ning, and
entertained with it almost continually through the whole day.

Though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, I
question whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature of
both; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep for
no other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or rather
scolding-stocks, who, I suppose, by some means or other, earned their
board, and she gave them their lodging gratis, or for no other service
than to keep her lungs in constant exercise.

She differed, as I have said, in every particular from her husband; but
very remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, so
it was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smile
from his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. If her bills
were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of
her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit
sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the
same success. On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she daily
raised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a
shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes
for two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery
of one on the Sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left the
room without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knew
not how it was that others got their money by gentle-folks, but for her
part she had not the art of it." When she was asked why she complained,
when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not deny
that, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was but
a poor bill for gentle-folks to pay." I accounted for all this by her
having heard, that it is a maxim with the principal inn-holders on the
continent, to levy considerable sums on their guests, who travel with
many horses and servants, though such guests should eat little or
nothing in their houses; the method being, I believe, in such cases, to
lay a capitation on the horses, and not on their masters. But she did
not consider that in most of these inns a very great degree of hunger,
without any degree of delicacy, may be satisfied; and that in all such
inns there is some appearance, at least, of provision, as well as of a
man-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers being always furnished with a
cook's cap,