482] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
traband, was in reality the home- 
bred manufacture of Spital-fields. 
My family used to be remark- 
able for regularity in their atten- 
dance on public worship ; but that 
too here is numbered amongst the 
amusements of the place. Lady 
Hentingdon has a chapel, which 
sometimes atiraéts us; and ~when 
nothing promises us any particular 
entertainment, a-tea-drinking at 
the rooms, ora concert of what 
is called sacred music, is sufficient 
to draw us froma church, where 
no one will remark either our ab- 
sence or our presence. Thus we 
daily become more lax in our con- 
duét, for want of the salutary re- 
straint imposed upon us by the 
consciousness of being looked up 
to as an example by others. 
In this manner, sir, has the sea- 
son past away. I spend a great 
deal of money and make no figure ; 
Tam in the country and see no- 
thing of country simplicity, or 
country occupations; 1 am in an 
obscure village, and yet cannot 
stir out without more observers 
than if I were walking in St. 
James’s Park ; I am cooped up in 
Jess room than my own dog-ken- 
nel, while my spacious hails are 
injured by standing empty ; and I 
am paying for tasteless unripe fruit, 
while my own choice wall-fruit is 
rottipg by bushels under the trees. 
—In recompense for all this, we 
have the satisfaction of knowing 
that we occupy the very rooms 
which my lord—had just quitted ; 
of picking up anecdotes, true or 
false,-of people in high life; and 
of seizing the ridicule of every 
character as they pass by us in the 
moving show-glass of the place, a 
pastime which often affords us a 
good deal of mirth, hut which, I 
confess, I can never join in with. 
out reflecting that what is our 
amusement is their’s likewise. As 
to the great ostensible object of our 
excursion, health, I am afraid. we 
cannot boast of much improvement. 
We have had a wet and cold sum- 
mer; and these houses, which are 
either old tenements, vamped up, 
or new ones slightly run up for 
the accommodation of bathers dur- 
ing the season, have more contri- 
vances for letting in the cooling 
breezes than for keeping them out, 
a circumstance which I should pre- 
sume sagacious physicians do not 
always attend to, when they or- 
der patients from their own warm, 
compact, substantial houses, ta 
take the air in country lodgings, 
of which the best apartments, dur- 
ing the winter, have only been 
inhabited by the rats, and where 
the poverty of the landlord pres 
vents him from laying out more in 
repairs than will serve to give them 
a showy and attra€tive appearance. 
Be that asit may, the rooms we at 
present inhabit are so pervious to 
the breeze, that in spite of all the 
ingenious expedients of listing 
doors, pasting paper on the inside 
of cupboards, laying sand bags, 
puttying crevices, and condemning 
closet-doors, it has given me a 
severe touch of my old rheumatism, | 
and all my family are in one way . 
or other affected with it; my eldest 
daughter too. has got cold with her 
bathing, though the sea-water né- — 
ver gives any body cold. 
In answer to these complaints, 
I am told by the good company 
here, that I have stayed too long 
in the same air, and that now E 
ought to take a trip to the con- 
tinent, and spend the winter at 
Nice, which would complete the 
business. 
