ourselves. Is not that river enslaved, to all intents and purposes, which, having quitted its own channel, and poured itself into a low and hollow valley, is there confined for ever, and blended with mud and filth? But many streams are misled by pride, and think it more glorious to become lakes, or little independent seas, as they affect to be styled, than make a part of the great ocean. The Caspian, who apes and opposes the ocean, hath drawn in many, and very considerable rivers, by this blind passion for independency. How grossly do the Jaxartes, the Wolga, the Oxus, and many others, mistake the nature of grandeur and independency, when they rob the ocean of his right, and give up, for ever, the inestimable privilege of incorporating with him, to become the despicable tributaries and vassals of the Caspian!

'I shall conclude on this important occasion, with reminding you once more, that if you have any sense of either duty or gratitude, you will not separate, till you have sufficiently provided against the enormities represented to you at the opening of this assembly: I must also tell you, that it is your greatest interest to do this; because if you do not, it is but reasonable to fear, the ocean, or the sun, will soon interpose, and, by a universal deluge, or conflagration, totally destroy all the rivers.'

Thus ended the Euphrates. After a long jangle about the origin of waters, and the nature and extent of liberty, the assembly broke up, in a very tumultuous manner, without coming to any resolution; and the day being far advanced, the sun retired towards the ocean, to confer with him about what had passed.

ALLUSION XIII.

THE parents of Miss Veridet left this world when she was but an infant. Her father, who was the best of men, was engaged, during his whole life, in a lawsuit for an immense estate, to which he had a most unquestionable right; but those, who had possessed themselves of it, relying on great art and power, kept him out for a long time; yet, finding

at length that he began to gain ground, suborned witnesses against him, who accused him of high crimes, for which, although his innocence fully appeared on the trial, he was put to death in the most public and ignominious manner. Miss Veridet was recommended by her father, a little before his death, to the justice of her cause, and the care of Mrs. Le Clerk, her nurse, who was a very good woman, and had an infinite affection for the child. Such early and extraordinary indications of understanding, goodness, and beauty never appeared in any child, as in this. At the age when other children can scarcely speak, her knowledge was superior to that of the wisest men; she was the arbitress of all disputes, and the reconciler of differences throughout the whole neighbourhood. Her faithful nurse took care always to set her in the most favourable point of light, and to shew her to the greatest advantage. By these means they gained many friends, who contributed what they could spare towards their support, and revived the suit for the great estate, which Miss was entitled to by the death of her father. The usurpers, alarmed at this, tried all ways and means, first to alienate their friends from them, and then to take away the life of the child. But nurse, by her extreme vigilance and prudence, so managed matters, that they were defeated in all their schemes. Upon this, for want of better means, they betook themselves to open force. Here nurse acted her part inimitably well, for which she suffered the most inexpressible hardships. As she fled from place to place with the child, sometimes hiding her, and at other times calling their friends to her assistance, she was frequently seized, imprisoned, and scourged in the most cruel manner for her fidelity. Many also of those, who were resolute enough to shew themselves in the defence of nurse and the child, were put to death with unheard-of barbarity, their persecutors shewing themselves very ingenious in the contrivance of cruelties to torture and destroy them. This, however, did only serve to increase both their zeal and numbers, insomuch, that in a little time a great part of Miss Veridet's tenants declared openly for her, and one or other of the great ones began every day to augment her party. These worthies made her cause their own, and gave nurse such liberal contribu

tions for the maintenance of the child and herself, that the lawsuit was carried on with great vigour; and, as nurse was a most excellent manager, and prodigiously sparing in her own expenses, Miss was nobly supported, and enabled to gratify the boundless goodness of her nature, in the relief of the distressed, who flocked to her from all parts for meat, medicine, and clothes, which nurse, by her directions, supplied them with in great abundance. About this time nurse began to be afflicted with hysteric fits, in which, although not very violent at first, she was sometimes slightly convulsed, and seemed to be threatened with an increase of the disorder. However, Miss no sooner entered the room, than her fits vanished, and she was perfectly well. After this salutary experiment had been several times tried, she determined never to trust herself again to the irregular motions of her own spirits, but always to keep Miss so near her, that her distemper might be checked in its first attacks.

