dren, which in me was supported by uninterrupted good health, left me no leisure 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 entitled 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 garden; he was made to repeat his lesson to the company, that they might admire his parts and his progress, while I was suffered to be playing blindman's-buff below stairs; he was set at dinner with the old folks, helped to light things that would not hurt him, obliged to drink toast 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 side-table.

That care, however, which watched his

health, was not repaid with success; he was always more delicate, and more subject to little disorders, than I; and at last, after completing his seventh 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 subsided, she began to apply herself 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 writingschool, teachers were brought into the house to instruct me privately; and though I still went to a dancing-school three days in the week to practise the lessons which

I received from an eminent master at home, yet I was always attended by my mother, my governess, or somebody, 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 considerable a person to associate with those in whose sports and amusements I had formerly been so 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 she believed they were very good girls, but not fit company for me.

To prevent the solitude in which my superiority 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 dressing me, to get lessons 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 serve me for the practice of all that insolence, which the precepts of others had taught me I had a right to assume. I feel, at this moment, Mr Mirror, the most sincere compunction for the hardships which this poor girl suffered while she was with me; hardships, from which, at last, she freed herself, by running off with a recruiting serjeant; yet I was taught, at the time, to call her subsistence a bounty, and to account myself generous when I bestowed any trifle beyond it.

While my mind was thus encouraged in perversion, the culture of my body was little less preposterous. The freedom and exercise which formerly bestowed health and vigour, I now exchanged for the con

straints of fashion, and the laziness of pride. Every shackle of dress which the daughters of any great man were understood to wear, I was immediately provided with, because I could afford it as well as they. I was never allowed the use of my limbs, because I could afford a coach; and, when attacked by the slightest disorder, immediate recourse was had to the physician, because I could afford a fee. The consequence was natural: I lost all my former spirits, as well as my former bloom; and, when I first put on the womanly garb, I was a fine lady complete, with cheeks as pale, and nerves as weak, as the finest.

I was now arrived at a period when attention and anxiety were to be pointed almost solely to one object, the disposal

of

my person in marriage. With regard to this event, I was equally the slave of my mother's hopes and fears. I was dressed, and re-dressed, squeezed and pinch