He beat about the bush in several distant questions, and at last began to talk more directly about Miss Harlowe.

He said he knew her before her fall, [that was his impudent word;] and gave the substance of the following account of her, as I collected it from Mrs. Smith: 

’She was then, he said, the admiration and delight of every body:  he lamented, with great solemnity, her backsliding; another of his phrases.  Mrs. Smith said, he was a fine scholar; for he spoke several things she understood not; and either in Latin or Greek, she could not tell which; but was so good as to give her the English of them without asking.  A fine thing, she said, for a scholar to be so condescending!’

He said, ’Her going off with so vile a rake had given great scandal and offence to all the neighbouring ladies, as well as to her friends.’

He told Mrs. Smith ’how much she used to be followed by every one’s eye, whenever she went abroad, or to church; and praised and blessed by every tongue, as she passed; especially by the poor:  that she gave the fashion to the fashionable, without seeming herself to intend it, or to know she did:  that, however, it was pleasant to see ladies imitate her in dress and behaviour, who being unable to come up to her in grace and ease, exposed but their own affectation and awkwardness, at the time that they thought themselves secure of general approbation, because they wore the same things, and put them on in the same manner, that she did, who had every body’s admiration; little considering, that were her person like their’s, or if she had their defects, she would have brought up a very different fashion; for that nature was her guide in every thing, and ease her study; which, joined with a mingled dignity and condescension in her air and manner, whether she received or paid a compliment, distinguished her above all her sex.

’He spoke not, he said, his own sentiments only on this occasion, but those of every body:  for that the praises of Miss Clarissa Harlowe were such a favourite topic, that a person who could not speak well upon any other subject, was sure to speak well upon that; because he could say nothing but what he had heard repeated and applauded twenty times over.’

Hence it was, perhaps, that this novice accounted for the best things he said himself; though I must own that the personal knowledge of the lady, which I am favoured with, made it easy to me to lick into shape what the good woman reported to me, as the character given her by the young Levite:  For who, even now, in her decline of health, sees not that all these attributes belong to her?

I suppose he has not been long come from college, and now thinks he has nothing to do but to blaze away for a scholar among the ignorant; as such young fellows are apt to think those who cannot cap verses with them, and tell us how an antient author expressed himself in Latin on a subject, upon which, however, they may know how, as well as that author, to express themselves in English.