shares, though he knows, by certain calculation, that they are to be drawn prizes ?

To such men, may not the above-quoted motto of the illustrious Dr Dominiceti be most defervedly applied ?

"Non fibi, sed toto genitum se credere mundo,"

which, however, as malice is always ready to detract from merit, I heard a wicked wag of my acquaintance tranflate t'other day to a company of ladies, "That the Doctor's fumi"gations were to make himself live, and to "kill all the world befide."

N° 81.

S

TUESDAY, February 15. 17801

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

SIR,

OME time ago you inferted in

your papen

a letter from a lady who subscribed herfelf S. M. giving an account of the hardships The has fuffered as the daughter of a man of fortune, educated in the midst of affluence, and then left to the fupport of a very flender provision. I own the fituation to be a hard one; but it may, perhaps, afford her fome. confolation to be told, that there are others, feemingly enviable, which are yet as diftreff ful, that derive their distresses from circum. stances exactly the reverse of those in which Mifs S. M. is placed.

I lost my father, a gentleman of confiderable fortune, at an age so early, that his death has scarce left any traces on my mind. I can only recollect, that there was something of bustle, as well as of forrow, all over the

house; that my coloured fash was changed.

for

for a black one; and that I was not allowed to drink Pappa's healths after dinner, which, before, I had been taught regularly to do. Soon after, I can remember my Mamma being. fick, and that there was a little brother born, who was much more attended to than I. As we grew up, I can remember his getting finer play-things, and being oftener the fubject of difcourse among our visitors: and that fometimes, when there were little quarrels in the nursery, Billy's maid would tell mine, that Miss muse wait till her betters were served.

A fuperiority to which I was fo early accustomed, it gave me little uneasiness to bear... The vivacity natural to children, which in me. was fupported by uninterrupted good health, le ft me no leifure to complain of a preference, by which though my brother was distinguished, he was seldom or never made happier.. The notice, indeed, to which his birth-right intitled him, was often more a hardship than a privilege. He was frequently kept in the drawing-room with Mamma, when he would have much rather been with me in the gar den; he was made to repeat his leffon to the company, that they might admire his parts and his progress, while I was suffered to be playing

2

playing blind-man's-buff below stairs; he was fet at dinner with the old folks, helped to: light things that would not hurt him, obliged to drink toaft and water, and to behave himself like a gentleman, while I was allowed to devour apple-dumplin, gulp down small-beer, and play monkey-tricks at the fide-table.

That care, however, which watched his health, was not repaid with success; he was always more delicate, and more fubject to little diforders than I; and at last, after completing his feventh year, was seized with a fever, which, in a few days, put an end to his life, and transferred to me the inheritance of my

ancestors.

After the first transports of my mother's grief were fubfided, she began to apply herfelf to the care of her surviving child. I was now become inheritress of her anxiety as well as of my father's fortune; a remarkable change was made in every department of my education, my company, and my amusements. Instead of going along with a set of other girls of my own age to a class for learning French, and a public writing-school, teachers were brought into the house to instruct me privately; and, though I still went to a dancing-[chool three days

days in the week, to practise the leffons which I received from an eminent master at home, yet I was always attended by my mother, my governess, or fomebody, by whose side I was stuck up before and after the dance, to the great vexation of myself, and the ridicule. of my former companions. Of companions, indeed, I was now altogether deprived. I was too confiderable a perfon to afsociate with those in whose sports and amusements I had formerly been fo happy to share; if at any time I ventured to mention a wish for their society, I was immediately checked by an observation of my Mamma, that the believed they were very good girls, but not fit company for me.

To prevent the folitude in which my fuperiority would have thus placed me, a little girl, an orphan niece of my mother's maid, was taken into the house, whose office it was to attend me during all my hours of study or amusement, to hold the pin-cushion while my maid was dreffing me, to get leffons along with me, and be chid if I neglected them, to play games at Draughts, which she was never to win, and to lift the Shuttlecock, which I commonly let fall; in short, she was to ferve

me