drew a plain inference from this, spectacle that was very honourable to my fellowcreatures; and I considered it as the effect and the proof of that sanctity of morals, under which the marriage state is sure to be accredited and promoted; and in the exultation of my spirits was on the point, of appropriating to myself a share in this happy revolution, when, happening to call at a fashionable ladies' school, to inquire after the health of two of Mr. Allworth's nieces, I was again disconcerted by beholding my two young friends, who were neither of them fourteen years old, in a very mature state of pregnancy. Though I am spared the confusion of a

blush by the olive cast of my complexion, I felt a strong sensation of inward shame, at an appearance so suspicious, and had just made up my mind to call the young ladies aside, that I might put such questions to them as my age allowed me, before I carried this unwelcome news to my worthy unsuspecting friend, when a couple of French teachers entered the room, that seemed each to be within a month of bringing twins into the world, followed by the governess, who, though apparently turned of fifty, brought with her a more rampant protuberance than them all put together. I shuddered at my own pinched-up figure amidst this surrounding plumpness, and seemed to myself almost shrunk up to nothing-till, no longer able to bear it out, I stole my hat off the peg on which it was hung, and having recommended all the company to the protection of Heaven, repaired straight to my landlady, to entreat a solution of this strange phænomenon. My landlady was unfortunately from home; and in the mean time I took up a letter that was upon my scrutoire, to amuse myself till her return. This letter was from my mother, and could not have been sent at a time in which it was likely to make a stronger impression.

My dear Child,

66

Being aware of the bad habits, and the manifold snares of the great town into which you are launched, I cannot help again beseeching you to exercise all the discretion which God has given you to defend you against the craftiness of evil-minded men, and the poisonous wiles of cunning untoward women, remembering that the pure blood of the OLIVE-BRANCHES flows in your veins. In the mean time, I offer up my humble petitions, night and

morning, to Him who has so long protected your ancient and peaceable ancestry in a most notable and gracious manner, that He would administer to your youth a portion of that strength of mind which, at the giddy and tender age of fifty, distinguished your great-grandfather. You are now fast approaching that crisis, which has usually been looked upon as the prime of life in our family; and I have every hope, my dear child, that your blossoms will terminate in a fruit as wholesome and mature as any Olive-branch of our tree has hitherto produced. Therefore, Sim, I charge thee, child of my bosom, take prudent care of thyself in that gay city; and for the few days that thou remainest there, harden thy little heart against the seductions of cunning folk and naughty women, that will be aimed at thy innocence and inexperience.

"Look me out, my dear, at some fair-dealing shop, and where folks are kind and want custom, a new shagreen spectacle-case, as my present ones are come to that age in which it is customary in our family to excuse them from service, and lay them up among our archives in the great chest; and buy me, Sim, furthermore, sundry pairs of those linseywolsey hose, of which neighbour Allworth and madam Miranda have bought such a mighty quantity for poor children and labourers of our parish. Keep yourself in-a-doors a-nights, Sim, and trust yourself as little as may be convenient to the fogs of that great town; for your constitution is not yet sufficiently confirmed to bear much foul weather. Wrap yourself up when you go a-visiting, and take especial care of the tiles that fall from the roofs of the houses, and mad oxen. Your coloured roquelaure I have had cleaned and scowered, so that you will

the

hardly know it, child, when you see it again. God preserve my child, and keep him under his blessed protection! This is the constant prayer of

"Your loving mother,

"M. O."

This letter from my poor mother co-operated so strongly with the apprehensions excited in my mind by the mysterious corpulency of most of the ladies whom I had hitherto met, that something like despair of succeeding in my plan of reform was beginning to shake my resolution, when my landlady most opportunely arrived to solve this problem, which had so much embarrassed and chagrined me. From her I learned, that this problematical protuberance was only one of those burdens which the tyranny of fashion is daily imposing upon the sex, and which at present seems to have been amplified with the pillage of their bosoms, which, in consequence, are left cruelly exposed, to supply coarse jokes to the fund of common-place ridicule; and by heating the imaginations of our British youth, to furnish them with weapons against themselves. I propose, therefore, that these pads be changed into padlocks, or virgin zones, or something of a less scandalous and suspicious appearance. In the mean time, I shall send a true account of this puerperal mania to the female sisterhood assembled under my mother's direction, for their opinion, proposing at the same time a question for their consideration, namely, whether there be not an allegory couched under these pads; for, I am told, they are nothing more than the migration of those safe-guards which were wont to be worn in their bosoms during the cold weather. I think the whole contrivance does very emblematically express the danger resulting to females, from the adoption of a

bosom friend, and the progress he makes from one favour to another.

I care but little about the dress of the gentlemen; though, if I cared more, I should see a good deal to discompose my serenity: that men should be inspired with such an idiotic love of change, as to sacrifice to it all grace, proportion, and comeliness, is a truth discreditable to the times; and surely the cumbrous dress of our ancestors should be spared from the ridicule bestowed upon it, when we regard the equipment of our modern beaux. The hat at present worn would suffer in the comparison by the side of that shown at all the museums as the identical one worn by the judge who condemned king Charles I.; and I have somewhere seen an old surtout of sir Walter Raleigh's, the cut of which I should prefer to that of our modern coats.

I shall say nothing in derogation of the gentlemen's neck stuffings, as the fashion has been so ably recommended in the following advertisement, which I have met with in some of the public prints.

"NECK OR NOTHING.

"TO TRAVELLERS.

"This being the season of the year for excursions, the curious in cravats are informed, that Nicholas Vanneck has prepared a new and unparalleled assortment of stuffings, capable of containing twelve shirts and two suits of clothes, with other appurtenances. They are besides so admirably contrived, as, in case of long sea voyages to Botany Bay, the Coast of Africa, or even a temporary situation in the Hulks, to include a complete mattress, bolster, pillow, &c. He flatters himself that an object big with so many conveniences, will necessarily meet with its