_Doric._ Ay, but that was at eighteen; we are always _very_ wise at eighteen. But consider this point: we go into Italy, where the sole business of the people is to study and improve the powers of Music: we yield to the fascination, and grow enthusiasts in the charming science: we travel over France, and see the whole kingdom composing ornaments, and inventing Fashions: we condescend to avail ourselves of their industry, and adopt their modes: we return to England, and find the nation intent on the most important objects; Polity, Commerce, War, with all the Liberal Arts, employ her sons; the latent sparks glow afresh within our bosoms; the sweet follies of the Continent imperceptibly slide away, whilst Senators, Statesmen, Patriots and Heroes, emerge from the _virtû_ of Italy, and the frippery of France. _Sav._ I may as well give it up! You had always the art of placing your faults in the best light; and I can't help loving you, faults and all: so, to start a subject which must please you, When do you expect Miss Hardy? _Doric._ Oh, the hour of expectation is past. She is arrived, and I this morning had the honour of an interview at Pleadwell's. The writings were ready; and, in obedience to the will of Mr. Hardy, we met to sign and seal. _Sav._ Has the event answered? Did your heart leap, or sink, when you beheld your Mistress? _Doric._ Faith, neither one nor t'other; she's a fine girl, as far as mere flesh and blood goes.----But---- _Sav._ But what? _Doric._ Why, she's _only_ a fine girl; complexion, shape, and features; nothing more. _Sav._ Is not that enough? Doric. No! she should have spirit! fire! _l'air enjoué_! that something, that nothing, which every body feels, and which no body can describe, in the resistless charmers of Italy and France. _Sav._ Thanks to the parsimony of my father, that kept me from travel! I would not have lost my relish for true unaffected English beauty, to have been quarrell'd for by all the Belles of Versailles and Florence. _Doric._ Pho! thou hast no taste. _English_ beauty! 'Tis insipidity; it wants the zest, it wants poignancy, Frank! Why, I have known a Frenchwoman, indebted to nature for no one thing but a pair of decent eyes, reckon in her suite as many Counts, Marquisses, and _Petits Maîtres_, as would satisfy three dozen of our first-rate toasts. I have known an Italian _Marquizina_ make ten conquests in stepping from her carriage, and carry her slaves from one city to another, whose real intrinsic beauty would have yielded to half the little _Grisettes_ that pace your Mall on a Sunday. _Sav._ And has Miss Hardy nothing of this? _Doric._ If she has, she was pleased to keep it to herself. I was in the room half an hour before I could catch the colour of her eyes; and every attempt to draw her into conversation occasioned so cruel an embarrassment, that I was reduced to the necessity of news, French fleets, and Spanish captures, with her father.