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him all the while with the imperfections of his wife. She has also the entire disposal of the children in her own hands, and can disinherit them, provide for them, marry them, or confine them to a state of celibacy, just as she pleases: she fixes the lad's pocket-money at school, and allowance at the university; and has sent many an untoward boy to sea for education. But the young ladies are more immediately under her eye, and, in the grand point of matrimony, the choice or refusal depends solely upon her. One gentleman is too young, another too old; one will run out his fortune, another has too little; one is a professed rake, another a sly sinner; and she frequently tells the girl, ''Tis time enough to marry yet,' till at last there is nobody will have her. But the most favourite occupation of a mighty good sort of woman is, the superintendance of the servants: she protests, there is not a good one to be got; the men are idle, and thieves, and the maids are sluts, and good for nothing hussies. In her own family she takes care to separate the men from the maids, at night, by the whole height of the house; these are lodged in the garret, while John takes up his roosting-place in the kitchen, or is stuffed into the turn-up seat in the passage, close to the street-door. She rises at five in the summer, and at daylight in the winter, to detect them in giving away broken victuals, coals, candles, &c. and her own footman is employed the whole morning in carrying letters of information to the masters and mistresses, wherever she sees, or rather imagines, this to be practised. She has caused many a manservant to lose his place for romping in the

kitchen, and many a maid has been turned away, upon her account, for dressing at the men, as she calls it, looking out at the window, or standing at the street-door, in a summer's evening. I am acquainted with three maiden-sisters, all mighty good sort of women, who, to prevent any ill consequences, will not keep a footman at all; and it is at the risk of their place, that the maids have any comers after them, nor will, on any account, a brother or a male cousin be suffered to visit them.

A distinguishing mark of a mighty good sort of a woman is, her extraordinary pretensions to religion she never misses church twice a day, in order to take notice of those who are absent; and she is always lamenting the decay of piety in these days. With some of them, the good Dr. Whitefield, or, the good Dr. Romaine, is ever in their mouths: and they look upon the whole bench of bishops to be very Jews in comparison of these saints. The mighty good sort of woman is also very charitable in outward appearance; for, though she would not relieve a family in the utmost distress, she deals out her halfpence to every common beggar, particularly at the church-door; and she is eternally soliciting other people to contribute to this or that public charity, though she herself will not give sixpence to any one of them. An universal benevolence is another characteristic of a mighty good sort of woman, which renders her (as strange as it may seem) of a most unforgiving temper. Heaven knows, she bears nobody any ill-will; but if a tradesman has disobliged her, the honestest man in all the world becomes the most arrant rogue ; and she cannot rest till she has persuaded all her

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acquaintance to turn him off as well as herself. Every one is with her 'The best creature in the universe,' while they are intimate; but upon any slight difference- - Oh—she was vastly mistaken in the person;-she thought them good sort of bodies--but-she has done with them :-other people will find them out as well as herself:that's all the harm she wishes them.'

As the mighty good sort of women differ from each other, according to their age and situation in life, I shall endeavour to point out their several marks, by which we may distinguish them. And first, for the most common character:-If she happens to be of that neutral sex, an old maid, you may find her out by her prim look, her formal gesture, and the sea-saw motion of her head in conversation. Though a most rigid Protestant, her religion savours very much of the Roman Catholic, as she holds that almost every one must be damned except herself. But the leven that runs mostly through her whole composition, is a detestation of that odious creature, man, whom she affects to loath as much as some people do a rat or a toad; and this affectation she cloaks under a pretence of a love of God, at a time of life when it must be supposed, that she can love nobody, or rather nobody loves her. If the mighty good sort of body is young and unmarried, besides the usual tokens, you may know her by her quarrelling with her brothers, thwarting her sisters, snapping her father, and overruling her mother, though it is ten to one she is the favourite of both. All her acquaintance cry her up as a mighty discreet kind of body; and as she affects an in

difference for the men, though not a total antipathy, it is a wonder if the giddy girls, her sisters, are not married before her, which she would look upon as the greatest mortification that could happen to her. Among the mighty good sort of women in wedlock, we must not reckon the tame domestic animal, who thinks it her duty to take care of her house, and be obliging to her husband. On the contrary, she is negligent of her homeaffairs, and studies to recommend herself more abroad than in her own house. If she pays a regular round of visits, if she behaves decently at the card-table, if she is ready to come into any party of pleasure, if she pays no regard to her husband, and puts her children out to nurse, she is not a good wife, or a good mother, perhaps ; but she is- -a mighty good sort of woman.

As I diposed of the mighty good kind of man in marriage, it may be expected, that I should find out a proper match also for the mighty good kind of woman. To tell you my opinion then-if she is old, I would give her to a young rake, being the character she loves best at her heart:-or, if she is mighty young, mighty handsome, mighty rich, as well as a mighty good sort of woman, I will marry her myself, as I am unfortunately a bachelor. Your very humble servant, &c.

B. Thornton.

DEFENCE OF RIDDLES IN A LETTER TO A LADY.

IT is with wonderful satisfaction I find you are grown such an adept in the occult arts, and that

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you take a laudable pleasure in the ancient and ingenious study of making and solving riddles. It is a science, undoubtedly, of most necessary acquirement, and deserves to make a part in the meditation of both sexes. Those of yours may by this meaus very innocently indulge their usual curiosity of discovering and disclosing a secret; whilst such amongst ours who have a turn for deep speculations, and are fond of puzzling themselves and others, may exercise their faculties this way with much private satisfaction, and without the least disturbance to the public. It is an art indeed which I would recommend to the encouragement of both the universities, as it affords the easi est and shortest method of conveying some of the most useful principles of logic, and might therefore be introduced as a very proper substitute in the room of those dry systems, which are at present in vogue in those places of education. For as it consists in discovering truth under borrowed appearances, it might prove of wonderful advantage, in' every branch of learning, by habituating the mind to separate all foreign ideas, and consequently preserving it from that grand source of errour, the being deceived by false connections. In short, Timoclea, this your favourite science contains the sum of all human policy; and as there is no passing through the world without sometimes mixing with fools and knaves, who would not choose to be master of the enigmatical art, in order, on proper occasions, to be able to lead aside craft and impertinence from their aim, by the convenient artifice of a prudent disguise? It was the maxim of a very wise prince, that he who knows not

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