Now it came to pass that, soon after the arrival in London of Lady Woodstock and her family, and soon as the report was spread abroad that Mr. John Martindale was likely to marry the widow, that the charms of Lady Woodstock's daughters were most loudly blazoned forth, and multitudes began to see beauties of person and mind in these young ladies which they had never seen before. When there appeared a probability that Lady Woodstock was about to become the wife of a very opulent man, and when it was thought as a necessary and natural consequence that her daughters would be handsomely portioned, then, and not till then, was it found out that Lady Woodstock had as choice an assortment of ancestors as any body else; then it was discerned that her daughters were remarkably intelligent and unaffected young women; and then many of her ladyship's old acquaintance who had for some years nearly or totally forgotten her, began to wonder that she never had come up to town before during the season. As yet, however, it was not thought safe for any young gentleman to make formal proposals to any one of the daughters; but the young ladies were by no means neglected. They were not cut either by new or old acquaintance; they never made their appearance without most courteous recognition; and as the younger of the four had scarcely finished her education, but was even in town attended by a music-master at the special appointment of old John Martindale, some songs and some sonatas were dedicated to the young ladies. By degrees, the Woodstocks rose into a species of celebrity. The young ladies did not much affect to set themselves up as literary ladies, but they were perhaps a little proud of being thought not quite so frivolous as the generality of young ladies of the present day. Our readers, we suppose, do not need to be informed that young ladies of the present day are very frivolous; and that they have been so for centuries past, and will be for centuries to come. The times are sadly altered, and so they always will be to the end of time. The daughters of Lady Woodstock were not absolutely blue-stockings. The two eldest had read Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, and thought it was a book which every body should read. They had also read Paley's Works and Cowper's Poems. The eldest had the reputation of having read Cowper's translation of Homer, though but few gave her credit for that accomplishment. The mother and her four daughters very simultaneously and loudly rebuked the flippancy of the present generation of books. This is also an important and interesting fact which we wish to impress on the minds of our readers, that the modern publications are of a very frivolous and flimsy nature: none of them are worth reading. It is a self-evident maxim--it does not require proof; and if we were to attempt illustration, we should be absolutely overwhelmed with superabundance of materials. Modern publications always have been and always will be worthless.