uch inclined to appear in the gay world, had
contracted a taste for plays, operas, and other public diversions, and
acquired an acquaintance with many people of good fashion, which could
not be maintained without a considerable expense. In this emergency,
he thought he could not employ his idle time more profitably than in
translating, from foreign languages, such books as were then chiefly in
vogue; and upon application to a friend, who was a man of letters, he
was furnished with as much business of that kind as he could possibly
manage, and wrote some pamphlets on the reigning controversies of that
time, that had the good fortune to please. He was also concerned in a
monthly journal of literature, and the work was carried on by the two
friends jointly, though M-- did not at all appear in the partnership.
By these means he not only spent his mornings in useful exercise but
supplied himself with money for what the French call the menus plaisirs,
during the whole summer. He frequented all the assemblies in and about
London, and considerably enlarged his acquaintance among the fair sex.

"He had, upon his first arrival in England, become acquainted with a
lady at an assembly not far from London; and though, at that time, he
had no thoughts of extending his views farther than the usual gallantry
of the place, he met with such distinguishing marks of her regard in
the sequel, and was so particularly encouraged by the advice of another
lady, with whom he had been intimate in France, and who was now of
their parties, that he could not help entertaining hopes of making an
impression upon the heart of his agreeable partner, who was a young lady
of an ample fortune and great expectations. He therefore cultivated her
good graces with all the assiduity and address of which he was master,
and succeeded so well in his endeavours, that, after a due course of
attendance, and the death of an aunt, by which she received an accession
of fortune to the amount of three and twenty thousand pounds, he
ventured to declare his passion, and she not only heard him with
patience and approbation, but also replied in terms adequate to his
warmest wish.

"Finding himself so favourably received, he pressed her to secure his
happiness by marriage; but, to this proposal, she objected the recency
of her kinswoman's death, which would have rendered such a step highly
indecent, and the displeasure of her other relations, from whom she had
still greater e