they omitted to search the only place where they were deposited, to wit, in the pockets of the said George; for he had just before found them, and, being luckily apprised of their value, had very carefully put them up for his own use.

The gamekeeper having exerted as much diligence in quest of the lost goods, as if he had hoped to find them, desired Mr Jones to recollect if he had been in no other place; "For sure," said he, "if you had lost them here so lately, the things must have been here still; for this is a very unlikely place for any one to pass by:" and indeed it was by great accident that he himself had passed through that field, in order to lay wires for hares with which he was to supply a poulterer at Bath the next morning.

Jones now gave over all hopes of recovering his loss, and almost all thoughts concerning it; and turning to Black George, asked him earnestly, if he would do him the greatest favour in the world?

George answered with some hesitation, "Sir, you know you may command me whatever is in my power, and I heartily wish it was in my power to do you any service." In fact, the question staggered him; for he had, by selling game, amassed a pretty good sum of money in Mr Western's service, and was afraid that Jones wanted to borrow some small matter of him ; but he was presently relieved from his anxiety, by being desired to convey a letter to Sophia, which with great pleasure he promised to do. And, indeed, I believe there are few favours which he would not gladly have conferred on Mr Jones; for he bore as much gratitude towards him as he could, and was as honest as men who love money better than any other thing in the universe, generally are.

Mrs Honour was agreed by both to be the proper means by which this letter should pass to Sophia. They then separated; the gamekeeper returned home to Mr Western's, and Jones walked to an alehouse at half a mile's distance, to wait for his messenger's return.

George no sooner came home to his master's house, than he met with Mrs Honour; to whom, having first sounded her with a few previous questions, he delivered the letter for her mistress, and received at the same time another from her for Mr Jones; which Honour told him she had carried all that day in her bosom, and began to despair of finding any means of delivering it.

The gamekeeper returned hastily and joyfully to Jones, who, having received Sophia's let ter from him, instantly withdrew, and, eagerly breaking it open, read as follows:

"SIR,

"It is impossible to express what I have felt since I saw you. Your submitting, on my account, to such cruel insults from my father, lays me under an obligation I shall ever own. As you know his temper, I beg you will, for my

sake, avoid him. I wish I had any comfort to send you; but believe this, that nothing but the last violence shall ever give my hand or heart where you would be sorry to see them bestowed.”

Jones read this letter a hundred times over, and kissed it a hundred times as often. His passion now brought all tender desires back into his mind. He repented that he had writ to Sophia in the manner we have seen above; but he repented more that he had made use of the interval of his messenger's absence to write and dispatch a letter to Mr Allworthy, in which he had faithfully promised and bound himself to quit all thoughts of his love. However, when his cool reflections returned, he plainly perceived that his case was neither mended nor altered by Sophia's billet, unless to give him some little glimpse of hope from her constancy, of some favourable accident hereafter. He therefore resumed his resolution, and taking leave of Black George, set forward to a town about five miles distant, whither he had desired Mr Allworthy, unless he pleased to revoke his sentence, to send his things after him.

CHAP. XIII.

The behaviour of Sophia on the present occasion; which none of her sex will blame, who are capable of behaving in the same manner. And the discussion of a knotty point in the Court of Con

science.

SOPHIA had passed the last twenty-four hours in no very desirable manner. During a large part of them she had been entertained by her aunt with lectures of prudence, recommending to her the example of the polite world, where love (so the good lady said) is at present entirely laughed at, and where women consider matrimony, as men do offices of public trust, only as the means of making their fortunes, and of advancing themselves in the world. In commenting on which text Mrs Western had displayed her eloquence during several hours.

These sagacious lectures, though little suited either to the taste or inclination of Sophia, were, however, less irksome to her than her own thoughts, that formed the entertainment of the night, during which she never once closed her eyes.

But though she could neither sleep nor rest in her bed; yet, having no avocation from it, she was found there by her father at his return from Allworthy's, which was not till past ten o'clock in the morning. He went directly up to her apartment, opened the door, and seeing she was not up, cried, "O! you are safe then, and I am resolved to keep you so." He then locked the door, and delivered the key to Honour, having first given her the strictest charge, with great promises of rewards for her fidelity,

and most dreadful menaces of punishment, in case she should betray her trust.

Honour's orders were, not to suffer her mistress to come out of her room without the authority of the squire himself, and to admit none to her but him and her aunt; but she was herself to attend her with whatever Sophia pleased, except only pen, ink, and paper, of which she was forbidden the use.

