too, like your godmother's clergyman, communicated information; to the ladies he related the little scandalous anecdotes of the parish, and gave his former pupils intelligence of several coveys of partridges. Himself afforded them game within doors, being what is commonly called a butt to the unfledged arrows of the young gentlemen's wit. To their father he was extremely useful in drawing corks, and putting him in mind where the toast stood. In short, he seemed a favourite with all the branches of the family. As to religion, it fared with that as with the literature he had been employed to instil into his pupils; he contrived to make all the house think it a very ridiculous thing.

About a fortnight after I went to L Hall, the arrival of an elderly baronet from town, an old club-companion of Mr L's, added one other rural idea to the stock we were already in possession of; I mean that of eating, in which our

new guest, Sir William Harrico, was a remarkable adept. Every morning at breakfast we had a dissertation on dinner, the bill of fare being brought up for the revisal of Sir William. He taught us a new way of dressing mushrooms, oversaw the composition of the grouse-soup in person, and gave the venison a reprieve to a certain distant day, when it should acquire the exactly proper fumet for the palate of a connoisseur.

Such, Mr Lounger, is the train of “ rural sentiment" which I have cultivated during my autumn abode at L- Hall. I think I might, without leaving town, have acquired the receipt for the mushroom ragout, and have eat stinking venison there as easily as in the country. I could have played cards or billiards at noon-day with as much satisfaction in a crowded street, as in view of Mr L's woods and mountains. The warehouse in Prince's Street might have afforded me in-.

formation as to chintz and damask chaircovers; and your ingenious correspondent Mr Jenkin could have shewn me a model of the newest-fashioned buckle on the foot of some of his little scarlet beaux, or of a rouged cheek on one of the miniature ladies of his window. In short, I am inclined to believe, that folly, affectation, ignorance, and irreligion, might have been met with in town, notwithstanding the labours of the Lounger; that I might have saved myself three days journey, the expence of a post-chaise, and a six weeks loss of time; and, what was perhaps more material than all the rest, I might have preserved that happy enthusiasm for country pleasures, which you seem still to enjoy, and which, in the less-informed days of my youth, I also was fortunate enough to possess.

I am, &c.

URBANUS.

No. 90. SATURDAY, October 21, 1786.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LOUNGER.

SIR,

THOUGH, from my rank in life, being a tradesman's daughter, left an orphan at six years old, I had little title to know any thing about sensibility or feeling; yet having been very kindly taken into a family, where there were several young ladies, who were great readers, I had opportunities of hearing a good deal about these things. By the same young ladies I was made acquainted with your Paper, and it was a favourite employment of mine to read the Lounger to them every Saturday morning. In one of the numbers published

some time ago, we met with Mrs Alice Heartly's account of an old lady with whom she lives; and from the experience of our own feelings, could not help pitying the connection with one so destitute of all tender sentiments as my Lady Bidmore. I had soon after occasion to congratulate myself on a very different sort of establishment, having been recommended by my young patronesses to a lady, who used frequently to visit at their house, whom we all knew (indeed it was her pride, she used to say, to acknowledge her weakness on that side) to be a perfect pattern, or, according to her own phrase, a perfect martyr, of the most acute and delicate sensibility. At our house I saw her once in the greatest distress imaginable, from the accidental drowning of a fly in the creampot; and got great credit with her myself, for my tenderness about a goldfinch belonging to one of our young ladies, which I had taught to perch upon my shoulder,