Let us contemplate the delightful picture of one of these friends of society. She is generally a person very much at leisure; for without leisure, that natural preference of our own concerns to those of others precludes all exertion of the faculty: she is also, in general, placed in a tolerably secure position in the world, whence she may survey, with compassionate and patronising eyes, the poor strugglers beneath her. Virtuous she is, as virtuous can be; that is to say, she is altogether beyond temptation. Herself and all her own immediate friends have been fortunate; therefore she has a kind of prescriptive title to speak freely of the misfortunes of others. It is incredible what exertions this amiable person will make to procure data for her remarks, or, to speak more properly, grounds whereon she may proceed in her benevolent exertions. Charity being an excuse for every thing, she will even descend so far from her dignity as to institute inquiries, through servants and children, into the concerns of those persons whom she has taken under her patronage. Her own Betty, having the same turn with herself, takes frequent opportunities of visiting the kitchens of her friends; and all the remarks that the girl has been able to make upon the external state of things there, and all the prattle she has been able to pick up from the servants in that house, is brought home and faithfully detailed to her mistress, who accidentally, for that purpose, opens a conversation with her. Nor is this all. Through the impulse of her benevolent wishes, the good lady will often take information from her servant, which _she_ has learned from another servant, respecting the concerns of a family in which that other servant has perhaps a sister or a friend; her sincere desire of doing good being so strong as to reconcile her to every possibility of misrepresentation, which a story may be supposed to undergo in its progress through so many mouths. It is also to be observed, that she is not exclusively attentive to the concerns of those whom she actually knows. The acquaintances of her acquaintances, and their acquaintances again, even to the third generation, she will inquire about with equal solicitude; and if she knows any thing disagreeable connected with your friends, or any thing that might be thought to unfit them for your acquaintance, she always very kindly lets you hear of it, so that you may be _quite upon your guard_.