N° 105. TUESDAY, May 9, 1780. HE winter, which, like an untaught vi Tfitor, had fitor, had prolonged its stay with us to a very unreasonable length, has, at last, given place to vernal breezes and a more indulgent fky; and many of my readers will now leave the business or amufements of the town, for the purer air and lefs tumultuous enjoyments of the country. As I have, now and then, ventured fome obfervations on the manners and fashions of the former, I could not forbear, from a friendly concern for those whom the season now calls into the latter, to offer a few remarks on certain errors which are more generally prevalent in the country. My laft paper was intended for the ferious perufal of country-gentlemen. I mean, in this, to make a few lighter obfervations on fome little failings, in point of manners, to which I have feen a propensity in country-gentlemen, country-ladies, and in those who, though of the town for the greatest part of the year, make their appearance, like the cuckow (I mean no offence by the comparison), when the trees have put on their leaves, and the meadows their verdure. + In the first place, I would beg of those who migrate from the city, not to carry too much of the town with them into the country. I will allow a lady to exhibit the newest-fafhioned cut in her riding-habit, or to aftonifh a countrycongregation with the height of her head-dress; and a gentleman, in like manner, to fport, as they term it, a grotesque pattern of a waistcoat, or to fet the children agape by the enormous fize of his buckles. These are privileges to which gentlemen and ladies may be thought to have intitled themselves by the expence and trouble of a winter's refidence in the capital. But there is a provoking, though a civil fort of confequence fuch people are apt to affume in converfation, which, I think, goes beyond the juft prerogative of township, and is a very unfair encroachment on the natural rights of their friends and relations in the country. They fhould confider, that though there are certain fubjects of ton and fashion, on which they may pronounce ex cathedra (if I may be allowed so pedantic a phrafe), yet that, even in the country, the fenfes of hearing, feeing, tafting, and smelling, may be enjoyed to a certain extent; and that a perfon may like or diflike a new fong; a new luteftring, a French difh, or an Italian perfume, though fuch perfon has been unfortunate enough enough to pass last winter at a hundred miles diftance from the metropolis. On the other hand, it is but fair to inform the ladies and gentlemen of the country, that there is a certain deference which ought to be paid, in those matters, to the enlightened judgment of their friends, who are newly arrived from the feat of information and of knowledge. I have heard a lady in the country, when her coufin from Edinburgh had been very obligingly communicating fome extraordinary piece of intelligence, or exhibiting fome remarkable piece of dress or finery, cut her fhort, by faying, with all the coolness in the world, "That is " fingular enough, but it is nothing to what I "heard from Mifs B, with whom I "have correfponded ever fince fhe went to "London," or, "This is very pretty, to be "fure, but not to be compared to Mrs. C's " which he had fent her in a prefent from Pa"ris." This fort of brag-playing in conversation I have sometimes heard carried to a very difagreeable length, which would be in a great measure prevented, if people were not to be allowed credit for what they may have heard, or have been told, but to take confequence only from what they have feen. If we town-people are to be thus out-wondered on report, there is an end of all order and fubordination in the matter. To borrow another allufion from the game above mentioned, I think it is but reafonable, that the wonders of perfons from town fhould take the fame precedence of the wonders of the people in the country, that natural cards do of makers. 1 ༥』 But it is fometimes from the oppofite feeling, from too high an idea of the importance of their town vifitors, that the good people of the country are apt to fall into improprieties. It is wonderful to see the confufion into which the appearance of the new-fafhioned carriage of a gentleman juft arrived from town throws the family, especially the female part of it, of his rural neighbour. Such a peeping from windows, fuch a running backwards and forwards of bare-headed boys and girls to fetch their mafter from the field, and their mistress from the wash-house! Then, after waiting a long while in the parlour, which the chamber-maid has had but time to put half in order, comes the old lady with fome awkward apology, followed by a fcold to the maid for leaving her rubber or hearth-brush in view of the company. By and by appears the master of the house, with another apology, for appearing before ladies in his farmer's dress. After a long series of common enquiries, a frequent pulling out of watches on the part of the vifitors, and two or three meffages meffages up ftairs from the mistress of the family; down come the young ladies, with their caps awry, their long pins but half stuck in, their hair powdered in patches, and their aprons ftiff from the folds. Here follows a fecond course of the fame questions and answers, which being closed by an observation of the late hour from the one fide, and fome ftrictures on the fhortness of town-vifits from the other, the company are fuffered to depart, who, it is ten to one, laugh all the way home at the good people who were at fuch pains to make themfelves fit, as they thought, to be seen by them. Let these last remember, that there is a ftile, as it is called, proper, to every thing; decency and cleanlinefs they owe to themselves; an imitation of the fafhionable fineries of the town they owe to nobody; most of these, indeed, are quite prepofterous in the country; it is only when people get into crowds that they are at liberty to make fools of themfelvés. As I have, in the beginning of this paper, defired the city-emigrants not to carry the town into the country, fo I must intreat their country friends not to forget that the others have but lately arrived there. Their relish for draining, ditching, hedging, horfe-hoeing, liming, and marling, and fuch other branches of the fine arts as an afternoon's converfation at a gentleN 6 man |