knowledge, the thirft for change, the ambition to be deemed polite, occafion a continual influx into the metropolis from every corner of the kingdom. Hence a large and a widely dispersed and a continually encreafing acquaintance is the natural confequence of frequent refidence in London. If a married lady suffers herself to be drawn into the system of proceeding, to which fuch an acquaintance is generally feen to lead; useful occupations and improving pursuits are either at an end, or are carried on with extreme difadvantages, multiplied interruptions, declining activity, ardour, and fatisfaction. The morning, at least what is called the morning, is fwallowed up in driving from street to ftreet, from square to fquare, in pursuit of perfons whom she is afraid of difscovering, in knocking at doors where the dreads being admitted. Time is frittered away in a fort of small intercourse with numbers, for whom the feels little regard, and whom she knows to feel as little for herself. Yet every thing

breathes

ment.

breathes the spirit of cordiality and attachThe pleasure expreffed at meeting is fo warm, the enquiries after each other's health fo minute, the folicitude, if either party has caught a cold at the last opera, fo extreme; that a ftranger to the ways of high life, and to the true value of words in the modern dictionaries of compliment, would be in astonishment at such effusions of difinterested benevolence. Invitation fucceeds invitation; engagement preffes on engagement: etiquette offers, form accepts, and indifference affumes the air of gratitude and rapture. Thus a continual progress is made in the looks, the language, and the feelings of infincerity. A lady thus bufied, thus accomplished, becomes difinclined to friendship, or unqualified for it. She has too many acquaintance to be at leifure to have a friend. The unreftrained communication of fentiment, the concern of genuine fympathy, the manifestation of kind affections by deeds of kindness, require time, and calmness, and deliberation,

and

and retirement. They require what diffipation is least able and least willing to beftow.

Next to thofe principles of Chriftian "fobriety," which the Scriptures again and again inculcate on women, whether fingle or in matrimonial life, as well in precepts addreffed immediately to the female fex (p), as in others directed to Christians in general (q), one of the moft powerful prefervatives against this prevailing abufe of time, and all its unhappy effects on the mind, is a fettled habit of methodical employment. Let it be founded on a fair review of the feveral duties daily to be performed, and of their relative nature and importance. To devote with regularity certain hours to certain purposes may be somewhat more difficult in the crowd and hurry of the metropolis, than in the tranquillity of a rural refidence.

(p) Titus, ii. 4.-1 Tim. ii. 9. 15.-iii. 11.

(9) Thef. v. 6. 8.-1 Peter, i. 13.—iv. 7.—v. 8. -&c. &c.

But

1

But the fame circumftances, which caufe
the difficulty of adhering to a predetermined
plan, prove the neceffity of inftituting one
and of observing it. For how would that,
which can scarcely be attained even with
the aid of method and habit, be accom-
plished if left to depend on chance? Not
that adherence to plan is to be carried to
the punctilious excefs of never tolerating
the smallest deviation. But the danger of
acquiring a cuftom of deviating, and of
thus being gradually feduced from your re-
folution, is fo formidable, that fome oc-
cafional inconveniences may well be en-
dured in order to avoid it. In methodising
time, as in all plans of life, let the ftandard
which you propose to yourself be reafon-
able, if would find it ufeful. Cheat
not yourself into indolence by aiming at
little. Neither let your defire to perform
much lead you into the error of fetting
yourself to imitate a pattern, which
you are
aware is carried to an extreme, with the
view that notwithstanding your probable

you

deficiencies you may ftill reach what you already difcern to be the proper medium.

This is not fober and rational conduct. It is to attempt to prevent yourself from feeing what you cannot but fee. It is to try to impose on yourself by a scheme which you know to be an artifice. It is to prepare pretexts for remiffness, and temptations to abandon the whole undertaking. Proceed according to the plain dictates of common fenfe. Trace out to yourself the exact line which your judgement tells you that you ought to follow, and endeavour to pursue it with accuracy. Remember your domestic duties; inform your mind; advance in piety; be not fnatched into the wild vortex of amufements; dare to refuse an invitation. Be not fhaken from your rational purposes and rational mode of life by the surprise, the ridicule, the specious but hollow arguments, of the giddy and diffipated of your own fex; who "think it 'ftrange (r) that ye run not with them to

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