Miss Fraine, whose duteous attention to her tortured and frequently impatient father was most exemplary, after the dreadful catastrophe of her brother’s suicide, not wholly unaccountable from hereditary irregularities of system, seemed to have a dread (not aversion) of marriage. The tendency of her social feelings, strictly regulated and controlled by the reserve of modesty and the dignity of virtue, almost irresistibly inclined her best affections towards wedlock; whilst her extremely sensitive forethought shunned the general result of engagements ennobling to mankind in general, but appalling in many lights to herself.

During this state of mind, repeatedly avowing her contempt for birds, cats, and dogs, she expressed great attachment for infant children. Miss Fraine, in 1780, frequently expressed to a very near neighbour her ardent wish that a particular child were placed under her own sole and immediate management. “I cannot safely marry,” she would often observe, “but I shall undertake the charge of an infant’s education with delight.”

After making many serious colloquial attempts to reason against such an intention, the Rev. Weeden Butler sent some sportive lines to the highly gifted and unfortunate lady. It succeeded so far as to repress any further application by the lady, but her feelings remained the same. The following elegant jeu-d’esprit was written with similar effect. She appears to have possessed great sensibility of feeling without adequate reflection.

SALE OF A DAUGHTER,

In fairy guise and playful mood,
Euphrania, young and fair, and good,
Vows, if her friends a price would set
Upon their daughter Harriet,
Herself the gift of Heaven would buy,
And cherish it beneath her eye.
Does, then, Euphrania mean to say,
(If we would cast our young away,
Like ostriches) she’d prove a mother,
And rear the nestling of another?

Ye powers, it is a strange temptation!
Let us not treat it with flirtation.
Come, think upon it well, dear wife;
We love our offspring as our life.
Euphrania’s offer is adoption:
Take it, or leave it, is our option.

Heigho! I read your tearful eye,
“For the babe’s good we must comply.”
’Tis said, ’tis done. Now, in a trice,
Let us determine well the price;
And, shunning all superfluous joke,
Settle the worth of infant folk.
The bargain is as clear as water;
Full many a one has sold a daughter.

The consent of the parents having thus been obtained, the price to be given for the infant daughter is the next consideration. The following is a summary of the supposed value of the child:—

Imprimis. For a hazel eye,
And tongue that never told a lie, &c. 		£52 10 0
Item, for pranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles, &c. 		80 0 0
Item, for filial obedience,
One of our daughter’s chief ingredients, &c. 		100 0 0
Then, item, for her race and name,
Nearly in value both the same, &c. 		200 0 0
Item, for every hope and fear
That hitherto hath chequer’d care, &c. 		67 10 0
£500 0 0

For such a sale, to us are due
A Bond, and final Judgment too;
From you the former may be given,
The latter must be left to . . . Heaven.

Advised, pressed, solicited, nay, perhaps, commanded by an anxious father, this lady at last married. Soon afterwards she grew melancholy and desponding, and fell by her own hand, at her residence at Richmond, in the year 1785. She married Captain Fortescue.

Dr. Dominiceti’s Baths.—The dwelling house afterwards occupied by the Rev. Weeden Butler, a few doors from Flood Street, Cheyne Walk, was once inhabited by one Dominiceti, an Italian physician, of very considerable notoriety and talents. At this house he established medicinal baths for the cure of all diseases; and it was fitted up with pipes, &c., for the accommodation of numerous patients, who might choose to reside with him while they were under his care. In 1765 it is described as a large, pleasant, and convenient house, which contains four spacious and lofty parlours, two dining rooms, and thirteen bed chambers. On the east side of the garden, and directly communicating with the house, was erected an elegant brick and wooden building, 100-ft. long, and 16-ft. wide, in which were the baths and fumigatory stoves, etc. It appears, from his own account, that he expended about £37,000 altogether in erecting, contriving, and completing his house, and baths in Cheyne Walk.