"doute pas que vous avez perusé les ouvraiges "de Mongfeer le Counte de Bouffon; que un "charmang creature! il met philofophes et di"vins par les oreilles." That is, "I doubt "not that you have read the works of Count "Buffon; what a charming creature! he sets "philofophers and divines by the ears." I answered her, that I had never read the works of that renowned author, but that I had read the Principia of Sir Ifaac Newton. Why, indeed, replied fhe, Sir Ifaac may have been a man of better principles, but affbeurement the theories of the Count are wittier.

It is a happy circumftance that Mifs Winterbottom did not make the grand tour. Had the vifited Italy, fhe would have proved as great an adept in statuary and in painting, as she is at prefent in philofopy. But Mifs Winterbottom cannot, in confcience, talk of her having vifited Italy, while her travels were limited to the borders of Piedmont.

I never heard her mention Italy but once, and then he got no great encouragement to proceed in her remarks. At dinner she said, "I remember that, in Italy, they have fome

thing very like our veal, which they call "vitello." "Well, Sifter Fuddy," cried Cap

tain Winterbottom," and why should they not? " for if vitello means veal in their lingo, what "elfe would you have the poor devils call * it?"

It was refolved to poftpone my leffons for a while, "that," as Mr Flint expreffed it, "I might come to know the ways of the house "firft."

Mifs Juliana constantly teased me with queftions about my plan for her nephew's education. To puzzle her a little, I faid, that, fome weeks hence, I proposed to teach him to make "nonfenfe verfes. "Mifericorde," cried fhe, "nonfenfe verfes!" Is that part of the etiquaitte?

"Let the boy alone," added Captain Winterbottom, "when he is old enough to be in "love, he will make nonfenfe verfos, I warn't "you, without any help of your's; ay, al"though it fhould be on Mamma's dairy"maid." Mr Flint laughed loud, and Mrs Flint faid gently, "Oh! fy, brother.".

Perceiving that, on this encouragement, the captain was about to be more witty, I recalled the converfation to nonfenfe verfes, endca-' voured to explain their nature, and obferved,

that their main ufe was to inftruct one in the

quantity of fyllables.

Quantity of fyllables," exclaimed the captain, there is modern education for you! Boys have their heads lumbered with great quantities of Latin fyllables and words, when "they should be taught to understand things, "to speak their own language rough and "round, and fo cut a figure in parliament. "I remember Will. Fitzdriver; but he is gone! Honeft Will. knew no tongue ex

cept a little of his own, and yet he would "talk to you for an hour, and you would "have thought that he had fcarcely entered on the fubject at all. He never valued any "of your outlandish lingos, not he !"

I said, that, if my pupil were of an age to go into parliament, I fhould be apt to advise him to follow the precepts of Pythagoras, and be filent for feven years. "He muft have "been a fure card, that Mr Pythagoras," obferved the captain, " and I do fuppofe that "he lived up to his own precepts; for I ne"ver heard of any speaker of that name; no, "not even in committees. People, to be "fure, may hold their tongues, and have a "flice of the great pudding; but this is not a

"time for your dumb fenators. No, we must "have bold, well-fpoken men, to tell poor "Britannia, that fhe is beggared, and bleed❝ing, and expiring, ay, and dead too, for "ought that fome folks care." He rounded this pathetical period with one of his best oaths.

“Were all men to make fpeeches,” said I, "what time would there be left for doing bu"finefs?" "Bufinefs," cried the captain, "is not oratory bufinefs? and why cannot "they fet to it, watch and watch, as we do at "fea?"

Mrs Flint expreffed her hope, that I would not load her poor boy's memory, by making him get a deal by heart.

"When I first got the multiplication-table "by heart," said Mr Flint, who generally falls. in the rear of converfation, "it was a plaguy "troublesome job; but now that I am mafter "of it, I don't perceive that it loads my memory at all."

66.

"Learned men have remarked," faid Mifs Juliana, "that it is not the getting by heart "that is cenfurable, but the getting by rote,. "as one does one's catechifm."

"There he goes, the travelled lady,” cried

the

the captain; " fhe muft always have a fling at "her catechifm."

"Mr Winterbottom," replied Mifs Juliana, with exceeding dignity, you wrong me

"much. I am fure that I fhould be the last "woman alive to fay any thing, especially in "mixed companies, to the difparagement of "the religion of the ftate, which I have al"c ways confidered as the great lyeng [lien] of "fociety."

"You have always confidered religion as "great lying; and who taught you that, fifter "Juddy? your god-fathers and your god"mothers! No, fure."

Here I was laid under the neceffity of interpofing, and of affuring Captain Winterbottom, that he mistook his fifter, and that she had inadvertently used a French word to exprefs her own idea," that religion was the great tie of "fociety." Perhaps I prevaricated a little int my office of interpreter.

"Well, well," faid the captain, "if her "tongue was tied, fociety would be no lofer."

To divert the ftorm which feemed gathering, I spoke of my purpose to explain the tenth fatire of Juvenal, a poem, for method, compofition,