those regions of negligence and liberty, they might diverfify their representations, and multiply their images, for in the country are original characters chiefly to be found. In cities, and yet more in courts, the minute difcriminations which distinguish one from another are for the most part effaced, the peculiarities of temper and opinion are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bodies and uneven surfaces lose their points and asperities by frequent attrition against one another, and approach by degrees to uniform rotundity. The prevalence of fashion, the influence of example, the defire of applaufe, and the dread of cenfure, obftruct the natural tendencies of the mind, and check the fancy in its first efforts to break forth into experiments of caprice.

Few inclinations are fo ftrong as to grow up into habits, when they muft ftruggle with the conftant oppofition of fettled forms and established customs. But in the country every man is a separate and independent being folitude flatters irregularity with hopes of fecrecy; and wealth, removed from the mortification of comparison, and the awe of equality, fwells into contemptuous confidence, and fets blame and laughter at defiance; the impulfes of nature act unrestrained, and the difpofition dares to fhew itself in its true form, without any disguise of hypocrify, or decorations of elegance. Every one indulges the full enjoyment of his own choice, and talks and lives with no other view than to please himself, without enquiring how far he deviates from the general prac. tice, or confidering others as entitled to any account of his fentiments or actions. If he builds or demolifhes,

lishes, opens or encloses, deluges or drains, it is not his care what may be the opinion of those who are skilled in perspective or architecture, it is fufficient that he has no landlord to control him, and that none has any right to examine in what projects the lord of the manor spends his own money on his own grounds.

For this reason it is not very common to want fubjects for rural converfation. Almost every man is daily doing fomething which produces merriment, wonder, or refentment, among his neighbours. This utter exemption from restraint leaves every anomalous quality to operate in its full extent, and suffers the natural character to diffuse itself to every part of life. The pride which, under the check of publick obser vation, would have been only vented among fervants and domesticks, becomes in a country baronet the torment of a province, and, instead of terminating in the destruction of China ware and glaffes, ruins tenants, difpoffeffes cottagers, and haraffes villagers with actions of trespass and bills of indictment.

It frequently happens that, even without violent paffions, or enormous corruption, the freedom and laxity of a ruftick life produce remarkable particularities of conduct or manner. In the province where I now refide, we have one lady eminent for wearing a gown always of the fame cut and colour; another for fhaking hands with those that vifit her and a third for unfhaken refolution never to let tea or coffee enter her house.

;

But of all the female characters which this place affords, I have found none fo worthy of attention as that of Mrs. Bufy, a widow, who lost her husband in her thirtieth year, and has fince paffed her time at

the manor-house in the government of her children, and the management of the estate.

Mrs. Bufy was married at eighteen from a boarding-school, where fhe had paffed her time, like other young ladies, in needle-work, with a few intervals of dancing and reading. When fhe became a bride fhe spent one winter with her husband in town, where, having no idea of any converfation beyond the formalities of a vifit, fhe found nothing to engage her paffions; and when she had been one night at court, and two at an opera, and seen the Monument, the Tombs, and the Tower, fhe concluded that London had nothing more to fhew, and wondered that when women had once feen the world they could not be content to stay at home. She therefore went willingly to the ancient seat, and for fome years studied housewifery under Mr. Bufy's mother, with fo much affi duity, that the old lady, when fhe died, bequeathed her a caudle-cup, a foup-dish, two beakers, and a cheft of table-linen fpun by herfelf,

Mr. Bufy, finding the economical qualities of his lady, refigned his affairs wholly into her hands, and devoted his life to his pointers and his hounds. He never vifited his eftates, but to destroy the partridges or foxes; and often committed fuch devastations in the rage of pleasure, that fome of his tenants refused to hold their lands at the ufual rent. Their landlady perfuaded them to be fatisfied, and entreated her husband to difmifs his dogs, with many exact calculations of the ale drank by his companions, and corn confumed by the horses, and remonftrances against the infolence of the huntsman, and the frauds of the groom. The huntfman was too neceffary to his

happiness

economist to feel

happiness to be discarded; and he had still continued to ravage his own eftate, had he not caught a cold and a fever by fhooting mallards in the fens. His fever was followed by a confumption, which in a few months brought him to the grave. Mrs. Bufy was too much an either joy or forrow at his death. She received the compliments and confolations of her neighbours in a dark room, out of which she stole privately every night and morning to see the cows milked; and, after a few days, declared that the thought a widow might employ herself better than in nurfing grief; and that, for her part, fhe was refolved that the fortunes of her children fhould not be impaired by her neglect.

She therefore immediately applied herself to the reformation of abuses. She gave away the dogs, discharged the fervants of the kennel and ftable, and fent the horses to the next fair, but rated at fo high a price that they returned unfold. She was refolved to have nothing idle about her, and ordered them to be employed in common drudgery. They loft their fleekness and grace, and were foon purchased at half the value.

She foon difencumbered herself from her weeds, and put on a riding-hood, a coarse apron, and fhort petticoats, and has turned a large manor into a farm, of which she takes the management wholly upon herself. She rises before the fun to order the horses to their geers, and fees them well rubbed down at their return from work; fhe attends the dairy morning and evening, and watches when a calf falls that it may be carefully nurfed; the walks out among

the

the fheep at noon, counts the lambs, and obferves the fences, and, where he finds a gap, ftops it with a bush till it can be better mended. In harveft fhe rides

a-field in the waggon, and is very liberal of her ale from a wooden bottle. At her leifure hours fhe looks goofe eggs, airs the wool room, and turns the cheese.

When respect or curiofity brings vifitants to her house, she entertains them with prognosticks of a fcarcity of wheat, or a rot among the fheep, and always thinks herself privileged to dismiss them, when fhe is to fee the hogs fed, or to count her poultry on the rooft.

The only things neglected about her are her children, whom she has taught nothing but the lowest household duties. In my last visit I met Mifs Bufy carrying grains to a fick cow, and was entertained with the accomplishments of her eldest fon, a youth of fuch early maturity, that, though he is only fixteen, she can truft him to fell corn in the market, Her younger daughter, who is eminent for her beauty, though fomewhat tanned in making hay, was bufy in pouring out ale to the ploughmen, that every one might have an equal fhare.

. I could not but look with pity on this young family, doomed, by the abfurd prudence of their mother, to ignorance and meannefs; but, when I recommended a more elegant education, was anfwered, that the never faw bookish or finical people grow rich, and that fhe was good for nothing herself till fhe had forgotten the nicety of the boarding-fchool.

I am, Yours, &c.

BUCOLUS.