Nurse being now no longer looked upon as a poor woman in distress, a certain great lord in the neighbourhood, who kept a very splendid court, fell deeply in love with her, and she being not altogether divested of the ambition so natural to her sex, entertained his passion with a very favourable ear. He, for his part, made his court with all imaginable civilities and services both to her and Miss; and nurse, on her part, began to dress a little more genteelly, and affect the airs of a person of quality. At first they contented themselves with repeated visits, but nurse having tasted the sweets of grandeur, after some time removed with Miss to his lordship's house, and there took up her abode. From thenceforward she set no bounds to her gaieties; she was always foremost and highest in the fashion. When high heads were the mode, hers overtopped all the heads at court. When furbelows came up, she was nothing but furbelow from top to toe. At other times she was all lace and fringe. As she was naturally of an humble stature, she supplied that defect with high heels, which at first cost her some indecent falls, nor did she scruple now and then to lay on a little paint to disguise the too venerable lines of her countenance, and brighten it with a fresh bloom.

These arts drew in many admirers, who shared with

his lordship in her good graces and encouragements, of which she was by no means over-sparing. These gentlemen, who from a depraved notion of grandeur became her lovers, were hers only; Miss had no share in their friendship, although indeed they all treated her with great complaisance and good manners.

As for the plainer sort of people, they thought her less agreeable in the midst of so much dress and equipage than formerly, when she shewed herself every day with an air of good humour and familiarity in a decent homespun gown. They said she made but a stiff and awkward appearance, squeezed up in her new stays, and stuck about with pendants, and bracelets, and rings, in which her fingers, grown hard and inflexible with industry in her more sober days, looked ungainly enough. In their opinions the good woman made a very strange ungraceful figure in a palace, in a gilt coach, and among people, who from their infancy had been trained up to little else than a fine address and mien.

The wiser people were apprehensive of very ill consequences from this strange turn in her head, and began to fear lest Miss too might suffer by it in the end. As for Miss herself, she saw plainly what would come on it, and did not fail from time to time to hint her sentiments to nurse in very intelligible terms, which, they say, occasioned a little coolness and misunderstanding between them. Miss, who quickly found herself no fit person for a court, by the mere compliments that were made her, under which she could easily discover a settled distaste, spent most of her time, either in her closet, or walking abroad all alone among the fields, and now and then stepping in to chat for half an hour with a country acquaintance. During these intervals of absence, nurse had many and grievous fits of her disorder, in which she was all over torn with convulsions, her hands beating one another, her feet clashing together, and kicking with excessive violence, and her face so shockingly distorted, that many of her delicate admirers, were mightily cooled in their affections, and some of them even conceived an utter dislike to her. On such occasions Miss was sometimes called in to the great relief of her nurse: although, as the poor gentlewoman's disorder in

creased, Miss's presence had still less and less effect upon her. She was so happy as to be relieved out of one very outrageous fit by his lordship's coming into the room; the vast respect she had for him, recalling her tumultuous spirits to order, in a very surprising manner. After this she

never sent for Miss when she was ill, but always had recourse to his lordship, whose presence in some time, was observed to stupify her disorder, and to change it into another, more continual and lasting, but still of the hysteric kind.

Miss finding she was no longer regarded by her nurse as a person either useful or agreeable, retired among her own tenants, where she met with a kind welcome from some, although the greater part were so enslaved to nurse and his lordship, that they treated poor Miss with great neglect, and the more because she came unattended, and had so little of grandeur or quality about her.

After this nurse and she seldom saw each other, and when they did, it was by no means to the satisfaction of either. Nurse told her she was too inflexible in her temper, and too rough in her behaviour; that the success of her affairs depended absolutely on an opposite way of carrying herself; that the great folks, who had already shewn themselves so favourably disposed towards her, were highly disgusted at her severe and disobliging deportment; and that the recovery of her fortune depended absolutely on serving the times, and being well with the great ones. To these allegations Miss retorted that nurse's behaviour was vain and unbecoming her years; that she was acting out of character; that dissimulation, and flattery, and pomp, neither became her as a good woman, nor as her nurse; and concluded a little tartly, that though nurse Le Clerk's separate interest, might depend absolutely on the favour of the great, yet Miss Veridet's neither did nor ever should. Nurse, who was grown excessively proud, could not bear this reply, but flung away with great indignation, and shook off her chagrin in her coach, which hurried her home to the card-table, and a company of very fashionable visitors.

Although nurse took no farther care of her charge, yet she continued to receive Miss's rents, which she expended