"at Lord W's. His son and the bride "were by; Lord C. had velvet breeches, and "gold clocks to his stockings; the question "was, whether this was proper? I put it to "the bride; I made her blush, I warrant you; " - she was a fine woman, a prodigious fine "woman; she always used my wash-ball; I " wrote out the receipt for her; it was given " me at Vienna by Count O; a very great

man Count O-, and knew more of the " affairs of the empire than any man in Ger "many. From him I first learned with cer"tainty, that the Duchess of Lorraine's two "fore-teeth were false ones. I remember he "had an old gray monkey. - Sifter Mary,

you have heard me tell the story of Count "O's monkey."-But here it pleased Heaven that William called his master out of the room, and faved us from the Count and his old gray monkey.

This fuperficial knowledge of great men, and accidental acquaintance with some of the vocables of state-business, has given him a confequential fort of phraseology, which he applies, with all the gravity in the world, to the most trifling occurrences. When he orders the chaise for his eldest fister, himself, and and me, the white pad for. Sophy, and the old roan mare for her attendant, he calls it "regulating the order of the proceffion." When he gives out the wine from the cellar, and the groceries from the store-room, (for he does both in perfon), he tells us, he has been "granting the supplies;" the acceptance, or offer of a vifit, he lays before " a committee of "the whole house;" and for the killing of the fat ox this Christmas, he called the gentlemen three fucceffive mornings to "a grand council " of war."

It were well if all this were only matter of amusement; but some of us find it a fource of very ferious distress. Your managing men are commonly plagues; but Mr R. manages so much to a hair's-breadth, that he is a downright torment to the other members of his family. It was but yesterday we had the honour of a ceremonious vifit from fome great folks, as we think them, who came lately from your town to eat their mince-pies in the country. After a wonderful ringing of bells, calling of fervants, and trampling upon the stairs all morning, Mr R. came down to the drawing-room at a quarter before three, with all his ufual fiddle-faddleation, but, as I thought,

thought, in very good humour. He had on his great-company wig, and his round fet fhoe-buckles. The fervants had their liveries new white-ball'd, and the best china was fet out, with the large filver falvers, and the emboffed porter-cups on the fide-board. The covers were stripped from the worked chairbottoms, and his grandmother's little diced carpet was taken off the roller, and laid, like a patch, on the middle of the floor, the naked part of which was all thining with beeswax. The company came at their hour; the beef was roafted to a turn; dinner went on with all imaginable good order and stupidity; fupper was equally regular and fleepy; in short, every thing feemed quite as it should be: Yet, next morning, I perceived foul weather in all the faces of the family; Mr R. and his fifter scarce spoke to one another, and he talked, all the time of breakfast, of female careleffness and inattention. Miss Sophia explained it to me when we were left alone. "Oh! do you know," said she, "a fad af"fair happened last night: My brother and "fifter had such a tiff! You must under"stand, before the company arrived yester"day, he had, as usual, adjusted the ceremo"nial of their different apartments; but he "discovered, on attending them to their "rooms at night, that my sister had put the "gilt-china bottle and bafon into the callico "bed-chamber, and the ordinary blue and "white into the pink damask." - It is lucky this man is no guardian of mine; were he to watch me as he does his sisters, and fee all the odds and ends about me. - But what has he to do to be a guardian. Yet Nature, perhaps, meant him for fomething, if fortune had allowed it; he might have been excellently employed in a pin-shop, in sticking the rows in a pin-paper.

I fancy you have got quite enough of my landlord. You used to say I was the best of your philofophers, your Democritus in petticoats. If I have an inch of philofophy about me, it is without my knowledge, I assure you; you are welcome to it, however, such as it is. Other folks may give you what I have heard you call the great views of Nature and Life; it is enough for me if I can enrich your collection with a paper of infects.

Yours most truly,

C. F.

N° 94.

N° 94.

A

SATURDAY, April 1. 1780.

MONG the other privileges of an anonymous-periodical author, is that of writing letters in praise of himself, which he is, now and then, obliged to infert on account of their merit, however offensive they may be to his modesty. This fort of correfpondence, which I suppose is a very pleasant one, I have not yet ventured to indulge in. The correspondents whom I have perfonated, always talk of themselves instead of the MIRROR; and, on the other hand, several of the papers I have received, are written in the perfon of the author, a character in which it were improper to praife him, and which, when affumed, gives, perhaps, no great inclination to do it. Of this last fort is the first of two communications to which I devote the paper of to-day; the fecond, containing one of the very few compliments which the MIRROR has exhibited of itself, is a genuine letter from London, written by a gentleman in the very fituation