However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness increased with age.

There was, in fact, nothing that could make us angry with the world, or each other. We had an elegant houfe, fituated in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was fpent in moral or rural amufements; in vifiting our rich neighbours, or relieving fuch as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fire-fide, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.

As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or ftranger come to taste our gooseberry wine, for which we had great reputation; and I profefs, with the veracity of an historian, I never knew one of them find fault with it. Our coufins, too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the Herald's office, and came very frequently to fee us. Some of them did us no great honour, by thefe claims of kindred; for, literally speaking, we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt, amongst the number. However, my wife always infifted, that, as they were the fame flesh and blood with us, they fhould fit with us at the fame table. So that, if we had not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us; for this remark will ever hold good through life, That the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated and, as fome men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip, and others are fmitten with the wing of a butterfly, so I was, by nature,

an

an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a perfon of very bad character, a troublesome gueft, or one we defired to get rid of; upon his leaving my houfe for the first time, I ever took care to lend him a riding coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes an horse of small value; and I always had the fatisfaction of finding he never came back to return them. By this, the house was cleared of fuch as we did not like: but never was the family of Wakefield known to turn the traveller or the poor dependent out of doors.

Thus we lived several years in a state of much happiness; not but that we fometimes had those little rubs which Providence fends to enhance the value of its favours. My orchard was often robbed by fchool-boys, and my wife's custards plundered by the cats or the children. The Squire would fometimes fall asleep in the most pathetick parts of my fermon, or his Lady return my wife's civilities at church with a mutilated courtefy. But we foon got over the uneafiness caused by such accidents; and ufually in three or four days we began to wonder how they vexed us.

My children, the offspring of temperance, as they were educated without foftnefs, fo they were at once well formed and healthy; my fons hardy and active, my daughters dutiful and blooming. When I ftood in the midft of the little circle, which promised to be the supports of my declining age, I could not avoid repeating the famous ftory of Count Abensberg, who, in A 4 Henry

Henry II.'s progrefs through Germany, when other courtiers came with their treafures, brought his thirty-two children, and prefented them to his fovereign as the moft valuable offering he had to bestow. In this manner, though I had but fix, I confidered them as a very valuable prefent made to my country, and, confequently, looked upon it as my debtor. Our eldeft fon was named George, after his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our fecond child, a girl, I intended to call after her aunt Grizel: but my wife, who, during the time of her pregnancy, had been reading romances, infifted upon her being called Olivia. In lefs than another year, we had a daughter again; and now I was determined that Grizel fhould be her name; but a rich relation taking a fancy to fland godmother, the girl was, by her directions, called Sophia; so that we had two romantick names in the family; but I folemnly proteft, I had no hand in it. Mofes was our next; and, after an interval of twelve years, we had two fons

more.

It would be fruitlefs to deny my exultation, when I faw my little ones about me; but the va nity and fatisfaction of my wife were even greater than mine. When our visitors would ufually fay, "Well, upon my word, Mrs. Primrose, you "have the fineft children in the whole country." "Ay, neighbour," he would anfwer, "they are

as heaven made them, handsome enough, if "they be good enough; for handsome is, that "handfome does." And then she would bid the

girls hold up their heads; who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handfome. Mere outfide is fo very trifling a circumftance with me, that I fhould fcarce have remembered to mention it, had it not been a general topick of converfation in the country. Olivia, now about eighteen, had that luxuriancy of beauty with which painters generally draw Hebe; open, fprightly, and commanding. Sophia's feature's were not fo ftriking at first; but often did more certain execution; for they were foft, modeft, and alluring. The one vanquished by a fingle blow, the other by efforts fucceffively repeated.

The temper of a woman is generally formed from the turn of her features, at least it was fo with my daughters. Olivia wifhed for many lovers, Sophia to secure one. Olivia was often affected, from too great a defire to please. Sophia even repreffed excellence, from her fears to offend. The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her fense when I was ferious. But thefe qualities were never carried to excefs in either; and I have often feen them. exchange characters for a whole day together. A fuit of mourning has transformed my coquette into a prude; and a new set of ribbands given her younger fifter more than natural vivacity. My eldeft fon George was bred at Oxford, as I intended him for one of the learned profeffions. My fecond boy, Mofes, whom I defigned for bufi- . ness, received a fort of a miscellaneous education at home. But it would be needless to attempt defcribing

A 5

fcribing the particular characters of young people that had feen but very little of the world. In fhort, a family likeness prevailed through all; and, properly speaking, they had but one character, that of being all equally generous, credulous, fimple, and inoffenfive.

CHA P. II.

Family misfortunes. The lofs of fortune only ferves to increase the pride of the worthy.

THE

'HE temporal concerns of our family were chiefly committed to my wife's management: as to the spiritual, I took them entirely under my own direction. The profits of my living, which amounted but to thirty-five pounds a year,

I

gave to the orphans and widows of the clergy of our diocefe; for, having a fufficient fortune of my own, I was careless of temporalities, and felt a fecret pleasure in doing my duty without reward. I alfo fet a refolution of keeping no curate, and of being acquainted with every man in the parish, exhorting the married men to temperance, and the bachelors to matrimony; fo that, in a few years, it was a common faying, That there were three ftrange wants at Wakefield, a parfon wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and ale-houses wanting customers.

Matrimony