CHILDHOOD is not eafily dejected or mortified. We felt no lafting pain from infolence or neglect, but finding that we were favoured and commended by all whose interest did not prompt them to discountenance us, preferved our vivacity and fpirit to years of greater fenfbility. It then became irkfome and disgusting to live without any principle of action but the will of another, and we often met privately in the garden to lament our condition, and to ease our hearts with mutual narratives of caprice peevishness and affront,

THERE are innumerable modes of infult and tokens of contempt, for which it is not eafy to find a name, which vanish to nothing in an attempt to describe them, and yet may by continual repetition, make day pass after day in forrow and in terror. Phrases of curfory compliment and established falutation may by a different modulation of the voice or cast of the countenance convey contrary meanings, and be changed from indications of respect to expreffions of fcorn. The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little confults. his own tranquillity. My unhappy vigilance is every moment discovering fome petulance

of

of accent, or arrogance of mien, fome vehemence of interrogation, or quickness of reply that recals my poverty to my mind, and which I feel more acutely as I know not how to refent it.

You are not however to imagine that I think myself discharged from the duties of gratitude, only because my relations do not adjust their looks or tune their voices to my expectation. The infolence of benefaction terminates not in negative rudeness or obliquities of infult. I am often told in exprefs terms of the miseries from which charity has fnatched me, while multitudes are fuffered by relations equally near to devolve upon the parish; and have more than once heard it numbered among other favours that I am admitted to the fame table with my cousins.

THAT I fit at the firft table I muft acknowledge, but I fit there only that I may feel the ftings of inferiority. My enquiries are neglected, my opinion is overborn, my affer tions are controverted ; and, as infolence always propagates itself, the fervants overlook me in imitation of their mafter; if I call modeftly,

I am not heard, if loudly, my ufurpation of authority is checked by a general frown. I am often obliged to look uninvited upon delicacies, and fometimes defired to rife upon very flight pretences.

THE incivilities to which I am exposed would give me lefs pain were they not aggra→ vated by the tears of my fifter, whom the young ladies are hourly tormenting with every art of feminine perfecution. As it is faid of the fupreme magiftrate of Venice that he is a prince in one place and a flave in another, my fifter is a fervant to her coufins in their apartments, and a companion only at the table. Her wit and beauty draw so much regard away from them, that they never suffer her to appear with them in any place where they folicit notice, or expect admiration, and when they are vifited by neighbouring ladies and pass their hours in domeftic amufements, fhe is fometimes called to fill a vacancy, infulted with contemptuous freedoms, and difmiffed to her needle when her place is fupplied. The heir has of late by the inftigation of his sisters begun to harrafs her with clownish jocularity; he feems inclined to make his first rude effays

of

of waggery upon her, and by the connivance, if not encouragement of his father, treats her with fuch licentious brutality, as I cannot bear though I cannot punish it.

I BEG to be informed Mr. Rambler, how much we can befupposed to owe to beneficence, exerted on terms like these? to beneficence which polutes its gifts with contumely, and may be truly faid to pander to pride? I would willingly be told, whether infolence does not reward its own liberalities, and whether he that exacts fervility, can with justice at the fame time expect affection?

I am,

Sir, &c.

HYPERDULUS.

NUME.

NUME. 150. SATURDAY, August 242 1751.

A

O munera nondum

Intellecta Deum!

LUCAN.

S daily experience makes it evident that misfortunes are unavoidably incident to human life, that calamity will neither be repelled by fortitude, nor escaped by flight, neither awed by greatness, nor eluded by obfcurity; philofophers have endeavoured to reconcile us to that condition which they cannot teach us to mend, by perfuading us that most of our evils are made afflictive only by ignorance or perverseness, and that nature has annexed to every viciffitude of external circumftances, fome advantage fufficient to overbalance all its inconveniencies.

THIS attempt may perhaps be justly suspected of resemblance to the practice of phyficians, who when they cannot mitigate pain deftroy fenfibility, and endeavour to conceal by opiates the inefficacy of their other medicines. The panegyrifts of calamity have more frequently gained applause to their wit, than acquiefcence to their arguments; nor

has