66. Temper and conftitutional good spirits oftener the caufe of happiness than genius and abi- THE LOUNGE R. N° 36. SATURDAY, October 8. 1785. Divitias operofiores. HOR. To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER. SIR, IS but very lately that I became acquainted with your paper, our family only having taken it in last week for the first time, when it was recommended to my brother by Lady Betty Lampoon, who happened to be on a vifit in our country. Her Ladyfhip faid, it was a dear fweet fatyrical paper, and that one found all one's acquaintance in it. And fure enough I found fome of my acquaintance in it, (for I am the only reader among us), and fo I fhall tell Mr John Homespun when I meet him. Only think of a VOL. II. A man man come to his years to go to put himself and his neighbours into print in the manner he has done. But I dare to fay it is all out of fpite and envy at our having grown fo fuddenly rich, by my brother's good fortune in India: And to be fure, Sir, things are changed with us from what I remember; and yet perhaps we are not so much to be envied neither, if all were known. Do tell me, Sir, how we fhall manage to be as happy as people suppose our good fortune muft have made us. But perhaps, Sir, it is not the fashion (as my fifter-in-law and Monf. de Sabot says) to be happy.-Lord, Sir, I had forgot you don't know Monf. de Sabot!-But really my head is not fo clear as it used to be. I will try to tell you things in their order. Mr brother, who, as Mr Homespun has informed you, is returned home with a great fortune, is determined to live as becomes it, and fent down a fhip-load of blacks in laced liveries, the fervants in this country not being handy about fine things; though, to tell you the truth, fome of the Blackamoors don't give themselves much trouble about their work, and two of them never do a turn except playing on the French horn, and fometimes making punch, when it is wanted particularly nice. Befides my Befides these, there came down in two chaifes the Duke brother's own valet de fham, my fister's own maid, a man cook, who has two of the negers under him, and Monf. de Sabot, whom my brother wrote to me he had hired for a butler; but, when he came he told us he was maiter dotell, and had been fo to the Earl of Cof N, and two German princes. So, to be fure, we were almost afraid to speak to him, till we found he was as affable and obliging as could be, and told us every thing we ought to do to be fashionable, and like the great folks of London and Paris. Monf. de Sabot is acquainted with every one of them. But then, Sir, it is so troublesome an affair to be fashionable! and fo my father and mother, and the rest of us, who have never been abroad, find. We used to be as chearful a family as any in the country; and at our dinners and fuppers, if we had not fine things, we had pure good appetites, and, after the table was uncovered, used to be as merry as grigs at Cross purposes, Questions and commands, or What's my thought like? But now we must not talk loud, nor laugh, nor walk fast, nor play at romping games; and we must fit quiet during a long dinner of two courfes and a defert, and drink wine and water, and never touch our meat but with our fork, and pick our teeth A 2. teeth after dinner, and dabble in cold water, and Lord knows how many other things, which Monf. de Sabot fays every body comi fo does. And fuch a thing he tells me (for I am a fort of favourite and scholar of his) is comi fo in the first, courfe, and fuch a thing in the fecond; and this in the entries, and that in the removes. Comi fo, it feems, means vaftly fine in his language, though we country folks, if we durft own it, find the comi fo things often very ill tafted, and now and then a little ftinking. But we fhall learn to like them monftrously by and by, as Monf. de Sabot affures us. My father is hardest of us all to be taught to do what he ought; and he curfed comi fo once or twice to Monf. de Sabot's face. But my brother and my fifter-in-law are doing all that they can to wean him from his old customs, that he mayn't affront himself before company. He fought hard. for his pipe and his fpit-box; but my fifter-inlaw would not fuffer the new window-curtains and chair-covers to be put up till he had given over both. And, what do you think, Sir, the old gentleman was caught yesterday by my brother, and a young Baronet of his acquaintance, who went into the ftable to look at one of my brother's ftud, as they call it, fmoking his pipe in one of the empty ftalls. And I heard Sir Harry |