N° 86. Saturday, December 8.

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SIR,

To the IDLER.

Aм a young lady newly married to a young Gentleman. Our Fortune is large, our Minds are vacant, our difpofitions gay, our Acquaintance numerous, and our Rela-, tions fplendid. We confidered that Marriage, like Life, has its Youth, that the first year is the year of Gaiety and Revel, and refolved to see the Shews and feel the Joys of London before the increase of our family fhould confine us to domeftick Cares and domeftick Pleafures.

LITTLE time was spent in preparation; the coach was harneffed, and a few days brought us to London, and we alighted at a lodging provided for us by Mifs Biddy Trifle,

Trifle, a maiden niece of my husband's father, where we found Apartments on a second floor, which my coufin told us would ferve us till we could please ourselves with a more commodious and elegant habitation, and which she had taken at a very high price, because it was not worth the while to make a hard bargain for so short a time.

HERE I intended to lie concealed till my new cloaths were made, and my new lodging hired; but Mifs Trifle had fo induftrioufly given notice of our arrival to all her acquaintance, that I had the mortification next day of seeing the door thronged with painted Coaches and Chairs with Coronets, and was obliged to receive all my husband's relations on a second floor.

INCONVENIENCIES are often ballanced by fome advantage: the Elevation of my Apartments furnished a fubject for converfation, which, without fome fuch help, we fhould have been in danger of wanting. Lady Stately told us how many years had paffed fince the climbed fo many steps. Mifs

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Airy ran to the window, and thought it charming to see the walkers fo little in the ftreet; and Mifs Gentle went to try the same experiment, and fcreamed to find herfelf fo far above the ground.

THEY all knew that we intended to remove, and therefore all gave me advice about a proper choice. "One street was recommended for the purity of its air, another for its freedom from noife, another for its nearness to the Park, another because there was but a step from it to all places of Diverfion, and another, because its inhabitants enjoyed at once the town and country.

I HAD civility enough to hear every recommendation with a look of Curiosity while it was made, and of Acquiefcence when it was concluded, but in my heart felt no other defire than to be free from the disgrace of a fecond floor, and cared little where I' fhould fix, if the Apartments were spacious and (plendid.

NEXT day a chariot was hired, and Miss Trifle was dispatched to find a lodging. She returned in the afternoon, with an account of a charming place, to which my husband went in the morning to make the contract, Being young and unexperienced, he took with him his friend Ned Quick, a gentleman of great skill in rooms and furniture, who fees, at a fingle glance, fingle glance, whatever there is to be commended or cenfured. Mr. Quick, at the first view of the house, declared that it could not be inhabited, for the Sun in the afternoon fhone with full glare on the windows of the dining-room.

Miss Trifle went out again, and foon difcovered another lodging, which Mr. Quick went to furvey, and found, that whenever the wind fhould blow from the Eaft, all the fmoke of the city would be driven upon it.

A MAGNIFICENT fett of rooms was then found in one of the ftreets near WestminsterBridge, which Mifs Trifle preferred to any which she had yet feen; but Mr. Quick having mufed upon it for a time, concluded that

it

it would be too much expofed in the morning to the fogs that rife from the River,

THUS Mr. Quick proceeded to give us every day new teftimonies of his taste and circumfpection; fometimes the street was too narrow for a double range of Coaches; fometimes it was an obfcure place, not inhabited by Perfons of Quality. Some places were dirty, and fome crowded; in fome houses the furniture was ill fuited, and in others the ftairs were too narrow. He had fuch fertility of objections that Miss Trifle was at last tired, and defifted from all attempts for our accommodation.

In the mean time I have ftill continued to see my company on a fecond floor, and am asked twenty times a day when I am to leave thofe odious lodgings, in which I live tumultuously without pleasure, and expenfively without honour. My husband thinks fo highly of Mr. Quick, that he cannot be perfuaded to remove without his approbation,' and Mr. Quick thinks his reputation raised by the multiplication of difficulties. K

VOL. II.

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