Three of the maids of honour sent to countermand their birth-day clothes; two of them burnt all their collections of novels and romances, and sent to a bookseller's in Pall-Mall to buy each of them a Bible, and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying." But I must do all of them the justice to acknowledge, that they shewed a very decent behaviour in the drawing-room, and restrained themselves from those innocent freedoms, and little levities, so commonly incident to young ladies of their profession. So many birth-day suits were countermanded the next day, that most of the tailors and mantua makers discharged all their journeymen and women. A grave elderly lady of great erudition and modesty, who visits these young ladies, seemed to be extremely shocked by the apprehensions, that she was to appear naked before the whole world; and no less so, that all mankind was to appear naked before her; which might so much divert her thoughts, as to incapacitate her to give ready and apt answers to the interrogatories that might be made her. The maids of honour, who had both modesty and curiosity, could not imagine the sight so disagreeable as was represented; nay, one of them went so far as to say, she perfectly longed to see it; for it could not be so indecent, when everybody was to be alike; and they had a day or two to prepare themselves to be seen in that condition. Upon this reflection, each of them ordered a bathing-tub to be got ready that evening, and a looking-glass to be set by it. So much are these young ladies, both by nature and custom, addicted to cleanly appearance. A west-country gentleman told me, he got a church-lease filled up that morning for the same sum which had been refused for three years successively. I must impute this merely to accident: for I cannot imagine that any divine could take the advantage of his tenant in so unhandsome a manner, or that the shortness of the life was in the least his consideration; though I have heard the same worthy prelate aspersed and maligned since, upon this very account. The term being so near, the alarm among the lawyers was inexpressible, though some of them, I was told, were so vain as to promise themselves some advantage in making their defence, by being versed in the practice of our earthly courts. It is said, too, that some of the chief pleaders were heard to express great satisfaction, that there had been but few state trials of late years. Several attorneys demanded the return of fees that had been given the lawyers; but it was answered, the fee was undoubtedly charged to their client, and that they could not connive at such injustice, as to suffer it to be sunk in the attorneys' pockets. Our sage and learned judges had great consolation, insomuch as they had not pleaded at the bar for several years; the barristers rejoiced in that they were not attorneys, and the attorneys felt no less satisfaction, that they were not pettifoggers, scriveners, and other meaner officers of the law.