The squire ordered his daughter to dress herself, and attend him at dinner, which she obeyed; and having sat the usual time, was again conducted to her prison.

you

In the evening the gaoler Honour brought her the letter which she received from the gamekeeper. Sophia read it very attentively twice or thrice over, and then threw herself upon the bed, and burst into a flood of tears. Mrs Honour expressed great astonishment at this behaviour in her mistress, nor could she forbear very eagerly begging to know the cause of this passion. Sophia made her no answer for some time, and then starting suddenly up, caught her maid by the hand, and cried, "O Honour! I am undone."-" Marry forbid," cries Honour; "I wish the letter had been burnt before I had brought it to your la'ship. I am sure I thought it would have comforted your la'ship, or I would have seen it at the devil before I would have touched it."-" Honour," says Sophia, " are a good girl, and it is in vain to attempt concealing longer my weakness from you: 1 have thrown away my heart on a man who hath forsaken me. "And is Mr Jones," answered the maid, "such a perfidy man?"-" He has taken his leave of me," says Sophia, "for ever in that letter. Nay, he hath desired me to forget him. Could he have desired that if he had loved me? could he have borne such a thought? could he have written such a word?"-" No, certainly, ma'am," cries Honour; " and to be sure, if the best man in England was to desire me to forget him, I'd take him at his word. Marry come up! I am sure your la'ship hath done him too much honour ever to think on him. A young lady who may take her choice of all the young men in the country! And to be sure, if I may be so presumptuous as to offer my poor opinion, there is young Mr Blifil, who besides that he is come of honest parents, and will be one of the greatest squires all hereabouts, he is, to be sure, in my poor opinion, a more handsomer and a more politer man by half; and besides, he is a young gentleman of a sober character, and who may defy any of the neighbours to say black is his eye; he follows no dirty trollops, nor can any bastards be laid at his door. Forget him, indeed! I thank heaven I myself am not so much at my last prayers as to suffer any man to bid me forget him twice. If the best he that wears a head was for to go for to offer to say such an affronting word to me, I would never give him my company afterwards, if there was

another young man in the kingdom, And as I was saying, to be sure, there is young Mr Blifil"- "Name not his detested name!" cries Sophia.-" Nay, ma'am," says Honour, "if your la'ship doth not like him, there be more jolly handsome young men that would court your la'ship, if they had but the least encouragement. I don't believe there is arrow young gentleman in this county, or in the next to it, that if your la'ship was but to look as if you had a mind to him, would not come about to make his offers directly."-" What a wretch dost thou imagine me," cries Sophia, "by affronting my ears with such stuff! I detest all mankind." 66 Nay, to be sure, ma'am," answered Honour, your la'ship hath had enough to give you a surfeit of them. To be used ill by such a poor beggarly bastardly fellow !"-" Hold your blas→ phemous tongue," cries Sophia; “how dare you mention his name with disrespect before me? He use me ill! no; his poor bleeding heart suffered more when he writ the cruel words than mine from reading them. O! he is all heroic virtue and angelic goodness. I am ashamed of the weakness of my own passion, for blaming what I ought to admire.-O Honour! it is my good only which he consults; to my interest he sacrifices both himself and me. The apprehension of ruining me hath driven him to despair.” -"I am very glad," says Honour," to hear your la'ship take that into your consideration; for, to be sure, it must be nothing less than ruin to give your mind to one that is turned out of doors, and is not worth a farthing in the world." "Turned out of doors!" cries Sophia hastily; "how! what dost thou mean ?""Why, to be sure, ma'am, my master no sooner told Squire Allworthy about Mr Jones having offered to make love to your la'ship, than the squire stripped him stark naked, and turned him out of doors."-" Ha!" says Sophia, "I have been the cursed, wretched cause of his destruction!-Turned naked out of doors! Here, Honour, take all the money I have; take the rings from my fingers-Here, my watch; carry him all.-Go, find him immediately."-" For heaven's sake, ma'am," answered Mrs Honour, "do but consider, if my master should miss any of these things, I should be made to answer for them; therefore let me beg your la'ship not to part with your watch and jewels. Besides, the money, I think, is enough of all conscience; and as for that, my master can never know any thing of the matter."-"Here, then," cries Sophia, "take every farthing I am worth; find him out immediately, and give it him. Go, go, lose not a moment."

Mrs Honour departed, according to orders, and, finding Black George below stairs, delivered him the purse, which contained sixteen guineas, being indeed the whole stock of Sophia; for though her father was very liberal to her, she was much too generous to be rich.

