A Multitude of Wishes, attended with a Multitude of Mortifications.

MR. Lucum now never mentioned Lord Dellwyn , but by a perpetual Ill-humour at his Daughter’s Insensibility to all polite Assemblies. He at last drove her to seek for Shelter from that almost insupportable Misfortune, a disagreeable Home, by staying more abroad; but the being thus in a manner excluded, by the Fears of her Father’s Anger, from returning early in the Evening to his Company, instead of a Croud, was highly disagreeable to her; till, by almost imperceptible Degrees, the Force of Custom rendered that Manner of Life tolerable, to which at first she had been so averse; then, the first Step being surmounted, she advanced another, and it became pleasing: And, from thence, it was not long before she was totally wrapped up in it. Public Morning Diversions were the last dissipating Habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her Time was squandered away, the Power of Reflection was lost, her Ideas were all centered in Dress, Drums, Routs, Operas, Masquerades, and every kind of public Diversion. 30 Visionary Schemes of Pleasure were continually present to her Imagination, and her Brain was whirled about by such a Dizziness, that she might properly be said to labour under the Distemper called the Vertigo. The World appeared, in her Eyes, in quite a different Light; and she perceived herself to be a fine gay Thing, that before, as Nell says in the Farce, “ She knew not .” 31