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repeating thefe Words, What, not one Smile?" Wẻ followed the Sound till we came to a close Thicket, on the Other Side of which we faw a young Woman fitting as it were in a perfonated Sullennefs juft over a tranfparent Fountain. Oppofite to her stood Mr. William, Sir ROGER'S Mafter of the Game. The Knight whispered me, ・ Hist, thefe are Lovers.' The Huntsman looking earnestly at the Shadow of the young Maiden in the Stream, 'Oh thou dear Picture, if thou could'st remain there in the Absence of that fair Creature whom you represent in the Water, how willingly could I ftand here fatisfied for ever, without troubling my dear Betty her felf with any Mention of her unfortunate William, whom fhe is angry with: But alas! when the pleafes to be gone, thou wilt also vanish thee while thou doft ftay.

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-Yet let me talk to Tell my dearest Betty

⚫ thou doft not more depend upon her, than does her William: Her Abfence will make away with me as well as thee. If the offers to remove thee, I'll jump into thefe Waves to lay hold on thee; her herself, her own dear Perfon, I must never embrace again.— Still do 16 you hear me without one Smile - It is too much < to bear He had no fooner fpoke thefe Words, but he made an Offer of throwing himself into the Water: At which his Mistress started up, and at the next Instant he jumped across the Fountain and met her in an Embrace. She half recovering from her Fright, faid in the most charming Voice imaginable, and with a Tone of Complaint, I thought how well you would drown your self. "No, no, you won't drown your felf till you have taken your leave of Sufan Holiday. The Huntsman, with a Tenderness that spoke the most paffionate Love, and with his Cheek clofe to hers, whispered the fofteft Vows of Fidelity in her Ear, and cryed, Don't, my Dear, believe a Word Kate Willow fays; the is fpiteful and ⚫ makes Stories, becaufe fhe loves to hear me talk to her ⚫ felf for your Sake. Look you there, quoth Sir ROGER, do you fee there, all Mischief comes from Confidents! But let us not interrupt them; the Maid is honeft, and the Man dare not be otherwife, for he knows I loved her Father: I will interpofe in this Matter, and haften the Wedding. Kate Willow is a witty mifchievous Wench

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139 in the Neighbourhood, who was a Beauty; and makes me hope I fhall fee the perverfe Widow in her Condition. She was fo flippant with her Anfwers to all the honeft Fellows that came near her, and fo very vain of her Beauty, that she has valued her felf upon her Charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her Bu

finefs to prevent other young Women from being more

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Discreet than she was her felf: However, the fawcy Thing faid the other Day well enough, Sir ROGER and I muft 'make a Match, for we are both defpifed by those we loved:' The Huffy has a great deal of Power whereever fhe comes, and has her Share of Cunning.

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HOWEVER, when I reflect upon this Woman, I do not know whether in the main I am the worfe for having loved her: Whenever the is recalled to my Imagination my Youth returns, and I feel a forgotten Warmth in my Veins. This Affliction in my Life has ftreaked all Conduct with a Softnefs, of which I fhould otherwife have been incapable. It is, perhaps, to this dear Image in my Heart owing, that I am apt to relent, that I easily forgive, and that many defirable things are grown into my Temper, which I should not have arrived at by better Motives than the Thought of being one Day hers. I · am pretty well fatisfied fuch a Paffion as I have had is never well cured; and between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had fome whimfical Effect upon my Brain: For I frequently find, that in my moft ferious Difcourfe I let fall fome comical Familiarity of Speech or odd Phrafe that makes the Company laugh; However I cannot but allow fhe is a moft excellent Woman. When the is in the Country I warrant fhe does not run into Dairies, but reads upon the Nature of Plants; but has a Glafs Hive, and comes into the Garden out of Books to fee them work, and obferve the Policies of their Common-wealth. She understands every thing. I'd give ten Pounds to hear her argue with my Friend Sir ANDREW FREEPORT about Trade. No, no, for all fhe looks fo innocent as it were, take my Word for it The is no Fool.

T

Tuesday,

N° 119.

Tuesday, July 17.

Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Melibœe, putavi,
Stultus ego buic noftra fimilem

T

Virg.

HE firft and most obvious Reflections which arife in a Man who changes the City for the Country, are upon the different Manners of the People whom he meets with in those two different Scenes of Life. By Manners I do not mean Morals, but Behaviour and good Breeding as they fhew themselves in the Town and in the Country.

