NUMB. 51. TUESDAY, Sept. 10, 1750.

-Stultus labor eft ineptiarum.

How foolish is the toil of trifling cares!

SIR,

As you

To the RAMBLER.

MART. ELPHINSTON.

S have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of your attention, I have refolved, after many ftruggles with idleness and diffidence, to give you fome account of my entertainment in this fober season of univerfal retreat, and to defcribe to you the employments of those who look with contempt on the pleafures and diverfions of polite life, and employ all their powers of cenfure and invective upon the ufeleffnefs, vanity, and folly, of dress, vifits, and conversation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to the houfe, where invitation, regularly fent for feven years together, had at last induced me to pass the fummer, I was furprised, after the civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leifure and tranquillity, which a rural life always promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation, was, indeed, very full of the happiness which, the received from my vifit,

and,

and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, infifted that I fhould recompence the long delay of my company with a promise not to leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and careffes, fhe very frequently turned her head afide, and whifpered, with anxious earneftnefs, fome order to her daughters, which never failed to fend them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would not fuffer her to stay behind; fhe begged my pardon, she must leave me for a moment; fhe went, and returned and fat down again, but was again difturbed by fome new care, difmiffed her daughters with the fame trepidation, and followed them with the fame countenance of bufinefs and folicitude.

However I was alarmed at this fhow of eagerness and disturbance, and however my curiofity was excited by fuch busy preparations as naturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a ftranger to gratify myfelf with enquiries; but finding none of the family in mourning, I pleafed myself with imagining that I should rather fee a wedding than a funeral.

At last we fat down to fupper, when I was informed that one of the young ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to enquire, was under a neceffity of attending some affair that could not be neglected: Soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity of her family, and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let me know that they had purposed that night to go to bed fooner than was ufual, because they were to rife early in the morning to make cheesecakes. This hint fent me to my chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged

me

307 me to excufe fome large fieves of leaves and flowers that covered two thirds of the floor, for they intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no other room that fo conveniently received the rising fun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from reft, and therefore I rofe early in the morning with a' resolution to explore my new habitation. I ftole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found nothing either more great or elegant, than in the fame number of acres cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I foon learned that his lady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I was come hither at the time in which I might learn to make more pickles and conferves, than could be feen at any other house a hundred miles round.

It was not long before her ladyship gave me fufficient opportunities of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own accomplishments to conceal them, and took occa fion, from fome fweetmeats which the fet next day upon the table, to difcourfe for two long hours upon robs and gellies; laid down the best methods of conferving, referving, and preferving all forts of fruit; told us with great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these terms were very often confounded; and hinted how much the fhould be ashamed to fet before company, at her own house, fweetmeats of fo dark a colour as fhe had often feen at mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great bufinefs of her life, to watch the skillet on the fire, to fee it fimmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch it off

at

at the moment of projection; and the employments to which fhe has bred her daughters, are to turn rofe-leaves in the fhade, to pick out the feeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without bruifing it, and to extract bean-flower water for the skin. Such are the tasks with which every day, fince I came hither, has begun and ended, to which the early hours of life are facrificed, and in which that time is paffing away which never shall return.

But to reafon or expoftulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has fettled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own performances with all the firmnefs of stupidity accustomed to be flattered. Her daughters having never seen any house but their own, believe their mother's excellence on her own word. Her hufband is a mere sportsman, who is pleased to fee his table well furnished, and thinks the day fufficiently fuccefsful, in which he brings home a leash of hares to be potted by his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady foon told me that none of her books would fuit my tafte; for her part she never loved to fee young women give their minds to fuch follies, by which they would only learn to use hard words; the bred up her daughters to understand a houfe, and whoever should marry them, if they knew any thing of good cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary sciences too fublime for youthful intellects, myfteries into which they must not be initiated till the years of ferious maturity, and which are referred to the day of marriage,, as the fupreme qualification

qualification for connubial life. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all the neighbourhood, and which fhe has hitherto found means of mixing and baking with fuch fecrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its flavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this great affair with all the caution that human policy can fuggeft. It is never known before. hand when this pudding will be produced; fhe takes the ingredients privately into her own closet, employs her maids and daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven to be heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands, the mouth of the oven is then ftopped, and all enquiries are vain.

The compofition of the pudding he has, however, promifed Clarinda, that if the pleases her in marriage, fhe fhall be told without referve. But the art of making English capers she has not yet perfuaded herself to difcover, but feems refolved that fecret fhall perish with her, as fome alchymifts have obftinately fuppreffed the art of tranfmuting metals.

I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which fhe left upon the table, having intelligence that a veffel of gooseberry wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event fufficiently engroffed her care, to prevent any recollection of the danger to which her fecrets were expofed, I was not able to make ufe of the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was fo well concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, her mother, and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it, and loft the opportunity of con

fulting