When she was last with me, (three happy weeks together!) in every visit the wretch made her, he left her more dissatisfied with him than in the former. And yet his behaviour before her was too specious to have been very exceptionable to a woman who had a less share of that charming delicacy, and of that penetration, which so much distinguished her.
In obedience to the commands of her gloomy father, on his allowing her to be my guest, for that last time, (as it most unhappily proved!) she never would see him out of my company; and would often say, when he was gone, “O my Nancy! this is not the man!”—At other times, “Gay, giddy creature! he has always something to be forgiven for!”—At others, “This man will much sooner excite one’s fears than attract one’s love.” And then would she repeat, “This is not the man. All that the world says of him cannot be untrue. But what title have I to call him to account, who intend not to have him?”
In short had she been left to a judgment and discretion, which nobody ever questioned who had either, she would soon have discovered enough of him to cause her to discard him forever.
She was an admirable mistress of all the graces of elocution. The hand she wrote, for the neat and free cut of her letters, (like her mind, solid, and above all flourish), for its fairness, evenness, and swiftness, distinguished her as much as the correctness of her orthography, and even punctuation, from the generality of her own sex; and left her none, among the most accurate of the other, who excelled her.
And here you may, if you please, take occasion to throw in one hint for the benefit of such of our sex as are too careless in their orthography, (a consciousness of a defect which generally keeps them from writing).—She was used to say, “It was a proof that a woman understood the derivation as well as sense of the words she used, and that she stopped not at sound, when she spelt accurately.”
On this head you may take notice, that it was always matter of surprise to her, that the sex are generally so averse as they are to writing; since the pen, next to the needle, of all employments, is the most proper, and best adapted to their geniuses; and this, as well for improvement as amusement: “Who sees not,” would she say, “that those women who take delight in writing excel the men in all the graces of the familiar style? The gentleness of their minds, the delicacy of their sentiments, (improved by the manner of their education, and the liveliness of their imaginations, qualify them to a high degree of preference for this employment); while men of learning, as they are called, (that is to say, of mere learning), aiming to get above that natural ease and freedom which distinguish this, (and indeed every other kind of writing), when they think they have best succeeded, are got above, or rather beneath, all natural beauty.”
Then, stiffened and starched (let me add) into dry and indelectable affectation, one sort of these scholars assume a style as rough as frequently are their manners; they spangle over their productions with metaphors; they tumble into bombast: the sublime, with them, lying in words, and not in sentiment, they fancy themselves most exalted when least understood; and down they sit, fully satisfied with their own performances, and call them masculine. While a second sort, aiming at wit, that wicked misleader, forfeit all title to judgment. And a third, sinking into the classical pits, there poke and scramble about, never seeking to show genius of their own; all their lives spent in commonplace quotation; fit only to write notes and comments upon other people’s texts; all their pride, that they know those beauties of two thousand years old in another tongue, which they can only admire, but not imitate, in their own.
And these, truly, must be learned men, and despisers of our insipid sex!
But I need not mention the exceptions which my beloved friend always made (and to which I subscribe) in favour of men of sound learning, true taste, and extensive abilities; nor, in particular, her respect even to reverence for gentlemen of the cloth; which, I dare say, will appear in every paragraph of her letters wherever any of the clergy are mentioned. Indeed the pious Dr. Lewen, the worthy Dr. Blome, the ingenious Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Tompkins, gentlemen whom she names, in one article of her will, as learned divines with whom she held an early correspondence, well deserved her respect; since to their conversation and correspondence she owed many of her valuable acquirements.
Nor were the little slights she would now-and-then (following, as I must own, my lead) put upon such mere scholars (and her stupid and pedantic brother was one of those who deserved those slights) as despised not only our sex, but all such as had not had their opportunities of being acquainted with the parts of speech, (I cannot speak low enough of such), and with the dead languages, owing to that contempt which some affect for what they have not been able to master; for she had an admirable facility for learning languages, and read with great ease both in Italian and French. She had begun to apply herself to Latin; and having such a critical knowledge of her own tongue, and such a foundation from the two others, would soon have made herself an adept in it.
But, notwithstanding all her acquirements, she was an excellent economist and housewife. And those qualifications, you must take notice, she was particularly fond of inculcating upon all her reading and writing companions of the sex: for it was a maxim with her, “That a woman who neglects the useful and the elegant, which distinguish her own