AND here, in the first place, I must obferve a very great Revolution that has happened in this Article of good Breeding. Several obliging Deferences, Condefcenhons and Submiffions, with many outward Forms and Ceremonies that accompany them, were firft of all brought up among the politer Part of Mankind, who lived in Courts and Cities, and diftinguished themselves from the Ruftick part of the Species (who on all Occafions acted bluntly and naturally) by fuch a mutual Complaifance and Intercourfe of Civilities. Thefe Forms of Converfation by degrees multiplied and grew troublefome; the modifh World found too great a Conftraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Converfation, like the Romish Religion, was fo encumbered with Show and Ceremony, that it ftood in need of a Reformation to retrench its Superfluities, and restore it to its natural good Senfe and Beauty. At prefent therefore an unconstrained Carriage, and a certain Openness of Behaviour, are the height of good Breeding. The Fashionable World is grown free and eafie; our Manners fit more loofe upon us: Nothing is fo modifh as an agreeable Negligence. In a Word, Good Breeding fhews it felf moft, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.

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IF after this we look on the People of Mode in the Country, we find in them the Manners of the laft Age. They have no fooner fetched themselves up to the Fafhion of the Polite World, but the Town has dropped them, and are nearer to the firft State of Nature than to thofe Refinements which formerly reigned in the Court, and ftill prevail in the Country. One may now know a Man that never converfed in the World, by his Excefs of good Breeding. A polite Country 'Squire fhall make you as many Bows in half an Hour, as would ferve a Courtier for a Week. There is infinitely more to do about Place and Precedency in a Meeting of Justices Wives, than in an Affembly of Dutcheffes.

THIS Rural Politenefs is very troublefome to a Man of my Temper, who generally take the Chair that is next me, and walk firft or laft, in the Front or in the Rear, as Chance directs. I have known my Friend Sir ROGER'S Dinner almoft cold before the Company could adjust the Ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to fit down; and have heartily pitied my old Friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his Guests, as they fat at the feveral Parts of his Table, that he might drink their Healths according to their refpective Ranks and Qualities. Honeft Will. Wimble, who I fhould have thought had been altogether uninfected with Ceremony, gives me abundance of Trouble in this Particular. Tho' he has been fishing all the Morning, he will not help himself at Dinner 'till I am ferved. When we are going out of the Hall, he runs behind me; and laft Night, as we were walking in the Fields, ftopped fhort at a Stile 'till I came up to it, and upon my making Signs to him to get over, told me, with a ferious Smile, that fure I believed they no Manners in the Country.

THERE has happened another Revolution in the Point of good Breeding, which relates to the Converfation among Men of Mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the firft Diftinétions of a well-bred Man, to exprefs every thing that had the moft remote Appearance of being obfcene, in modeft Terms and distant Phrases; whilft the Clown, who had no fuch Delicacy of Conception and Expreffion, cloathed his Ideas in those plain homely

Terms

Terms that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of Good Manners was perhaps carried to an Excefs, fo as to make Converfation too ftiff, formal and precife: for which Reason (as Hypocrify in one Age is generally fucceeded by Atheism in another) Converfation is in a great measure relapfed into the firft Extreme; fo that at prefent feveral of our Men of the Town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the moft coarfe uncivilized Words in our Language, and utter themselves often in fuch a manner as a Clown would blufh to hear.

THIS infamous Piece of Good Breeding, which reigns among the Coxcombs of the Town, has not yet made its way into the Country; and as it is impoffible for such an irrational way of Converfation to laft long among a People that make any Profeffion of Religion, or Show of Modefty, if the Country Gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the Lurch. Their Good Breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a Parcel, of lewd Clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like Men of Wit and Pleasure.

AS the two Points of Goed Breeding, which I have hitherto infifted upon, regard Behaviour and Converfation, there is a third which turns upon Drefs. In this too the Country are very much behind-hand. The Rural Beaus are not yet got out of the Fashion that took place. at the time of the Revolution, but ride about the Country in red Coats and laced Hats, while the Women in many Parts are ftill trying to outvie one another in the Height of their Head-dreffes.

BUT a Friend of mine, who is now upon the Western Circuit, having promised to give me an Account of the feveral Modes and Fafhions that prevail in the different Parts of the Nation through which he paffes, I fhall defer the enlarging upon this laft Topick 'till I have received a Letter from him, which I expect every Post.

L

Wednesday,

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