the plain worth, the ordinary but useful occupations and ideas of those around us.

The reproach which has been fometimes made to Novels, of exhibiting "fuch faultless "monsters as the world ne'er faw," may be juft on the score of entertainment to their readers, to whom the delineation of uniform virtue, except when it is called into striking situations, will no doubt be infipid. But, in point of moral tendency, the oppofite character is much more reprehenfible; I mean, that character of mingled virtue and vice which is to be found in fome of the best of our Novels. Inftances will readily occur to every reader, where the hero of the performance has violated, in one page, the most facred laws of fociety, to whom, by the mere turning of the leaf, we are to be reconciled, whom we are to be made to love and admire, for the beauty of fome humane, or the brilliancy of fome heroic action. It is dangerous thus to bring us into the fociety of Vice, though introduced or accompanied by Virtue. In the application to ourselves, in which the moral tendency of all imaginary characters must be supposed to confift, this nourishes and fupports a very common kind of felf-deception, by which men are apt to balance their faults by the confideration of their good qualities; an account which, befides the fallacy of its principle, can scarcely

fail to be erroneous, from our natural propensity to state our faults at their lowest, and our good qualities at their highest rate.

I have purposely pointed my observations, not to that common herd of Novels (the wretched offspring of circulating libraries) which are defpised for their infignificance, or profcribed for their immorality; but to the errors, as they appear to me, of those admired ones which are frequently put into the hands of youth for imitation as well as amufement. Of youth it is effential to preserve the imagination found as well as pure, and not to allow them to forget, amidst the intricacies of Sentiment, or the dreams of Senfibility, the truths of Reason, or the laws of Principle.

Z

14

N° 21. SATURDAY, June 25, 1785.

To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER.

SIR,

London, 1785.

I Propofe, by this letter, to give you the history of a few particulars in a life of too little confequence to be worthy the attention of the public, were it not that it may possibly afford fome useful materials for inftruction.

My father was the defcendant of an ancient family in the county of in Scotland, poffeffed only of a moderate fortune. His anceftors had uniformly lived in the country, except occafionally for a few months in the winter; and he himself would probably have obferved the fame plan, had it not been for the following occurrence.

The county where his eftate lay had long been divided into two parties,, who had tried to get the political direction of it. They came at length to be tired of the trouble and expence to which this conteft put them; and a connection which happened to be formed by the heads of both fides with the minifter at the time, was an additional inducement to drop it.

In this fituation the election of a member of parliament happened to come on; but as the chiefs of neither party, though their hoftilities had ceased, inclined to pay the other the compliment of electing a perfon who was keenly attached to it, my father was fixed upon as a person who was generally beloved, and difagreeable to nobody.

Though becoming a member of parliament was certainly a hazardous step, confidering the fmallness of my father's fortune, yet his vanity could not refift the temptation. To parliament accordingly he went; where, after fome years' attendance, as he attached himself closely to the minifter, was a fure vote, and was not without fome talents for business, he arrived at the height of his wishes, and obtained a confiderable poft for life.

This change in his fituation made him form new plans and new views for his family,

It was now refolved that the place of our refidence fhould be changed, and that for the future it fhould be fettled in London. Accordingly, he and his two daughters, of whom the writer of this letter is one (our mother had died fome. time before), removed from Scotland, and took up their abode in the capital.

I was fourteen years of age, and my fifter Harriet eleven, when this material change in Ï 5 .

our

our fituation took place.-I shall not eafily forget the giddy joy I felt when the plan was first proposed; nor the expectations with which my heart beat when the measure was refolved on.

Upon our arrival in town, my father's affection for his daughters, not to fay his vanity, which led him to think that nothing was too high for them, made him fpare no expence to get us inftructed in every fashionable accomplishment. No attention was neglected, to beftow upon us every qualification which the beft masters, and an introduction into the best company, could produce.

Though my father's revenue was now confiderable, yet the expence of having a family in London went far beyond his income. The diftreffes which this occafioned (as is commonly the cafe with fuch diftreffes) were felt long before they were endeavoured to be remedied; at laft, however, they became fo urgent, as to oblige my father to think of retrenching his expences, by returning for a while to the country.

Thither accordingly we repaired. I will not trouble you with giving a comparison of the different fenfations I felt when I first left the country, with those which I entertained on my return. Suffice it to say, that we were received with the utmost refpect and attention. My father's fituation, and his general popularity, were

fufficient