our manner of living had hitherto been extremely domestic, we were persuaded to join them, because ' it would vary the scene.' Now this varying the scene may be a good argument for locomotion with couples that have nothing to risk; but there is certainly great folly in all fresh experiments where a reasonable proportion of felicity has once been obtained. Our visit to Spa gave us all such a taste for travelling, that, during a calm interval at Paris, we were actually induced to extend our journey to that wretched theatre of discord and absurdity.

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My wife has by nature a warm heart and vivid imagination, and can take up no notions with indifference that concern in any way the happiness of her fellow-creatures. She is always very enthusiastical in her first impressions; and accident having given her mind a bias towards democracy, she has, somehow or other, been carried away by the mania with which so many good heads have been turned. It is impossible to tell you how completely all our conjugal happiness has been destroyed by this political fury of my poor wife. I verily believe there was not a more peaceful woman in the world about two years ago; and at present I am sure there is not to be found a more determined wrangler. She is resolved to dispute through the day; and if I hold my tongue, she will dispute with me for not disputing: so that, finding no quarter is to be given me, I do all in my power to sell my opinion as dearly as I can. You will agree, that a very pretty kind of warfare is commenced between us; and as it is the nature of hostility to draw into a vortex all the standers-by, we have collected around us a tolerably tumultous scene, with the help of friends, relations, children, servants, parroquets, and puppy-dogs.

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Beginning with the rights of man, my wife is

now come to the rights of women; and my boys and girls have begun, as might well have been expected, to maintain the rights of children. All the peaceful regulations of my family have given place to anarchy. My youngest boy calls his mother a fool, and I am told by my wife that I am crazy. In the midst of all this, I have had the mortification of observing, that a certain captain in a marching regiment has so successfully adopted my wife's opinions, as to convince her that he knows a vast deal more than myself. Where a woman holds the scales, a soldier's feather has a prodigious weight.

"But another serious part of my history still re mains. To foreign fury my wife has contrived to join a considerable portion of foreign effrontery; She receives male visiters in her bed-chamber, in imitation of French courtesy; and harangues on po litics in the drawing-room, in defiance of English decorum. I believe I am a fool for confessing so much, but the captain has actually drunk coffee with her in her bed-room-a circumstance which I did apprehend would have rendered the faction more violent, and almost have ended in the guillotine; but, contrary to all expectation, the captain has ever since been extremely softened towards me, and has even promised to do his endeavour towards bringing about an accommodation between my wife and myself. At any rate, what a triumph I shall have if I bring the soldier over to my party!

Do, my dear Sir, assist me with your counsel in these matters; for, to tell you the truth, I am very unexperienced in women; nor can I make up my mind to the degree of confidence which I ought to repose in the captain. In the mean time, believe me, with that veneration which belongs to your character. "Yours, &c.

It being known that I was about to send into the world a second paper upon travel, the following proclamation was despatched to me last night from the Female Society, with orders for immediate insertion:

"Whereas it has been represented to us, in coun"cil assembled, that the rage for tour-writing, which "prevails in the female world, has brought no cre"dit upon the sex in general; we do hereby enjoin, "that no lady do presume to write her travels until "the first year after her return is expired; during “which time, all the impertinence with which her "" memory is loaded may drop away, and leave no"thing but what is too little to supply a volume"the net produce of her sober inquiries.

I shall add a word or two as a commentary on this decree of the female synod. The species of composition, which is distinguished by the title of Journey or Tour, is exempted, by its particular nature and design, from many of the rules with which graver forms of writing must comply. While the dignity of Travel promises something like a regular course of historical inquiry, the Tour pretends only to a sprightly detail of anecdotes and memoirs. We exact from the writer of Travels a sober display of important facts, and a perfect developement of national character and manners; but we are content, in the livelier conduct of the Tour, with detached observations, broken incidents, and occasional hints. expect from the one a structure complete in every part: we require from the other the materials for erecting one, with a few scattered directions for their use and management. But we are by no means satisfied if the quantity only of these materials be sufficient for our present purpose; their quality must also be excellent; they must be well chosen, easy of application, substantial, solid, and consistent. In other

We

words, though the relation may be broken and unconnected, the facts should all unite in their tendencies and conclusions, should enable the mind of the reader to make up a perfect whole, and to arrive at some general judgement from the proofs they unite in displaying. Much impertinence and absurdity do frequently grow out of this indulgence extended to the writers of Tours. Standing in the same relation to the author of Travels, as the publisher of Memoirs to the Historian, like them they often assume the graver carriage of their superiors; and enlarge with unbecoming prolixity on circumstances which have taken possession of their fancies and affections; while they hasten to compensate for this trespass on their reader's patience, by a rapidity not less blameable in the relation of other facts of equal importance; thus endeavouring to repay the fatigue they have occasioned us in one place, by disappointing our expectations in another.

No. 74. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12.

CIC. ACAD. QUEST.

Quam multa vident Pictores in umbris et in eminentia que nos non videmus! Quam multa quæ nos fugiunt in cantu, exaudiunt in eo genere exercitati. In the shades and relief of pictures, how many beauties and imperfections do painters discover, which to us are imperceptible! In music, how many circumstances escape us, which strike the ears of those who are proficients in the art!

THE last meeting of our society was attended with circumstances peculiarly agreeable to those of our members who feel most for the honour of our institutions, as it afforded a proof of their sovereign efficacy when they work upon a ground of original good sense and native feeling. Our travelled member, of whose introduction and initiation I have already given an account to my readers, has profitted by them in so high a degree, and has undergone, in consequence, so rapid a transformation, that, had we flourished a few centuries ago, we should certainly have lain open to a suspicion of magic.

The slackness of our contributions to the demands of vanity, and the low estimate in which we hold all vulgar greatness, have forced him upon a plan of behaviour, in which all the solid information he possesses, and the most agreeable qualities of his mind, find a channel through which they may diffuse themselves a natural and easy mode of communication and distribution. At the meeting to which I allude, instead of that uneasy state in which he had seemed