The captain, her friend, is contriving a visto through some woods on her estate, to pay his debts; she tells every body, however, that he is not only possessed of all the graces, but an independant fortune. The next heir to the estate happens to be of a different opinion—his picture of captain Plume is all shade, hers all light. The former awkwardly imitates the style of Rembrandt, and with a dark pencil loves to describe hideous wrinkles and deformed features—but the latter artfully copies the taste of Titian, and brightens the canvas with all the lively glow of colouring. Perhaps if light and shade were properly blended together, we might behold a real likeness.—I don't like him. I mistake much if he is not conceited—you know I pretend a little to be a physiognomist as well as a botanist. In the natural world the external form of plants afford us a hint for a conjecture of their virtues. Almost all the plants of the same kinds are of the same virtues. The poisonous plants, natives of our soil, are hardly a dozen, and these are characterized even to the eye by something singular or dismal in the aspect.
When I wrote you I was jealous of Sir James's attentions to Miss Ords, I did not wish to be understood au piè du lettre—She has a vacant countenance, her youth only renders her passable. Her wit is not picquante, nor her manners alluring. She can answer yes and no, with tolerable success, nay sometimes hazards further: and when she goes to a comedy does not intreat the company to instruct her when she should laugh. Her father lives en Prince: like Lucullus, he plundered all Asia to assist him in house-keeping. Sir James was very lively in his usual way—She said she did not like puns, and had never made one in her life—I could not help answering—It's my opinion you never will.
You ask me if I have got no more lovers? To talk ingenuously with you—no; I know not what further inconveniences such an acquisition might put me to: and as it might probably happen (not on my account, but for my aunt's acres) I have whispered my passion for Sir James Mordaunt as a secret to Mrs M——; so you need not doubt but it has spread. She is an antiquated virgin, who endeavours to make chastity atone for the want of every other virtue. She wanted me sadly to ask her some question; I mortified my own curiosity, to punish her propensity to detraction.
Lady Dun is at last expired, notwithstanding the prayers of the faithful. Had she lived any longer, her piety must have ruined her family by her total want of economy, as she did the reputation of her neighbours by scandal.
Can so much gall in holy breasts reside?
Boileau's Lutrin. Canto I.
I met the following story lately in an old book; the writer appears to have been a person of great judgment, and not in the least given to credulity. He relates, that a certain man who had a wife that made this world his purgatory (though, according to the common acceptation, she was virtuous and prudent) happening to die some little time after her, he went to paradise, as soon as the breath was out of his body, as a reward for his patience in this world; being come to the gate, he knocks, the good man St Peter opens the door, and desires him very civilly to walk in, and take what seat in heaven he pleased. The husband stopped a moment to recollect himself; and then asks St Peter, Whether or not his wife was there? The good Saint answered in the affirmative: upon which the honest man, without staying for any thing further, takes to his heels and makes for the road to hell; rather choosing to renounce heaven, than be in the same place with his dear rib, whom he was well assured would, out of the abundance of her virtue, make heaven as great a hell to him, as she had done this earth.
I must now, my dear friend, tell you what sincerely grieves me. My brother equals yours in melancholy: before he went abroad, no man whatever had better spirits; but now, although he does not complain of any particular disorder, yet is he always indisposed—ever wretched, constantly sighing and lamenting. This affects my spirits much: "my heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea, which lifts its blue waves to every blast, and rolls beneath the storm!" But truth obliges me to confess that I cannot go on with my admired poet as—"The virgins have not as yet beheld me silent in the hall!" No, no no, it is not come to that yet! I relieve you from my company—be sensible of the obligation—let me hear from you soon, and believe me,
Your ladyship's
affectionate friend,
H. Bingley.'
From Lady Eliza Finlay to Miss Bingley.
'My dear Harriot,