witching vivacity: Her manners were wonderfully winning, and the tone of her voice fo sweet and infinuating, that her words and looks went directly to the heart. She had read many books of gaiety, wit, and humour; especially the French; and talked delightfully on fuch fubjects. She fang to perfection: but her converfation was too free, and the feemed to have no sense of any religion. It was a fine entertainment to be in her company, as I often was, yet I could not help fighing, to fee so many perfections on the brink of everlasting deftruction. This young lady all of a fudden disappeared. Curl knew not what was become of her: but as I rid ten years after through Devonshire, in the finest part of that romantic county, I faw her one morning, (as I ftopped to water my horse in a brook that ran from a park,) fitting on a feat, under a vast beautiful cedar tree, with a book in her hand. I thought I was no ftranger to the fine face, and as I was pretty near to her, I called out, and asked, if she was not Mifs Bennet? She knew me at once, and pointing to a gate that was only latched, defired I would come to her. I went, and found fhe was the mistress of the fine feat at a small distance off. She brought me into the house, would not fuffer me to ftir ftir that day, and told me the story of her life. I think it worth placing here. Hiftory of Mifs §. 4. Carola Bennet was the daughter of John Bennet, Efq; a Yorkshire gentleman, who died when he was in her 19th year, and left her in the care of her aunt, an old lady who was outwardly all faint, and within a devil. This Carola knew well, and requested her father to get another guardian for her, or leave her to manage herfelf; for Mrs. Hunfleet, her aunt, was far from being that primitive christian he took her for, and fo great a mifer, that exclufive of all her other vices, her avarice alone was enough to ruin her niece. She would facrifice the whole human race for half a thousand pounds. But all his daughter faid was in vain. He believed his fifter was godliness itself, in its utmost latitude and extent; that she lived a continued oppofition to our mortal enemies, the world, fin, and the devil; and that her heart was a mere magazine of universal honefty, probity of manners, and goodness of life and converfation. Integrity and rectitude, and benevolence, as he thought, were the bright criterions of her foul. She will teach you, Carola, to faft and pray, and make you like herself, a perfect faint. 1 It was to no purpose then for the daughter to remonstrate: She could only weep, as her father was pofitive, and after his death was obliged to go home with Mrs. Hunfleet. There, as the expected, fhe had too much of the outward bodily exercife of religion, every thing that can be named within the circle of external worship; fuch as public. and private fervices, faftings, macerations, bowings, expanded hands, and lifted eyes,. which Lord Halifax (in his advice to a daughter) calls the holy goggle: but that all this accompanied the internal acts of the old woman's mind, and went along with her heart and foul, Carola had reafon to doubt. She faw it was but outward profeffion,-all hypocrify,--that her life belied her creed, and her practice was a renunciation of the chriftian religion.. This appeared to be the cafe very quickly. The aunt fold her to one Cantalupe for five hun dred pounds. Under pretence of taking her to vifit a friend, he brought her to at private bagnio, or one of thofe houfes called convents. §. 5. Such houses stand A defcription of in back courts, narrow lanes, or the most private places, and feem to be uninhabited, as the front windows are fel: a London con- dom dom opened, or like fome little friary, where a company of vifionaries refide; but within are elegantly furnished, and remarkable for the beft wines. The woman who keeps the house is the only perfon to be seen in them, unless it be fometimes, that a high-priced whore, who passes for the gentlewoman's daughter, by accident appears. In thefe brothels the Sieur Curl was well known, and as the wine in them is always excellent, (but a fhilling a bottle dearer than at the tavern,) and one fits without hearing the leaft noise, or being feen by any one, I have often gone with this ingenious man to fuch places, on account of the purity of the wine, and the stillness of the house, as there are no waiters there, nor any well-dreft huffies to come in the way. You are as filent as in a cave; nor does a woman appear, except as before excepted, unless it be by appointment at this kind of meeting-boufe, as fuch places may well be called; for there not seldom does many a married woman meet her gallant. One evening that I was there with Curl, there came in the wife of a very eminent merchant, a lady of as excellent a character as any in the world; who was never fo much as fufpected by any of her acVOL. IV. quain H quaintance, but allowed by every body to be a woman of pure morals and unspotted chastity. She came in firft with a black mask on her face, from her chair, and was by the woman of the house fhewn into a chamber up stairs: Half an hour after, there was another foft tap at the door, and a gentleman was let in, who was fhewed up to the chamber the lady was in: As the door of the room Curl and I were fitting in, happened to be open as this adventurer paffed by, I knew the man. He was an Irish gentleman of large fortune, with whom I was well acquainted. He was ever engaged in amours, and was fome years after this hanged at Cork, for ravishing Sally Squib, the quaker. His name then can be no fecret: But as to the lady's name, I fhall never tell it, as fhe left feveral children, who are now living in reputation; but only observe, that there are, to my knowledge, many women of fuch ftrict virtue in the world. If you ask me. reader, how I came to know who fhe was? I will tell you. As fhe came down stairs in a mask at ten at night, in the manner fhe went up, I concluded fhe was a married woman of diftinction, and followed her chair, when it went off. She changed at Temple-Bar, and then took a hackney coach, which drove beyond the Royal-Ex change; |