1

As

the language with great purity and volubility of
tongue, together with all the fashionable phrafes and
compliments now in ufe either at tea-tables or vi-
fiting-days. Thofe that have good voices may be
taught to fing the newest opera-airs, and, if requir-
ed, to fpeak either Italian or French, paying fomething
extraordinary above the common rates. They whose
friends are not able to pay the full prices may be
taken as half-boarders. She teaches fuch as are de-
figned for the diverfion of the public, and to act in
enchanted woods on the theatres, by the great.
She has often obferved with much concern how inde-
cent an education is ufually given these innocent
creatures, which in fome measure is owing to their
being placed in rooms next the street, where, to the
great offence of chafte and tender ears, they learn
ribaldry, obfcene fongs, and immodeft expressions from
paffengers, and idle people, as alfo to cry fish and
card-matches, with other ufelefs parts of learning. to
birds who have rich friends, he has fitted up proper
and neat apartments for them in the back part of her
faid houfe; where fhe fuffers none to approach them
but herself, and a fervant-maid who is deaf and
dumb, and whom she provided on purpose to prepare
their food, and cleanfe their cages; having found by
long experience, how hard a thing it is for thofe to
keep filence who have the use of speech, and the dan-
gers her fcholars are exposed to by the strong impref
fions that are made by harsh founds and vulgar dia-
lects. In fhort, if they are birds of any parts or
capacity, he will undertake to render them fo
complished in the compafs of a twelvemonth, that
they fhall be fit converfation for fuch Ladies as love
to chufe their friends and companions out of this
Species.

R

THURSDAY,

DRYDEN.

OME months ago, my friend Sir ROGER, being in the country, inclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain Lady whom I fhall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of confcquence, defired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her Ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was defired by her woman to walk into her Lady's library, until fuch time as she was in a readiness to receive me. The very found of a Lady's Library gave me a great curiofity to fee it; and as it was fome time before the Lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the Folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of China, placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The Quartos were feparated from the Octavos by a pile of fmaller veffels, which rofe in a delightful pyramid. The Octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and fizes, which were fo difpofed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the fineft ftrokes of fculpture, and flained with the greatest variety of dyes. That part of the library which was defigned for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loofe papers, was inclosed in a kind of square, confifting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I VOL. I. faw,

faw, and made up of fcaramouches, lions, monkies, mandarines, trees, fhells, and a thousand other odd figures in China ware. In the midft of

the room was a little Japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a filver fnuffbox made in the fhape of a little book. I found there were feveral other counterfeit books upon the upper fhelves, which were carved in wood, and ferved only to fill up the number like faggots in the mufter of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleafed with fuch a mixt kind of furniture, as feemed very fuitable both to the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first whether I fhould fancy myself in a grotto, or in a library.

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were fome few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because fhe had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among feveral that I examined, I very well remember thefe that follow.

Ogleby's Virgil.

Dryden's Juvenal.
Caffandra.

Cleopatra.

Aftræa.

Sir Ifaac Newton's Works.

The Grand Cyrus; with a pin ftuck in one of the

middle leaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia.

Locke of Human Understanding; with a paper of patches in it.

A Spelling-book.

A Dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock upon Death.

The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Effays.

Father

Father Malbranche's Search after Truth, tranflat

ed into English.

A book of Novels.

The Academy of Compliments.

Culpepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies calling.

Tales in Verfe by Mr. Durfey; bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in feveral places.

All the Claffic Authors in wood.

A fet of Elzevirs, by the fame hand.

Clelia; which opened of itself in the place that defcribes two lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a key to it.
Mr. Steele's Chriftian Hero.

A Prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the fide of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial.

Seneca's Morals.

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.

La Ferte's Inftructions for Country-dances.

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these, and several other authors, when Legnora entered, and, upon my prefenting her with the letter from the knight, told me with an unfpeakable grace, that the hoped Sir ROGER was in good health: I anfwered, res, for I hate long fpeeches; and, after a bow or two, retired.

Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is ftill a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years; and, being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a refolution never to venture upon a fecond. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir ROGER. But, as the mind

mind naturally finks into a kind of lethargy, and falls afleep, that is not agitated by fome favourite pleasures and purfuits, Leonora has turned all the paffions of her fex into a love of books and retirement. She converfes chiefly with men, (as she has often faid herself), but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male-vifitants, except my friend Sir ROGER, whom she hears with great pleafure, and without fcandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her houfe, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir ROGER has entertained me an hour together with a defcription of her country-feat, which is fituated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles diftant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are fhaped into artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jeffamines. The woods are cut into fhady walks, twifted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. The fprings are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewife collected into a beautiful lake, that is inhabited by a couple of fwans, and empties itself by a little rivulet, which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The Purling Stream. The knight likewife tells me, that this lady preferves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country, not (fays Sir ROGER) that fhe fets fo great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales: for the fays, that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a confort, and that she fhall certainly miss him the next year.

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which fhe has formed to herfelf, how

much