.

know not what, by fome people. But I defpife, my · dear Graveairs, I despise all fuch flander. No fuch malice, I affure you, ever gave me an uneasy moment. No, no, I promise you I am above all thatBut where was I? O let me fee; I told you my hufband was jealous-And of whom pray?-Why of whom but the lieutenant I mentioned to you before? He was obliged to refort above a year and more back, to find any object for this unaccounta• ble paffion, if indeed he really felt any fuch, and was not an arrant counterfeit, in order to abuse me. But I have tired you already with too many par⚫ticulars; I will now bring my story to a very speedy conclufion. In fhort, then, after many scenes very unworthy to be repeated, in which my coufin engaged fo heartily on my fide, that Mr. Fitzpa trick at last turned her out of doors; when he found I was neither to be foothed nor bullied into compliance, he took a very violent method indeed. Perhaps you will conclude he beat me; but this, tho' he hath approached very near to it, he never actually did. He confined me to my room, without fuffering me to have either pen, ink, paper, or • book; and a fervant every day made my bed, and brought me my food.

• When I had remained a week under this imprifonment, he made me a vifit, and, with the voice of a schoolmaster, or, what is often much the fame, of ' a tyrant, asked me, If I would yet comply?' I anfwered very ftoutly, That I would die first.' "Then fo you fhall, and be d-ned.' cries he: for you fhall never go alive out of this room.'

66

Here I remained a fortnight longer; and, to fay the truth my conftancy was almost fubdued, and I began to think of fubmiffion; when one day, in the abience of my husband, who was gone abroad for fome fhort time, by the greatest good fortune in the world, an accident happened I at a ⚫ time when I began to give way to the utmost despair every thing would be excufable at fuch a time at that very time I received But it would

⚫ take up an hour to tell you all particulars.-In one

word,

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word, then, (for I will not tire you with circumftances), gold, the common key to all padlocks, opened my door, and fet me at liberty.

'I now made hafte to Dublin, where I immedi ately procured a paffage to England; and was proceeding to Bath in order to throw myself into the protection of my aunt, or of your father, or of any ' relation who would afford it me. My husband overtook me last night at the inn where I lay, and which you left a few minutes before me; but I had 'the good luck to escape him, and to follow you. And thus, my dear, ends my history: a tragical one, I am fure, it is to myself; but, perhaps, [ ought rather to apologize to you for its dullnefs.' Sophia heaved a deep figh, and answered, Indeed, Harriet, I pity you from my foul!-But what could you expect? Why, why, would you marry an Irithman?'

Upon my word,' replied her coufin,' your cenfure is unjuft. There are, among the Irifh, men of as much worth and honour, as any among the English: nay, to speak the truth. generofity of fpirit is rather more common among them. I have known fome examples there too of good husbands; and, I believe thefe are not very plenty in England. Afk me, rather, what I could expect when I married a fool; and I will tell you a folemn truth; I did not know him to be fo. Can no man,' said Sophia in a very low and altered voice, do you think, make a bad husband, who is not a fool?' 'That,' answered the other, is too general a negative; but none, I believe, fo likely as a fool to prove fo. Among my acquaintance, the fillieft fellows are the worst husbands; and I will venture to affert, as a fact, that a man of fense rarely behaves very ill to a wife, who deferves very well.'

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С НА Р.

CHAP. VIIF

A dreadful alarm in the inn, with the arrival of an unexpected friend of Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

OPHIA now, at the defire of her coufin, related

SOPHI

-not what follows, but what hath gone before in this history: for which reason the reader will, I fuppose, excufe me, for not repeating it over again.

One remark, however, I cannot forbear making on her narrative, namely, that she made no more mention of Jones, from the beginning to the end, than if there had been no fuch perfon alive. This I will neither endeavour to account for, nor to excufe. Indeed, if this may be called a kind of dishonesty, it seems the more inexcufable, from the apparent openness and explicit fincerity of the other lady.-But fo it was.

