N° 55. SATURDAY, Feb. 18. 1786.

To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER.

BUT

UT indeed I have generally remarked, that people did fo only because they could not do better." So fays Colonel Cauftic of the manners of certain individuals in his own days, who fometimes, as well as we, tranfgreffed the bounds of ftrict decorum, and tried to make rudeness pass for raillery, or indecency for wit. I admit the fairness of his judgement in the cafes there spoken of; and I heartily wish they were the only inftances where we indulge our foibles under falfe pretences, and abfurdly attempt to make a merit of our defects. But I am afraid there are few kinds of impofition which we are more given to practise on the world, and even on ourfelves; and that too in particulars far more important than those so offenfive to the Colonel, though in this I fhould regret to be understood as meaning that the latter are of little moment.

terms.

I find, Sir, I am perfonally too much interefted in this fubject to speak long of it in general At the fame time I have no intention, like fome of your correfpondents, to give you a history of myself. Suffice it to know, that tho' by birth a gentlewoman, and educated to profpects which I well remember were the envy of my young companions, I was long ago reduced, by the misfortunes of my family, to accept, and even to be thankful for a very humble station and have lived these many years as the attendant of a Lady, who is indeed of the fame blood with myself, but whom I now must needs call my fuperior. It is with her, as a striking example of the felf-deception mentioned, that I mean to bring you and your readers acquainted; in hope, no doubt, at the fame time, to meet with some sympathy in my fufferings under her dominion.

Not that I would reprefent my patronefs as without her fhare of merit neither; for good qualities fhe certainly has. But what has marred the whole fruit and harveft of them, this Lady was born-with too frong feelings to ufe her phrafe for it, or, to speak my own fenfe of the matter, with pretty violent paffions. By proper means, employed at an early period of life, this vivacity of difpofition might, at least to a certain degree, have been corrected. But while

fhe

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fhe was a child, her parents were too fond of her to chastise her faults, or perhaps to difcern that he had any; and fhe loft these tutors before reaching the age when her behaviour to themfelves might poffibly have taught them the propriety of fhowing lefs indulgence. She had befides the misfortune, for fuch I must account it, of being reckoned, when fhe grew up, among the finest women of her time; a circumftance which did not much contribute to reftrain the fallies of caprice, nor to engage her in the profitable but ungrateful labour of discovering her defects. Add to this, fhe was introduced to the world while as yet a mere girl, and precisely at that æra of fashion, when, owing I believe to certain Novels then recently published, and in the very height of their popularity, the ftyle of converfation was wholly fentimental; and the women univerfally vied one with another (in which they were imitated by some of the men) in making proof of the strength and the delicacy of their feeling.

Mifs Nettletop was of the very frame and conftitution to be caught with the prevailing malady. Fond of admiration to excefs, and delighted with the generous system that raised mere fpeculative fenfibility, of which fhe had enough, to the very top of the lift of virtues, the quickly distinguished

herself

herself among its declared votaries. The Gospels of Sentiment (if fo I may call the books in queftion) were never out of her hands; fhe had their texts and phraseology at all times in her mouth; and thus, by perpetual indulgence in one melting ftrain, having in time perfuaded herself that he was in truth one of the tendereft and most refined of human beings, fhe gave herself up at laft entirely to the direction of her feelings, as inftinctive guides, far furer and more infallible than obfervation or reflection.

Had her delufion ftopped here, it would have been comparatively innocent, and more properly the fubject of ridicule than of serious complaint. But alas! Sir, what was a moft unlucky overfight, in learning to think thus favourably of her own heart, and to entertain this fo profound respect for her emotions, fhe omitted to take the neceffary pains for diftinguishing the different kinds of emotion one from another, nor separated with perfect juftice the amiable from the disagreeable but, inadvertently, among the multitude of those that had the fufferings of her neighbour for their object, contracted a leaning alfo toward fome few others, hidden under the former, I suppose, which tended purely to her own gratification.

The truth is, that Mifs Nettletop, perhaps without being conscious of it, had not been the VOL. II.

R

lefs

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less ready to inlist among the profelytes of fentiment, that she found, or thought she found, in their creed, the appearance of an apology for certain vivacities, which, as already hinted, it would have cost her fome trouble to get the better of; and even saw a fpecious pretence, in various instances, for holding them out as so many perfections. No wonder the turned fond of a fyftem in which the learned that the quickness of her temper was not a vice, as fome would have her to believe, but at worst a pardonable, or rather amiable weakness, naturally attendant (as some mote of weaknefs will ever attend all human excellence) on a heart fo much more alive than that of other people; and which often disguised her anger, or her spite, under the more pleasing form of exceffive delicacy; a delicacy more unfortunate for herself than for others, fince it rendered this or t'other fmall foible in her acquaintance infufferable, and diftreffed her with circumftances of minute offence, beyond the conception of vulgar and ordinary fouls.

It was thus, Sir, that her eyes were early shut upon a part of her compofition, which it much behoved her to guard againft, and which is now the cause why, with several good qualities, and in spite of many good actions, she is the plague of all who live with her, and has hardly one real