will perhaps be deemed by many too insignificant for such a distinction, and of too light a cast to be made subservient to any practical purposes of moral improvement.

To the fastidious critic, no reasons assigned for the undertaking will prove convincing; and to the prejudiced reader, no apology for the freedom of discussion or the minuteness of detail will be satisfactory. But while the author utterly disclaims the malignant intention of dragging failings to the light, the existence of which is to be lamented, he wishes it to be seriously considered, that those very failings have been attended with awful consequences, and some too that have deeply affected the ho nour of the country.

Though hardly any thing can be more odious than the depraved appetite, which, delighting chiefly in secret history, makes no scruple of rending off the cerements of the dead, to the annoyance of the living; still there are some painful occasions, when the paramount interests of mankind demand the detection of hypocrisy, and the exposure of folly, that the young and inexperienced may be guarded against the error of substituting accomplishments for duties, or of supposing that the admiration of virtue is equivalent to the discharge of its obligations.

Passion and prejudice have too long prevailed over the public mind with respect to circumstances, concerning which posterity will demand an honest report. It is, therefore, now time for the voice of justice and humanity to be calmly heard, and that reason should take her seat, to record facts, before they shall have faded from the memory, and before the tongue should be sealed up in silence, or the hand be mouldered into dust that may have the power of communicating them to the world.

CHAPTER H.

Honour and shame from no condition rise:

Act well your part, there all the honour lies....Pope.

Ir certainly would be a very unjust and dangerous attempt, to make the character and genius of men dependent on their origin and rank in society. By assuming it as a general principle, that pedigree has an effect on the mind and the morals, we should run the risk of introducing ą distinction of casts among the members of the same com munity, not merely similar, but even more degrading if possible than that which prevails in the east. Still it can hardly be denied that there is such a disposition to imitation, and propensity to early habits, as must contribute very powerfully to tinge the principles and manners of those, who, in their youthful days, have been compelled to hear vulgar language, to be engaged in mean occupations, and to associate with rude and ignorant companions.

One of our greatest moralists, who owed more to himself than to his relations, has said, in his strong manner, that there is a "scoundrelism about persons of low birth." No man knew better than he did how to appreciate worth in all stations, and no man ever acted with less servility to the great, or with more urbanity to the poor. His observation, therefore, must be taken in a qualified sense, as expressing only what he had commonly met with, and proving that the influence of pristine meanness will, more or less, continue through life. Of the truth of this remark, we shall meet with some striking proofs in the following memoirs, throughout the whole of which, the want of early instruction and example will be seen, and the force of low habits and improper connexions will be completely understood.

The person whose adventures we are now to report, as

far as they can be traced, and with every allowance for the uncertainty in which the early history of such characters are always involved, owed her origin to a couple that lived together in a menial capacity, in the county Palatine of Chester. The man, whose name was LYON, survived this marriage only a short time, leaving, in 1761, a young widow, and an infant daughter, named EMMA, wholly without support. In consequence of this melancholy change in her circumstances, the poor woman retired to Hawarden, in Flintshire, which was her native place, and where she was now enabled by her industry, and the kindness of friends, to maintain herself and this child, whose education was such as might be expected from the poverty of her mother's circumstances, and the little time that could be allowed from domestic occupations. In an account of herself, however, which the subject of this narrative thought proper to dictate at the request of an enterprising bookseller, for a collection of what he called "Public Characters," it is stated that she received an education superior to damsels of her condition, at the expense of the late earl of Halifax. This was one of those instances of deception in which she was too apt to indulge, and by which she foolishly hoped to impose upon the credulity of mankind. The truth is, that all the instruction which she ever obtained in childhood, consisted in the simple article of reading, and that so very imperfectly, as to be unaccompanied by correctness in spelling, a qualification, in fact, which she never properly acquired to the end of her days, though she mixed so much with polished society, and even had an extensive correspondence.

Yet, in justice to the energies of her mind, it should be observed in this place, that she supplied the defects of her original condition by voluntary application and uncommon diligence, at that period when gayety and business

may be supposed to furnish plausible excuses for neglecting the labour of intellectual improvement.

At the age of twelve or thirteen she was received into the family of Mr. Thomas Hawarden, brother-in-law of the late alderman Boydell, and father of the eminent surgeon in Leicester Square. Her situation in this place was that of a nursery-maid; and it is worthy of remark, that in her subsequent changes, she ever preserved a grateful sense of the kindness which she had experienced from the friends of her youth, who were well disposed to give her all the instruction that was suited to her condition in life.

One of the ordinary topics of complaint in most circles, is that of the folly or ingratitude of servants; and we may often hear persons of good sense and liberality feelingly lamenting the sudden change which takes place in those domestics who have been taken from small families, and even from distant cottages, with the most laudable views and benevolent purposes.

But were the entire circumstances properly considered, and thoroughly investigated, it would in all likelihood appear that the objects so strongly stigmatized, as inconsiderate and extravagant, capricious and insolent, are in reality the parties most injured. Without justifying the weakness, or palliating the conduct of servants, we may, however, safely advance thus much in their favour; that they are for the most part unprepared by monition and practice for the line of life in which it is their chance to be placed. The manners of the country are so different from those of the capital, and the restraint necessarily produced there by observation has such a constant effect on the mind, as frequently to preserve even the volatile within the bounds of decorum. It is not at all to be wondered, therefore, that when the pleasures and freedom of London chance to be mentioned, uneasiness should be produced, and desire created to exchange a life of obscurity

and fatigue for one of comparative ease and splendour. The disappointment which such persons naturally experience, is to be attributed to their erroneous impressions, and to the facilities that have been held ont to draw them from that humble privacy in which they were born, and where they might have enjoyed calm and virtuous content, if the delusion of seeing the world had not been thrown in their way,

Happy certainly would it have been for Emma, had she been suffered to remain in her original state of obscurity and servitude, but still more so if she had never been transplanted from her native mountains, to breathe the contaminating air, and to witness the licentious manners of an overgrown and luxurious city.

At sixteen she visited London, where she obtained a place with a tradesman in St. James's Market; and it is said, that when some years afterwards she moved in a sphere of splendour, she called in her carriage at this shop, and expressed a strong sense of gratitude to her old master and mistress.

In her next situation, which was with a lady of fortune, she had ample opportunities of gratifying her love of reading, by the books obtained from the circulating library for the amusement of her mistress: but the information derived from these volumes was ill adapted to moderate the ebullitions of vanity, to mortify the impetuosity of passion, to chasten the mind, by a consideration of the duties of life, or to point out the dangerous rocks and hidden shoals, which are certain of proving destructive to those who are impelled by emotions, instead of being directed by the sense of religion.

Novels and romances, in rapid succession, without reflection or discrimination, constituted the chief delight of this young person, who had been sent out into the world unarmed, either by prudent counsel or parental example.