all that an affectionate wife, and a good housewife, could do; yet the boundaries of virtues are indivisible lines. It is impossible to march up close to the frontiers of frugality without entering the territories of parsimony. Your good housewives are apt to look into the minutest things; therefore some blamed Mrs. Bull for new heel-pieceing of her shoes, grudging a quarter of a pound of soap and sand to scour the rooms**; but, especially, that she would not allow her maids and apprentices the benefit of "John Bunyan," the "London Apprentices," or the "Seven Champions," in the black letter.*** * Some regulations as to the purveyance in the Queen's family. ** Too great savings in the House of Commons. *** Restraining the liberty of the Press by Act of Parliament. CHAPTER VIII. A continuation of the conversation betwixt John Bull and his wife. MRS. BULL.--It is a most sad life we lead, my dear, to be so teazed, paying interest for old debts, and still contracting new ones. However, I don't blame you for vindicating your honour and chastising old Lewis. To curb the insolent, protect the oppressed, recover one's own, and defend what one has, are good effects of the law. The only thing I want to know is how you came to make an end of your money before you finished your suit. JOHN BULL.--I was told by the learned in the law that my suit stood upon three firm pillars: more money for more law, more law for more money, and no composition. More money for more law was plain to a demonstration, for who can go to law without money? and it was plain that any man that has money may have law for it. The third was as evident as the other two; for what composition could be made with a rogue that never kept a word he said? MRS. BULL.--I think you are most likely to get out of this labyrinth by the second door, by want of ready money to purchase this precious commodity. But you seem not only to have bought too much of it, but have paid too dear for what you bought, else how was it possible to run so much in debt when at this very time the yearly income of what is mortgaged to those usurers would discharge Hocus's bills, and give you your bellyfull of law for all your life, without running one sixpence in debt? You have been bred up to business; I suppose you can cypher; I wonder you never used your pen and ink.