- proportions between language and sentiment, between
passion and exclamation; she discovered the defects of every action, and the uncertainty of every conclusion; she, knew the malignity of friendship, the avarice of liberality, the anxiety of content, and the cowardice of temerity.
To see all this was pleasant, but the greatest of all pleasures was to show it. To laugh was something, but it was much more to make others laugh. As every deformity of character made a strong impression upon her, she could not always forbear to transmit it to others; as she hated false appearances, she thought it her duty to detect them, till, between wantonness and virtue, scarce any that she knew escaped without some wounds by the shafts of ridicule; not that her merriment was always the consequence of total contempt, for she often honoured virtue, where she laughed at affectation.
For these practices, and who can wonder? the cry was raised against her from every quarter, and to hunt her down, was generally determined. Every eye was watching for a fault, and every tongue was busy to supply its share of defamation. With the most unpolluted purity of mind, she was censured as too free of favours, because she was not afraid to talk with men: with generous sensibility of every human excellence, she was thought cold or envious, because she could not scatter praise with undistinguishing profusion: with tenderness, that agonized at real misery, she was charged with delight in the pain of others, when she would not condole with those whom she knew to counterfeit affliction. She derided false appearances of kindness and of pity, and was, therefore, avoided as an enemy to society. As she seldom commended or censured, but with some limitations and exceptions, the world condemned her as indifferent to the good and bad; and because she was often doubtful, where others were confident, she was charged with laxity of principles, while her days were distracted, and her rest broken, by niceties of honour, and scruples of morality.
Report had now made her so formidable, that all flat-
