fellows deserve a horsepond for their impertinence."—" Nay, but in truth," replied Miss Caustic, my Lord knows nothing of the matter.

Then

He carries so much of the town-atmosphere, as you call it, about him. He does not rise till eleven, nor breakfast till twelve. he has his steward with him for one hour, his architect for another, his layer out of ground for a third. After this he sometimes gallops out for a little exercise, or plays at billiards within doors; dines at a table of twenty covers; sits very late at his bottle; plays cards, except when my Lady chuses dancing, till midnight; and they seldom part till sun-rise." "And so ends," said the Colonel, " your Idyllium on my Lord Grubwell's rural occupations."

We heard the tread of a horse in the court, and presently John entered with a card in his hand; which his master no sooner threw his eyes on, than he said,

"But you need not describe, sister; our friend may see, if he inclines it. That card (I could tell the chaplain's fold at a mile's distance) is my Lord's annual invitation to dinner. Is it not, John ?""It is my Lord Grubwell's servant, sir," said John. His master read the card: "And as he understands the Colonel has at present a friend from town with him, he requests that he would present that gentleman his Lordship's compliments, and intreat the honour of his company also."" Here is another card, Sir, for Miss Caustic."-" Yes, yes, she always gets a counterpart."-" But I shant go," said his sister; "her Ladyship has young ladies enow to make fools of; an old woman is not worth the trouble."—" Why then, you must say so," answered her brother; "for the chaplain has a note here at the bottom, that an answer is requested. I suppose your great folks nowa-days contract with their maitre d'hotel

by the head; and so they save half-acrown, when one don't set down one's name for a cover."-But, spite of the half-crown, you must go," said the Colonel to me;" you will find food for moralising; and I shall like my own dinner the better. So return an answer accordingly,' sister; and do you hear, John, give my Lord's servant a slice of cold beef and a tankard of beer in the mean time. It is possible he is fed upon contract too; and for such patients, I believe, sister Peggy, Dr Buchan's Domestic Medicine recommends cold beef and a tankard."

No 33. SATURDAY, September 17, 1785.

I MENTIONED in my last paper, that my friend Colonel Caustic and I had accepted an invitation to dine with his neighbour Lord Grubwell. Of that dinner I am now to take the liberty of giving some account to my readers. It is one advantage of that habit of observation, which, as a thinking Lounger, I have acquired, that from most entertainments I can carry something more than the mere dinner away. I remember an old acquaintance of mine, a jolly carbuncle-faced fellow, who used to give an account of a company by the single circumstance of the liquor they could swallow. At such a

dinner was one man of three bottles, four of two, six of a bottle and a half, and so on; and as for himself, he kept a sort of journal of what he had pouched, as he called it, at every place to which he had been invited during a whole winter. My reckoning is of another sort; I have sometimes carried off from a dinner, one, two, or three characters, swallowed half a dozen anecdotes, and tasted eight or ten insipid things, that were not worth the swallowing. I have one advantage over my old friend, I can digest what, in his phrase, I have pouched, without a headach.

When we sat down to dinner at Lord Grubwell's, I found that the table was occupied in some sort by two different parties, one of which belonged to my, lord, and the other to my lady. At the upper end of my lord's sat Mr Placid, a man agreeable by profession, who has no corner in his mind, no prominence in his