LETTERS TO BRYANTON AND CONTAKINE. "dismally in a gtoape by themselves. On the other end stand their pensive partners, that are to be : but no more intercourse between the sexes than there '' is between two countries at war :_the ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen "sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length to interrupt "hostilities, the lady directress or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a '' gentleman and lady to walk a minuet; which they perform with a formality that "approaches to despondence. After five or sk couple have thus walked the "gauntlet, all stand up to country dances• each gentleman furnished with a " partner from the aforesaid lady directress; so they dance much and say nothing, ''and thus concludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such profound "silence resembled the ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honour of " Ceres ; and the Scotch gentleman told me (and faith, I believe he was right) " that I was a very great pedant for my pains. " Now I am come to the ladies, and to shew that I love Scotland, and " everything that belongs to so charming a country, I insist on it, and will give " him leave to break my head that denies it, that the Scotch ladies are ten " thousand times handsomer and finer than the Irish:—to he sure now I see " your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality, but tell them " flatly, I don't value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or------, " a potato ; for I say it, and will maintain it, and as a convincing proof (I'm "in a very great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. " But to be less serious; where will you find a language so pretty become a "pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? and the women here speak it in its '' highest purity; for instance, teach one of their young ladies to pronounce '' ' Whoar wull I gong ?' with a becoming wideness of mouth, and 111 lay my life " they will wound every hearer. '' We have no such character here as a coquet; but, alas ! how many envious " prudes I Some days ago I walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, " my lord is but a glover), when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed " her beauty to ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) "passed by in her chariot; her battered husband, or more properly the guardian " of her charms, sat by her side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no less " than three ladies who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form.—'For " ' my part,' says the first, 'I think, what I always thought, that the Duchess " ' has too much red in her complexion.' ' Madam, I'm of your opinion,' says " tlio second ; ' I think her face has a palish cast too much on the delicate order1. " 'And let mo tell you,' adds the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to "the size of an issue, 'that the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth.' " At this every lady drew up her mouth as if going to pronounce the letter P. " But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women with whom I " have scarce any correspondence ! There are, 'tis certain, handsome women " here ; and 'tis as certain there are handsome men to keep them company. An " ugly and a poor man is society for himself; and such society the world lets me " enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, and nature a " person to" look charming in the eyes of the fair world. Nor do I envy my " dear Bob such blessings while I may sit down and laugh at the world, and at " myself, the most ridiculous object in it.—But I begin to grow splenetic; and " perhaps, the fit may continue till I receive an answer to this. I know you " can't send news from B[ally]mahon, but such as it is send it all; everything f-crown ?' I .....41««f Um hnson "making a line" . 434