for an hour on one leg, with the other in the stirrup, before he will suffer (if he ever suffer) you to remount him.

27. (T.)

Improving your coachmanship by driving an unbroken horse through a rugged narrow lane, in which the ruts refuse to fit your wheels, and yet there is no room to quarter.

28. (T.)

Attending a sale, from a great distance, for the sole purpose of bidding for an article, which, on your arrival, you are told has just been knocked down for nothing.

29. (S.)

On Christmas eve-being dunned by several parties of rural barbarians, on account of having stunned you by screaming and bellowing Christmas carols under your window.

Tes. O, yes, I know them ;-pay them, indeed!

"sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt

Vatem pastores;"

says the caroller,—

say I.

"Sed non ego credulus illis:"

30. (S.)

While on a visit in the hundreds of Essex, being under the necessity of getting dead drunk, every day, to save your life.

Tes. Aye, Juvenal helped you to that fancy:

"Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas.'

31. (S.)

وو

After having sent from the other end of the kingdom to Hookham's, for a quantity of well-chosen books, all particularly named-receiving in return, six months afterwards, a cargo of novels, of their own choice, with such titles as "Delicate Sensibility"-" Disguises of the Heart"-Errors of Tenderness," &c. &c.-Then, if you venture, in despair, on a few pages, being edified in the margin by such pencilled commentaries as the following"I quite agree in this sentiment."-" How frequently do we find this to be the case in real life!" -"But why did she let him have the letter?" &c. &c. concluded by the reader's general decision upon the merits of the book, stamped in one oracular sentence; for example, "This is a very good novel :"-or (to the horror and confusion of the

author, if he should ever hear of the critique) "What execrable stuff!"

Tes. Nay, you well deserve this part of your misery for looking into such sad trash :

"I, quæso, et tristes illos depone libellos,"

66

Nec lege quod quævis nôsse puella velit."

I will give you a country-misery, from which there is not a whit less wear and tear to the nerves, and where you have no possible means of escape ---judge for yourself.

32. (T.)

Following on horse-back a slow cart, through an endless, narrow lane, at sunset, when you are already too late, and want all the help of your own eyes, as well as of your horse's feet, to carry you safe through the rest of your unknown way.

Sen. Very distressing, I allow; but I will shew you that the end of a journey may be still worse than the journey itself :---

33. (S.)

After having arrived at home, completely ex

66

hausted by a long journey, and delightfully dif'fused yourself on the sopha for the rest of the evening, (as you fondly suppose,)—to be dragged out again, within five minutes, to take a long walk with a few friends, who are obliged to go," but who "cannot bear to part with you so soon"-the party chiefly consisting of ladies, to whom you are, on every account, ashamed to plead fatigue, as an excuse for remaining at home.

34. (T.)

In a very solitary situation-after having sent some miles off for a remarkably clever carpenter, whom you have particularly entreated to come himself, for the purpose of doing a variety of jobs that require both a nice hand, and a contriving head-seeing enter, in his stead, a drivelling dormouse, who just knows a hammer from a nail.

35. (S.)

In going out of London, your carriage met and blockaded on the road, by innumerable gangs of the Carrion and Offal of the human species, swarming home, in savage jollity, from a bull-baiting, a boxing-match, an execution, &c. &c.

36. (S.)

Passing the worst part of a rainy winter in a

country so inveterately miry as to imprison you within your own premises; so that, by way of exercise, and to keep yourself alive, you take to rolling the gravel-walks, (though already quite smooth) cutting wood, (though you have more logs than enough) working the dumb-bells, or such other irrational exertions.

37. (S.)

In passing the door of a meeting-house, in a poor country town, on a wet week-day-having before your eyes the depressing spectacle of a handful of dried-up old maids, with sallow hatchet faces, in rumpled, faded, old-fashioned little bonnets, and brick-dust coloured gowns, crawling out by ones and twos, stiffening half-curtesies to each other, and then moving off, (as so many pairs of rusty tongs would move, if alive,) one to her butcher's, to haggle for a bit of tripe; another to take an hour's walk of a quarter of a mile, for an appetite, &c. &c.-Heigh-ho!

38. (S.)

Living, or even making a stay, within close earshot of a ring of execrable bells, execrably rung for some hours every evening.