Black George having received the purse, set forward towards the alehouse; but in the way a thought occurred to him, whether he should not detain this money likewise. His conscience, however, immediately started at this suggestion, and began to upbraid him with ingratitude to his benefactor. To this his avarice answered, that his conscience should have considered the matter before, when he deprived poor Jones of his 5001.; that having quietly acquiesced in what was of so much greater importance, it was absurd, if not downright hypocrisy, to affect any qualms at this trifle. In return to which, Conscience, like a good lawyer, attempted to distinguish between an absolute breach of trust, as here where the goods were delivered, and a bare concealment of what was found, as in the former case. Avarice presently treated this with ridicule, called it a distinction without a difference, and absolutely insisted, that when once all pretensions of honour and virtue were given up in any one instance, that there was no precedent for resorting to them upon a second occasion. In short, poor Conscience had certainly been defeated in the argument, had not Fear stept in to her assistance, and very strenuously urged, that the real distinction between the two actions did not lie in the different degrees of honour, but of safety; for that the secreting the 500l. was a matter of very little hazard, whereas the detaining the sixteen guineas was liable to the utmost danger of discovery.

By this friendly aid of Fear, Conscience obtained a complete victory in the mind of Black George, and, after making him a few compliments on his honesty, forced him to deliver the money to Jones.

CHAP. XIV.

A short chapter, containing a short dialogue between Squire Western and his sister.

66

MRS WESTERN had been engaged abroad all that day. The squire met her at her return home, and when she enquired after Sophia, he acquainted her, that he had secured her safe enough. "She is locked up in my chamber," cries he, and Honour keeps the key." As his looks were full of prodigious wisdom and sagacity when he gave his sister this information, it is probable he expected much applause from her for what he had done; but how was he disappointed! when, with a most disdainful aspect, she cried, "Sure, brother, you are the weakest of all men. Why will you not confide in me for the management of my niece? why will you interpose? You have now undone all that I

have been spending my breath in order to bring about. While I have been endeavouring to fill her mind with maxims of prudence, you have been provoking her to reject them. English women, brother, I thank heaven, are no slaves. We are not to be locked up like the Spanish and Italian wives. We have as good a right to liberty as yourselves. We are to be convinced by reason and persuasion only, and not governed by force. I have seen the world, brother, and know what arguments to make use of; and if your folly had not prevented me, should have prevailed with her to form her conduct by those rules of prudence and discretion which I formerly taught her."-" To be sure," said the squire, "I am always in the wrong.”—“ Brother," answered the lady, "you are not in the wrong, unless when you meddle with matters beyond your knowledge. You must agree that I have seen most of the world; and happy had it been for my niece, if she had not been taken from under my care. It is by living at home with you that she hath learnt romantic notions of love and nonsense."-" You don't imagine, I hope," cries the squire, "that I have taught her any such things?"-" Your ignorance, brother," returned she, as the great Milton says, almost subdues my patience."-" D—n Milton," answered the squire, "if he had the impudence to say so to my face, I'd lend him a douse, thof he was never so great a man. tience! an you come to that, sister, I have more occasion of patience, to be used like an overgrown school-boy, as I am by you. Do you think no one hath any understanding unless he hath been about a court? Pox! the world is come to a fine pass indeed, if we are all fools except a parcel of round-heads and Hanover rats. Pox! I hope the times are a-coming that we shall make fools of them, and every man shall enjoy his own: that's all, sister, and every man shall enjoy his own. I hope to zee it, sister, before the Hanover rats have ate up all our corn, and left us nothing but turnips to feed upon."-" I protest, brother," cries she,

66

Pa

you are now got beyond my understanding. Your jargon of turnips and Hanover rats is to me perfectly unintelligible."-" I believe," cries he," you don't care to hear o'em; but the country interest may succeed one day or other, for all that."-" I wish," answered the lady,

66

you would think a little of your daughter's interest; for, believe me, she is in greater danger than the nation."-" Just now," said he,

66

you chid me for thinking on her, and would ha' her left to you."-" And if you will promise to interpose no more," answered she, "I will, out of my regard to my niece, undertake the charge."-"Well, do then," said the squire,

"for you know I always agreed, that women are the properest to manage women."

Mrs Western then departed, muttering something with an air of disdain, concerning women

and the management of the nation. She immediately repaired to Sophia's apartment, who was now, after a day's confinement, released again from her captivity.

CHAP. I.

A comparison between the World and the Stage.

THE world hath often been compared to the theatre; and many grave writers, as well as the poets, have considered human life as a great drama, resembling, in almost every particular, those scenical representations which Thespis is first reported to have invented, and which have been since received with so much approbation and delight in all polite countries.

This thought hath been carried so far, and is become so general, that some words proper to the theatre, and which were at first metaphorically applied to the world, are now indiscriminately and literally spoken of both; thus stage and scene are by common use grown as familiar to us, when we speak of life in general, as when we confine ourselves to dramatic performances; and when transactions behind the curtain are mentioned, St James's is more likely to occur to our thoughts than Drury-Lane.

