tion, as they unite men more closely, and bring them more frequently together, multiply opportunities of observing those incongruities and absurdities of behaviour, on which Ridicule is founded. The ancients had more Liberty and Seriousness; the moderns have more Luxury and Laughter.

As I was informed by your bookseller, upon whom I called a few days ago to make a small purchase for my daughter, that your whole work would be comprised in one hundred and forty papers, I can no longer delay to send you the account of her life, which I gave you some reason to expect when I related my own*. This account she gave in that

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dreadful night, the remembrance of which still freezes me with horror; the night in which I had hired her as a prostitute, and could not have been deterred from incest, but by an event so extraordinary that it was almost miraculous. I have, indeed, frequently attempted to relate a story which I can never forget, but I was always dissatisfied with my own expressions: nor could I ever produce in writing a narrative which appeared equal to the effect that it wrought upon my mind when I heard it. I have, therefore, prevailed upon the dear injured girl to relate it in her own words, which I shall faithfully transcribe.

The first situation that I remember was in a cellar ; where, I suppose, I had been placed by the parish officers with a woman who kept a little dairy. My nurse was obliged to be often abroad, and I was then left to the care of a girl, who was just old enough to lug me about in her arms, and who, like other petty creatures in office, knew not how to shew her authority but by the abuse of it. Such was my dread of her power and resentment, that I suffered almost whatever she inflicted without complaint; and when I was scarcely four years old, had learnt so far to surmount the sense of pain and suppress my passions, that I have been pinched black and blue without wincing, and patiently suffered her to impute to me many trivial mischiefs which her own perverseness or carelessness had produced.

This situation, however, was not without its advantages; for instead of a hard crust and small beer, which would probably have been the principal part of my subsistence if I had been placed with a person of the same rank, but of a different employment, I had always plenty of milk; which, though it had been skimmed for cream, was not sour, and which indeed was wholesome food; upon which I throve very fast, and was taken notice of by every body for

the freshness of my looks, and the clearness of my skin.

Almost as soon as I could speak plain, I was sent to the parish school to learn to read; and thought myself as fine in my blue gown and badge, as a court beauty in a birth-night suit. The mistress of the school was the widow of a clergyman, whom I have often heard her mention with tears, though he had been long dead when I first came under her tuition, and left her in such circumstances as made her solicit an employment, of which before she would have dreaded the labour, and scorned the meanness. She had been very genteelly educated, and had acquired a general knowledge of literature after her marriage; the communication of which enlivened their hours of retirement, and afforded such a subject of conversation, as added to every other enjoyment the pleasures of beneficence and gratitude.

I

There was something in her manner, which won my affection and commanded my reverence. found her a person very different from my nurse ; and I watched her looks with such ardour and attention, that I was sometimes able, f young as was, to anticipate her commands. It was natural that she should love the virtue which she had produced, nor was it incongruous that she should reward it. I perceived, with inexpressible delight, that she treated me with peculiar tenderness; and when I was about eight years old, she offered to take my education wholly upon herself, without putting the parish to any fa. ther charge for my maintenance. Her offer was readily accepted, my nurse was discharged, and I was taken home to my mistress, who called me her little maid, a name which I was ambitious to deserve, because she did not, like a tyrant, exact my obedience as a slave, but like a parent invited me to the duty of a child. As our family consisted only of my mistress and my.

self, except sometimes a chairwoman, we were always alone in the intervals of business; and the good matron amused herself by instructing me, not only in reading, writing, and the first rules of arithmetic, but in various kinds of needlework; and what was yet of more moment, in the principles of virtue and religion, which in her life appeared to be so amiable, that I wanted neither example nor motive. She gave me also some general notions of the decorum practised among persons of a higher class; and I was thus acquainted, while I was yet a child, and in an obscure station, with some rudiments of good breeding.

Before I was fifteen I began to assist my benefactress in her employment, and by some plain work which she had procured me, I furnished myself with decent clothes. By an insensible and spontaneous imitation of her manner I had acquired such a carriage, as gained me more respect in a yard-wide stuff, than is often paid by strangers to an upper servant in a rich silk.

was

Such was now the simplicity and innocence of my life, that I had scarce a wish unsatisfied; and I often reflected upon my own happiness with a sense of gratitude that increased it. But alas! this felicity scarce sooner enjoyed than lost: the good matron, who was in the most endearing sense my parent and my friend, was seized with fever, which in a few days put an end to her life, and left me alone in the world without alliance or protection, overwhelmed with grief and distracted with anxiety. The world, indeed, was before me; but I trembled to enter it alone. I knew no art by which I could subsist myself; and I was unwilling to be condemned to a state of servitude, in which no such art could be learned. I, therefore, applied again to the officers of the parish, who, as a testimony of respect to my patroness, condescended still to consider me as their

charge, and with the usual sum bound me apprentice to a mantua-maker, whose business, of which, indeed, she had but little, was among persons that were something below the middle class, and who, as I verily believe, had applied to the churchwardens for an apprentice, only that she might silence a number of petty duns, and obtain new credit with the money that is given as a consideration for necessary

clothes.

The dwelling of my new mistress was two back rooms in a dirty street near the Seven Dials. She received me, however, with great appearance of kindness; we breakfasted, dined, and supped together, and though I could not but regret the alteration of my condition, yet I comforted myself with reflecting, that in a few years I should be mistress of a trade by which I might become independant, and live in a manner more agreeable to my inclinations. But my indentures were no sooner signed, than I suffered a new change of fortune. The first step my mistress took was to turn away her maid, a poor slave who was covered only with rags and dirt, and whose ill qualities I foolishly thought were the only cause of her ill treatment. I was now compelled to light fires, go of errands, wash linen, and dress victuals, and in short to do every kind of household drudgery, and to sit up half the night, that the task of hemming and running seams, which had been assigned me, might be performed.

Though I suffered all this without murmur or complaint, yet I became pensive and melancholy; the tears would often steal silently from my eyes, and my mind was sometimes so abstracted in the contemplation of my own misery, that I did not hear what was said to me. But my sensibility produced resentment, instead of pity; my melancholy drew upon me the reproach of sullenness; I was