I N° 13. SATURDAY, April 30, 1785. To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGer. SIR, Inherited from my ancestors an estate of about 1000l. a-year; and as I never had any defire for figuring in the world, I married, early in life, the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, and till of late years lived at home, fatisfied with the fociety of my friends and neighbours. I found my fortune fully fufficient for my purposes; and was in hopes that I might provide decently for my younger children, who are four in number, without its being neceffary to part with an eftate, which, as it had been fome centuries in our family, I had an old-fashioned inclination to preserve in it. I am forry, however, to add, that, from the circumstances I am now to take the liberty of mentioning, those hopes have given way to prospects of a very different kind, profpects unfpeakably mortifying to me, and which ought to be ftill more diftreffing to the rest of my family. My eldest fon, as he poffeffed but a very limited genius, and fhewed no propensity to any particular particular profeffion, I wished to follow my own example, and become a country gentleman. But a winter in your city, after having paffed a few years at one of our universities, taught him that this was a plan quite unfit for a young man of fpirit. As he had there acquired a taste for what he was pleased to call genteel life, by hunting, drinking, wenching, and gambling with all the idle young men about town, at a greater expence than what fupported all the reft of the family at home, I was perfuaded to purchase for him a cornetcy of horse, in compliance with his own earnest defire, and in hopes that, by a removal from his prefent companions, he might learn to retrench his expences, and be gradually reclaimed from the dangerous habits he had contracted in their fociety. While my fon was thus learning to be a Gentleman, my wife thought it no lefs neceffary that my daughters fhould learn to be Ladies. Accordingly, when the eldeft was about thirteen, and the other about twelve years of age, they both left my houfe in the country, and were placed in a boarding-school of the first reputation in Edinburgh. At home they had paffed their time, as I imagined usefully, in learning to read, to write, to work, to keep accounts, and to affift their mother in the little cares of our household. They had had been taught to dance; and they fung, not perhaps with much art or skill, but in such a manner as most people listened to with pleasure. Thefe attainments, however, were of a very inferior kind to what it was now thought neceffary they should acquire. They were quickly provided with masters for all the polite and fashionable branches of education. They were taught dancing (for they would not allow what they had learned in the country to deserve that name), drawing, French, Italian, and music; and a female relation, who was kind enough to take fome charge of them, fent us the most flattering accounts of their progrefs in those various accomplishments. When I received the bills of the boardingmistress, even for the first feafon, I was, I must confefs, fomewhat out of humour; and it required all the eloquence of my wife, and the flattering accounts of her kinfwoman, to perfuade me that the expence was quite fo well beftowed as they feemed to imagine. It was, however, a trifle, compared to that which followed. In a few years my young miffes were transformed into young ladies; and as the kindnefs of our female friend procured them an introduction, as fhe told us, to all the genteel families in town, what between private parties and public public places, where they now began to figure, they very feldom found leifure to be at home. The expence which this occafioned, added to that of their education (for they still continued to improve themselves), was fuch as I could by no means afford to bestow on two members of my family; especially as it now became neceffary to fit my two younger boys for the profeffions they chofe to follow; Jack, the elder, being destined for the bar, and Bob for the East Indies, where, under the protection of an uncle, it was hoped he might one day become a Nabob. The beauty and accomplishments of my daughters had now become a favourite topic with my wife and other friends of my family; and to have buried them in a country retirement, would have been deemed the height of folly and barbarity. For their fakes, therefore, as well as the education of my fons, I was now told it was abfolutely neceffary we should pass a confiderable part of the year in Edinburgh. The separate board I must otherwife beftow on my boys and girls, was fuppofed to render this a plan of œconomy; and the few objections I made to it were filenced, by telling me of many gentlemen, from all parts of the country, who had found this the only method of giving their children children a genteel education, without the abfolute ruin of their fortunes. To these reasons, though not altogether fatisfied, I gave way. We provided ourselves with a house in town; and, for these five years past, have spent our winters in Edinburgh, and only retired to the country, like other fashionable people, at the end of the feafon, when it becomes neceffary that one part of the family fhould provide health, and another money, for the gaiety of the next. During this period I have witneffed the full effect of that fashionable education I had beftowed on my daughters; and it is now fome years that they have joined to the other pleasures of a town-life, the envied diftinction of Beauties and Toafts. You will easily conceive how much this must have gratified the vanity of a mother. My own, Sir, was not altogether proof against it; nor can I deny the pleasure it gave me, to find the company of my daughters univerfally fought after, and to fee their beauty attract all eyes, in every company, and at every public place in which they appeared. I foon, however, found the effects of this diftinction to be very different from those which the fanguine expectations of fome of us had fuggefted. Our houfe indeed was filled with visitors in the morning, and in the |