No. 78. SATURDAY, July 29, 1786.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LOUNGER.

SIR,

ONE of your earliest correspondents gave us an account of a worthy Baronet, a relation of his, who spent all his life intending to do many things, without ever having actually done any thing. Though this may not be a useful, it seems to me a very harmless way of passing one's days. I am the wife, Sir, of quite another kind of gentleman. My husband, Mr Bustle, always does things first, and then thinks of them afterwards.

One of the most important concerns of his life, I must own to you, he conducted in this manner, and I was his accomplice.

We married on three days' acquaintance at the house of a relation of his, where we happened to meet on a visit. We have, however, been a very decently happy couple, and have a family of very fine children. Mr Bustle, indeed, does not depend very much on us for the happiness of his life, and he has no time for conferring much happiness, or bestowing much attention on us. He is of so active a spirit, so busy, so constantly employed, that pleasures of a domestic or a quiet kind do not enter at all into his plan of life.

His father was a careful economical man, and left him in a very comfortable situation, with a large estate, a set of thriving tenants, a good house, a well-laid-out farm, and a well-stocked garden. When we went home, we had nothing to do, as the saying is, but to draw in our chairs, and sit down. But sitting, however much at his ease, was not my husband's way. He soon made a great deal of business,

though he had found none. It was discovered, that the principal apartments of our house were too low; so it was unroofed, to have some feet added to its height, and a new lead-covered platform put atop, to command a view of a particular turn of the river that runs through the grounds. This kept us two winters in one of our tenant's houses, in which too, all the time we were in it, something or other was a-doing; so that the carpenter's hammer was heard every hour of the day. We had scarce got back to our own house again, when it was found that the water came through our lead-covered platform: so he had the pleasure of having that changed into a cupola, with a roof of a different construction, for the view of the river was still to be preserved. But next year, my husband discovered, that a plantation was necessary on a particular knoll; so the view of the river we had paid so much for, was shut out by a clump. The

garden was the next subject of amendment, in which an excellent fruit-wall was pulled down, to have it rebuilt on a new plan; by which new plan we have got a very beautiful wall, and trees admirably well dressed, but unfortunately we have lost all our fruit. The same thing happened by our acquisition of a new pigeonhouse, which, notwithstanding the wellknown superstition of its boding the death of the wife, my husband ventured to build. Luckily I survive the omen; but we have scarcely had a pigeon-pie since. In point of ornamental alteration, the same variety has taken place: We had first a smooth green lawn, though at the expence of cutting down some of the finest timber in the country; we then got a serpentine shrubbery, which within these two years has been dug up, to make room for a field with dropping trees, fenced by a ha-ha!

While he was beautifying his house and grounds, Mr Bustle was not inatten

tive to the improvement of his estate. After getting a new survey made of it, by a very fine gentleman, who came from your town in a post-chaise and four, he sat down one morning with the plan before him, a scale and a pair of compasses in his hand, and that gentleman at his elbow; and while I was pouring out their tea, they raised the rents 200 per cent. as Mr Quadrant was pleased to express himself. Presently all our former tenants were turned out of their farms, except a few young men whom the late Mr Bustle, for what reason I know not, had marked in his rent-roll with a +, and a new set put into possession, who, as Mr Quadrant said, knew the capabilities of ground. Then there was such a pulling down of walls to make little fields large, and a planting of hedges to make large fields little; every thing, in short, was turned topsy-turvy: but what won't people do to get rich? Mr Quadrant's calculations, however, have