The captain, _her friend_, is contriving a _visto_ through some _woods_ on _her estate_, to pay _his debts_; she tells every body, however, that he is not only possessed of _all the graces_, but an independant fortune. The next heir to the estate happens to be of a different opinion--his picture of captain Plume is _all shade_, hers _all light_. The former awkwardly imitates the style of Rembrandt, and with a dark pencil loves to describe hideous wrinkles and deformed features--but the latter artfully copies the taste of Titian, and brightens the canvas with all the lively glow of colouring. Perhaps if light and shade were properly blended together, we might behold a real likeness.--I don't like him. I mistake much if he is not conceited--you know I pretend a little to be a physiognomist as well as a botanist. In the natural world the external form of plants afford us a hint for a conjecture of their virtues. Almost all the plants of the same kinds are of the same virtues. The poisonous plants, natives of our soil, are hardly a dozen, and these are characterized even to the eye by something singular or dismal in the aspect. When I wrote you I was jealous of Sir James's attentions to Miss Ords, I did not wish to be understood _au piè du lettre_--She has a vacant countenance, her youth only renders her _passable_. Her wit is not picquante, nor her manners alluring. She can answer _yes_ and _no_, with tolerable success, nay sometimes hazards further: and when she goes to a comedy does not intreat the company to instruct her _when_ she should laugh. Her father lives _en Prince_: like Lucullus, he _plundered all Asia_ to assist him _in house-keeping_. Sir James was very lively in his usual way--She said she did not like puns, and had never made one in her life--I could not help answering--It's my opinion _you never will_. You ask me if I have got no more lovers? To talk ingenuously with you--no; I know not what further inconveniences such an acquisition might put me to: and as it might probably happen (not on _my account_, but for my _aunt's acres_) I have whispered my passion for Sir James Mordaunt as a secret to Mrs M----; so you need not doubt but it has spread. She is an antiquated virgin, who endeavours to make chastity atone for the want of every other virtue. She wanted me sadly to ask her some question; I mortified my own curiosity, to punish her propensity to detraction. Lady Dun is at last expired, notwithstanding the prayers of the faithful. Had she lived any longer, her _piety_ must have ruined _her family_ by her total want of economy, as she did the reputation of her neighbours by scandal. _Can so much gall in holy breasts reside?_ Boileau's Lutrin. Canto I.