from him held a conversation and deportment equally repugnant to both. Nor does his benignity hold out less encouragement to the worthy, than his good sense and virtue impose reverence on the unthinking. At his table, unassuming merit sits always at her ease, and conscious obligation feels perfect independence. Nobody ever cites his power or his rank, but to illustrate the nobleness of his mind; nor speaks of his wealth, but as the instrument of his benevolence, No. 56. SATURDAY, February 25, 1786. Quæ virtus et quanta, boni, sit vivere parvo, letter from the country; now that I am come to town, I use the freedom to write to you again. I find the same difficulty in being happy, with every thing to make me so, here as there. When I tell this to my country friends, they won't believe me. Lord! to see how the Miss Homespuns looked when they came to take leave of me the morning we set out for Edin burgh!-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 Miss Jessy Homespun admired it so much! and when I let her put it on, she looked in the glass, and said with a sigh, how charming it was! I had a sad headach with it all the morning, but I kept that to myself. "And do, my dear," said she," write sometimes to us, poor moping creatures, in the country. But you won't have leisure to think of us; you will be so happy, and so much amused." At that moment my brother's post-coach rattled up to the door, and the poor Homespuns cried so when we parted! To be sure, they thought that a town life, with my brother's fortune to procure all its amusements, must be quite delightful. Now, Sir, to let you know how I have found it. I was content to be lugged about by my sister for the first week or two, as I knew that in a large town I should be like a fish out of water, as the saying is. But my sister-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 ourselves, I don't find that she knows quite so much as she would make me believe; for it seems. they can't learn many things in the Indies; and when she went out, she knew as little as myself; and as for London, she was only a fortnight there on her way home. So we have got masters that come in to give us lessons 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 I could play pretty well on the virginals at home, though my master says my fingering is not what it should be. But the dancing is a terrible business. My sister-in-law and I are put into the stocks every morning to teach us the right position of our feet; and all the steps 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 so we are twisted and twirled till my joints ache 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 sister-in-law, who is always praised for every thing she does, would needs try her cotillon steps at the assembly; and her partner Captain Coupée, a constant visitor at my brother's, told her what an admirable dancer she was: but in truth she was out of time every instant, and I heard the people tittering at her country fling, as they called it. And so in the same manner (which I do not think is at |