1829.] C 605 ] 



A PROVINCIAL REPUTATION, 



I ONCE resided in a country town ; I will not specify whether that 

 town was Devizes or Doncaster, Beverley or Brighton : I think it highly 

 reprehensible in a writer to be persojial, and scarcely more venial do I 

 consider the fault of him who presumes to be local. I will, however, 

 state, that my residence lay among the manufacturing districts. But lest 

 any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them, 

 that in my estimation all country towns, from the elegant Bath, down to 

 the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or mercan- 

 tile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively, comparatively, and 

 superlatively, manufacturing towns ! 



Club-rooms, ball-rooms, card-tables, and confectioners' shops, are the 

 factories, and gossips, both male and female, are the iahoiiring classes. 

 Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs ; the manufacturers I 

 allude to, weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of to-morrow will seldom 

 be the same that is publicly worn to-day ; and were it not for the zeal 

 and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to replace the 

 stuff that is worn out hour by hour. 



No man or woman who ever ventures to deviate from the beaten track, 

 should live in a country town. The gossips all turn from the task of 

 nibbling one another, and the character of the lusus 7iaturce becomes 

 public property. I am the mother of a family, and I am known to have 

 written romances. JRIy husband, in an evil hour, took a fancy to a house 

 at a watering place, which, by way of distinction, I shall designate by the 

 appellation of Pumpington Wells : there we established ourselves in the 

 year 1800. 



The mamifacturers received us with a great show of civility, exhiliiting 

 to us the most recent stuff, and discussing the merits of the newest fabri- 

 cations. We, however, were not used to trouble ourselves about matters 

 that did not conceit us, and we soon offended them. 



We turned a deaf ear to all evil communications. If we were told 

 that Mr. A., " though fond of show, starved his servants," we replied, 

 we did not wish to listen to the tale. If we heard that Mr. B., though 

 uxorious in pubUc, was known to beat his wife in private, we cared not 

 for the matrimonial anecdote. When maiden ladies assured us that Mrs. 

 C. cheated at cards, we smiled, for we had no dealings with her ; and 

 when we were told that IVIrs. D. never paid her bills, we repeated not 

 the account to the next person we met ; for as we were not her creditors, 

 her accounts concerned us not. 



We settled ourselves, much to our satisfaction, in our provincial abode ; 

 it was a watering place, which my husband, as a bachelor, had frequented 

 during its annual season. 



As a watering place he knew it well. Such places are vastly entertain- 

 ing to visitors, having no " local habitation," and no " name," caring not 

 for the politics of the place, and where, if any thing displeases them, 

 they may pay for their lodgings, order post-horses, and never suffer their 

 names to appear in the arrival book again. 



But with those who live at watering places, it is quite another affair. 

 For the first six months we were deemed a great acquisition. There 

 were two or three sets in Pumpington Wells — the good, the bad, and 

 the indifferent. The bad left their cards, and asked us to dances, the 

 week we arrived; the indifferent knocked at our door in the first month; 

 and even before the end of the second, we were on the visiting lists of 

 the good. 



We knew enough of society to be aware that it is impolitic to rush into 