It may seem easy enough to account for all this, by reflecting, that the theatrical stage is nothing more than a representation, or, as Aristotle calls it, an imitation, of what really exists; and hence, perhaps, we might fairly pay a very high compliment to those who, by their writings or actions, have been so capable of imitating life, as to have their pictures in a manner confounded with, or mistaken for, the originals. But, in reality, we are not so fond of paying compliments to these people, whom we use as children frequently do the instruments of their amusement; and have much more pleasure in hissing and buffeting them, than in admiring their excellence. There are many other reasons which have induced us to see this analogy between the world and the stage.

Some have considered the larger part of man

For which hackneyed quotation I will make the reader amends by a very noble one, which few, I believe, have read. It is taken from a poem called The Deity, published about nine years ago, and long since buried in oblivion: a proof that good books, no more than good men, do always survive the bad.

From Thee* all human actions take their springs,
The rise of empires and the fall of kings!
See the vast Theatre of Time display'd,
While o'er the scene succeeding heroes tread!
With pomp the shining images succeed,
What leaders triumph, and what monarchs bleed!
Perform the parts thy providence assign'd,
Their pride, their passions, to thy ends inclined :
A while they glitter in the face of day,
Then at thy nod the phantoms pass away;
No traces left of all the busy scene,
But that remembrance says-The Things have
been!

In all these, however, and in every other similitude of life to the theatre, the resemblance hath been always taken from the stage only. None, as I remember, have at all considered the audience at this great drama.

But as nature often exhibits some of her best performances to a very full house; so will the behaviour of her spectators no less admit the above-mentioned comparison than that of her actors. In this vast theatre of Time are seated the friend and the critic; here are claps and shouts, hisses and groans; in short, every thing which was ever seen or heard at the Theatreroyal.

Let us examine this in one example: for instance, in the behaviour of the great audience on that scene which Nature was pleased to exhibit in Chap. XII. of the preceding Book, where she introduced Black George running away with the 5001. from his friend and benefactor.

Those who sat in the world's upper gallery, treated that incident, I am well convinced, with their usual vociferation; and every term of scurrilous reproach was most probably vented on that occasion.

If we had descended to the next order of spec tators, we should have found an equal degree of abhorrence, though less of noise and scurrility; yet here the good women gave Black George to the devil, and many of them expected every minute that the cloven-footed gentleman would fetch his own.

The pit, as usual, was no doubt divided: those who delight in heroic virtue and the perfect character, objected to the producing such instances of villainy, without punishing them very severely, for the sake of example. Some of the author's friends cried-" Look'e, gentlemen, the man is a villain; but it is nature for all that." And all the young critics of the age, the clerks, apprentices, &c. called it low, and fell a groaning. As for the boxes, they behaved with their accustomed politeness. Most of them were attending to something else. Some of those few who regarded the scene at all, declared he was a bad kind of man; while others refused to give their opinion, 'till they had heard that of the best judges.

Now we, who are admitted behind the scenes

characters have, in numberless instances of their lives, played the fool egregiously in earnest, so far as to render it a matter of some doubt, whether their wisdom or folly was predominant; or whether they were better entitled to the applause or censure, the admiration or contempt, the love or hatred, of mankind.

Those persons, indeed, who have passed any time behind the scenes of this great theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted not only with the several disguises which are there put on, but also with the fantastic and capricious behaviour of the Passions, who are the managers and directors of this theatre, (for as to Reason, the patentee, he is known to be a very idle fellow, and seldom to exert himself), may most probably have learned to understand the famous nil admirari of Horace, or in the English phrase, to stare at nothing.

A single bad act no more constitutes a villain in life, than a single bad part on the stage. The passions, like the managers of a playhouse, often force men upon parts, without consulting their judgment, and sometimes without any regard to their talents. Thus the man, as well as the player, may condemn what he himself acts; nay, it is common to see vice sit as awkwardly on some men, as the character of lago would on the honest face of Mr William Mills.

Upon the whole, then, the man of candour and of true understanding is never hasty to condemn. He can censure an imperfection, or even a vice, without rage against the guilty party. In a word, they are the same folly, the same childishness, the same ill-breeding, and the same ill-nature, which raise all the clamours and uproars both in life and on the stage. The worst of men generally have the words rogue and villain most in their mouths, as the lowest of all wretches are the aptest to cry out low in the pit.

CHAP. II.

with himself.

JONES received his effects from Mr Allworthy's early in the morning, with the following answer to his letter.

SIR,

"I AM commanded by my uncle to acquaint you, that as he did not proceed to those measures he had taken with you, without the greatest deliberation, and after the fullest evidence of your unworthiness, so will it be always out of your power to cause the least alteration in his resolution. He expresses great surprise at your presumption in saying, you have resigned all pretensions to a young lady, to whom it is impossible you should ever have had any, her birth and fortune having made her so infinitely your