Juft as Sophia arrived at the conclufion of her story, there arrived in the room where the two ladies were fitting a noife, not unlike, in loudnefs, to that of a pack of hounds just let out from their kennel; nor, in fhrillness, to cats, when caterwauling; or, to fcreechowls; or, indeed, more like (for what animal can refemble a human voice?) to those founds, which, in the pleasant manfions of that gate, which feems to derive its name from a duplicity of tongues, iffue from the mouths, and fometimes from the noftrils of those fair river-nymphs, ycleped of old the Naïades; in the vulgar tongue tranflated oyfter-wenches: for when, inftead of the acient libations of milk, and honey, and oil, the rich diftillation from the juniper-berry, or perhaps from malt, hath, by the early devotion of their votaries, been poured forth in great abundance, should any daring tongue with unhallowed licenfe prophane; i. e. depreciate the delicate fat Milton oyfter, the plaice found and firm, the flounder as much alive as when in the water, the fhrimp as big as a prawn, the fine cod alive but a few hours ago, or any other of the various treafures, which thofe water-deities, who fish the fea and rivers, have committed to the care of the nymphs, the angry Naïades lift up their immortal

voices,

voices, and the prophane wretch is ftruck deaf for his impiety.

Such was the noife, which now burst from one of the rooms below; and foon the thunder, which long had rattled at a distance, began to approach nearer and nearer, till, having afcended by degrees up ftairs, it at laft entered the apartment where the ladies were. In short, to drop all metaphor and figure, Mrs. Honour, having fcolded violently below ftairs, and continued the fame all the way up, came in to her miftrefs in a moft outrageous paffion, crying out, What doth your ladyfhip think? Would you imagine, that this impudent villain, the mafter of this house, hath had the impudence to tell me, nay, to stand it. out to my face, that your ladythip is that nalty, ftinking wh-re, (Jenny Cameron they call her), that runs about the country with the pretender ?: • Nay, the lying, faucy villain, had the affurance to 'tell me, that your ladyship had owned yourself to be fo: but I have clawed the rafcal; I have left the marks of my nails in his impudent face. My lady!' fays I, you faucy fcoundrel: my lady is meat for nopretenders. She is a young lady of as good fashion, and family, and fortune, as any in Somerfetfhire. Did you never hear of the great 'fquire Western, firrah? She is his only daughter; fhe is,

-and

heiress to all his great eftate. My lady to be called a nafty Scotch wh-re by fuch a varlet--To be fure, · I wish I had knocked his brains out with the punch • bowl.'

The principal uneafinefs with which Sophia was affected on this occafion, Honour had herself caused, by having in her paffion discovered who fhe was. However, as this mistake of the landlord fufficiently accounted for those paffages which Sophia had before mistaken, the acquired fome eafe on that account; nor could fhe, upon the whole, forbear fmiling. This enraged Honour, and fhe cried, Indeed, Madam, I • did not think your ladythip would have made a laughing matter of it. To be called whore by fuch an impudent low rafcal. Your ladyfhip may be angry with me, for ought I know, for taking your part,

• fince

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fince proffered fervice, they fay, ftinks; but to be fure I could never bear to hear a lady of mine called whore.-Nor will I bear it. I am fure your ladyfhip is as virtuous a lady as ever fat foot on English ground, and I will claw any villain's eyes out who ⚫dares for to offer to presume for to say the leaft word to the contrary. Nobody ever could fay the least ill of the character of any lady that ever I waited upon.' Hinc ille lachryma; in plain truth, Honour had as much love for her mistress as molt fervants have, that is to fay-But, befides this, her pride obliged her to fupport the character of the lady fhe waited on; for the thought her own was in a very close manner connected with it. In proportion as the character of her mistress was raised, hers likewife, as the conceived, was raised with it; and, on the contrary, fhe thought the one could not be lowered without the other.

On this fubject, reader, I must stop a moment to tell thee a story. The famous Nell Gwynn, step· ping one day from a houfe, where he had made a • fhort vifit, into her coach, faw a great mob affembled, and her footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow being asked by his mistress, the reafon of his being in that condition, answered, I have been fighting, Madam, with an impudent rafcal who called your ladyship a wh-re. You blockhead,' replied Mrs. Gwynn, at this rate you must fight every "`day of your life; why, you fool, all the world "knows it.' 'Do they?' cries the fellow in a muttering voice, after fhe had fhut the coach-door, "they fhan't call me a whore's footman for all that.'

ઃઃ

Thus the paffion of Mrs. Honour appears natural enough, even if it were to be no otherwife accounted for; but, in reality, there was another cause of her anger; for which we must beg leave to remind our reader of a circumftance mentioned in the above fimile. There are indeed certain liquors, which, being applied to our paffions, or to fire, produce effects the very reverfe of those produced by water, as they serve to kindle and inflame, rather than to extinguifh. Among thefe, the generous liquor called punch is one.

It

was