for I had a horrible suspicion when I first came into -I vow you must forgive it; but I suspected it was Mr. Jones himself.

the room

Did your ladyship, indeed? cries Sophia, blushing, and affecting a laugh.

Yes, I vow I did, answered she. I can't imagine what put it into my head; for, give the fellow his due, he was genteelly dressed; which, I think, dear Sophy, is not commonly the case with your friend.

This raillery, cries Sophia, is a little cruel, Lady Bellaston, after my promise to your ladyship.

Not at all, child, said the lady: It would have been cruel before; but after you promised me never to marry without your father's consent, in which you know is implied your giving up Jones, sure you can bear a little raillery on a passion which was pardonable enough in a young girl in the country, and of which you tell me you have so entirely got the better. What must I think, my dear Sophy, if you cannot bear a little ridicule even on his dress? I shall begin to fear you are very far gone indeed; and almost question whether you have dealt ingenuously with me.

Indeed, madam, cries Sophia, your ladyship mistakes me, if you imagine I had any concern on his

account.

On his account! answered the lady: You must have mistaken me; I went no farther than his dress; for I would not injure your taste by any other comparison. I don't imagine, my dear Sophy, if your Mr. Jones had been such a fellow as this

I thought, says Sophia, your ladyship had allowed him to be handsome.

Whom, pray? cried the lady, hastily.

Mr. Jones, answered Sophia?—and immediately recollecting herself, Mr. Jones! no, no! I ask your

pardon ;—I mean the gentleman who was just now here.

O Sophy! Sophy! cries the lady; this Mr. Jones, I am afraid, still runs in your head.

Then, upon my honour, madam, said Sophia, Mr. Jones is as entirely indifferent to me, as the gentleman who just now left us.

Upon my honour, said Lady Bellaston, I believe it. Forgive me, therefore, a little innocent raillery ; but I promise you I will never mention his name any more.

And now the two ladies separated, infmitely more to the delight of Sophia than of Lady Bellaston, who would willingly have tormented her rival a little longer, had not business of more importance called her away. As for Sophia, her mind was not perfectly easy under this first practice of deceit ; upon which, when she retired to her chamber, she reflected with the highest uneasiness and conscious shame. Nor could the peculiar hardship of her situation, and the necessity of the case, at all reconcile her mind to her conduct; for the frame of her mind was too delicate to bear the thought of having been guilty of a falsehood, however qualified by circumstances. Nor did this thought once suffer her to close her eyes during the whole succeeding night.

BOOK XIV.

CONTAINING TWO DAYS.

CHAPTER I..

An essay to prove that an author will write the better for having some knowledge of the subject on which he writes.

As several gentlemen in these times, by the won derful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning (perhaps, without being well able to read), have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

This doctrine, I am afraid, is, at present, carried much too far for why should writing differ so much from all other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if, instead of being masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of the authors of the present age. Nor do I believe that all

the imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt, could have produced those orations that have made the senate of England, in these our times, a rival in eloquence to Greece and Rome, if he had not been so well read in the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, as to have transferred their whole spirit into his speeches, and with their spirit, their knowledge too.

I would not here be understood to insist on the same fund of learning in any of my brethren, as Cicero persuades us is necessary to the composition of an orator. On the contrary, very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of all to the politician. For the first, perhaps, Byshe's Art of Poetry, and a few of our modern poets, may suffice; for the second, a moderate heap of plays; and, for the last, an indifferent collection of political journals.

To say the truth, I require no more than that a man should have some little knowledge of the subject on which he treats, according to the old maxim of law, Quam quisque nôrit artem in eâ se exerceat. With this alone, a writer may sometimes do tolerably well; and indeed without this, all the other learning in the world will stand him in little stead.

For instance: let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art of dancing; I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent treatise which Mr. Essex hath given us on that subject, entitled, The Rudiments of genteel Education. And, indeed, should the excellent Mr. Broughton be prevailed on to set fist to paper, and to complete the

abovesaid rudiments, by delivering down the true principles of athletics, I question whether the world will have any cause to lament, that none of the great writers, either ancient or modern, have ever treated about that noble and useful art.

To avoid a multiplicity of examples in so plain a case, and to come at once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one reason why many English writers have totally failed in describing the manners of upper life, may possibly be, that, in reality, they know nothing of it.

This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many authors to arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect idea of it; nor will the stage a much better: the fine gentleman, formed upon reading the former, will almost always turn out a pedant; and he who forms himself upon the latter, a coxcomb.

Nor are the characters drawn from these models better supported. Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature: but they who copy them draw as unlike the present age, as Hogarth would do if he was to paint a rout or a drum in the dresses of Titian and of Vandyke. In short, imitation here will not do the business. The picture must be after nature herself. A true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation, and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known.

Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be seen, like all the rest of the human species, for nothing, in the streets, shops, and coffeehouses: nor are they shown, like the upper rank of animals, for so much a-piece. In short, this is a sight to which no persons are admitted, without one or other of these qualifications, viz.—either birth or fortune, or, what is equivalent to both, the honourable profession of a gamester. And, very unluckily