No 56. SATURDAY, Feb. 25. 1786. Quæ virtus et quanta, boni, fit vivere parvo, I To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER.. SIR, Troubled you fome time ago with a letter from the country; now that I am come to town, I use the freedom to write to you again. I find the fame difficulty in being happy, with every thing to make me fo, here as there. When I tell this to my country friends, they won't believe me. Lord! to fee how the Mifs Homefpuns looked when they came to take leave of me the morning we set out for Edinburgh !—I had just put on my new riding-habit which my brother fetched me from London; and my hat, with two green and three white feathers; and Mifs Jeffy. Homefpun admired it fo much! and when I let her put it on, fhe looked in the glafs, and faid, with a figh, how charming it was !-I had a fad ́ headach headach with it all morning, but I kept that to myself. "And do, my dear, (faid fhe), write fometimes to us, poor moping creatures, in the country. But you won't have leifure to think of us; you will be fo happy, and fo much amused." At that moment my brother's poft-coach rattled up to the door, and the poor Homespuns cried fo when we parted! To be fure, they thought that a town life, with my brother's fortune to procure all its amufements, must be quite delightful. Now, Sir, to let you know how I have found it. I was content to be lugged about by my fifter for the first week or two, as I knew that in a large town I fhould be like a fish out of water, as the faying is. But my fifter-in-law was always putting me in mind of my ignorance: "And you country girls, and we who have been in London, and we who have been abroad" However, between ourfelves, I don't find that she knows quite fo much as fhe would make me believe; for it feems they can't learn many things in the Indies; and when fhe went out the knew as little as myfelf; and as for London, fhe was only a fortnight there in her way home. So we have got masters that come in to give us leffons in French, and music, and dancing. The two first I can submit to very well. I could always get my tongue readily enough about any thing; and and I could play pretty well on the virginals at home, tho' my master says, my fingering is not what it should be. But the dancing is a terrible bufinefs. My fifter-in-law and I are put into the ftocks every morning to teach us the right pofition of our feet; and all the fteps I was praised for in the country are now good for nothing, as the Cotillon step is the only thing fit for people of fashion; and fo we are twisted and twirled till my joints ach again; and after all, we make, I believe, a very bad figure at it. Indeed, I have. not yet ventured to try my hand, my feet I mean, before any body. But my fifter-in-law, who is always praised for every thing he does, would needs try her cotillon fteps at the affembly; and her partner Captain Coupée, a constant vifitor at my brother's, told her what an admirable dancer fhe was: But in truth fhe was out of time every instant, and I heard the people tittering at her country fling, as they called it. And fo in the fame manner (which I do not think is at all fair, Mr Lounger) the Captain one day, at our house, fwore she fung like an angel (drinking her health in a bumper of my brother's Champaign); and yet as I walked behind him next morning in Prince's-ftreet, I overheard him faying to one of his companions, that Mushroom's dinners were damn'd good things, if it were not for the bore of the the finging; and that the little Nabobina fqualled like a pea-hen. But no doubt it is good manners to commend people to their faces, whatever one may say behind their backs. And I perceive they have got fashionable words for praifing things, which it is one of my fifter's leffons and mine to have at our tongues ends, whether we think fo or not. Such a thing, she tells me, (as she has been taught by her great companion Mifs Gufto) must be charming, another ravishing, (indeed Mr Lounger that is the word), and a third divine. As for me, I have yet got no farther than charming; I can only fay ravishing in a whisper; and as for divine, I think there is fomething Heathenifh in it : though indeed I have been told, fince I came here, that the Commandments were only meant for the country. Here, as before, comme il faut (I can spell the words now that I am turned a French scholar) is ftill held out as a law to us. We have befides got another phrase, which is perpetually dinned into my years by my fifter-in-law, and that is the Ton. Such a person is a very good kind of a perfon, but such another is more the Ton: Such a Lady is handsomer, more witty, more polite, and more good-humoured than another; but that other is much more the Ton. I have often asked my my fifter, and even my French master, to explain the meaning of this word Ton; but they told me there was no tranflation for it. I think, however, I have found it out to be à very convenient thing for fome people. 'Tis like what my grandfather, who was a great admirer of John Knox, used to tell us of Popish indulgences; Folks who are the Ton may do any thing they like, without being in the wrong. And every thing that is the Ton is right, let it be what it will. Alas! Sir, if the Ton would let poor people alone who don't wish for distinction, there would be the less to complain of: But the misfortune is, that one must be in the Ton whether one's mind gives them to it or not; at least I am told fo. We have à French Frifeur, whom our Maitre d'Hotel Sabot recommended, who makes great use of this phrase. He fcrewed up my hair till I thought I should have fainted with the pain, and I did not fleep a wink all the night after, because he faid that a hundred little curls were now become the Ton. He recommended a fhoemaker, who, he faid, made for all the people of the Ton, who pinched my toes till I could hardly walk across the room; because little feet were the Ton. My ftaymaker, another of the fame fet, brought me home a pair of stays that were but a few inches round at the waift; and my maid and Sabot broke three |