, stops it with a bush till it can
be better mended. In harvest she rides a-field in the waggon, and is
very liberal of her ale from a wooden bottle. At her leisure hours she
looks goose eggs, airs the wool-room, and turns the cheese.

When respect or curiosity brings visitants to her house, she entertains
them with prognosticks of a scarcity of wheat, or a rot among the sheep,
and always thinks herself privileged to dismiss them, when she is to see
the hogs fed, or to count her poultry on the roost.

The only things neglected about her are her children, whom she has
taught nothing but the lowest household duties. In my last visit I met
Miss Busy carrying grains to a sick cow, and was entertained with the
accomplishments of her eldest son, a youth of such early maturity, that
though he is only sixteen, she can trust him to sell corn in the market.
Her younger daughter, who is eminent for her beauty, though somewhat
tanned in making hay, was busy in pouring out ale to the ploughmen, that
every one might have an equal share.

I could not but look with pity on this young family, doomed by the
absurd prudence of their mother to ignorance and meanness: but when I
recommended a more elegant education, was answered, that she never saw
bookish or finical people grow rich, and that she was good for nothing
herself till she had forgotten the nicety of the boarding-school.

I am, Yours, &c.

BUCOLUS.

No. 139. TUESDAY, JULY 16, 1751

--_Sit quod vis simplex duntanat et unum_. Hor. Art. Poet. 23.

Let ev'ry piece be simple and be one.

It is required by Aristotle to the perfection of a tragedy, and is
equally necessary to every other species of regular composition, that it
should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. "The beginning," says he,
"is that which hath nothing necessarily previous, but to which that
which follows is naturally consequent; the end, on the contrary, is that
which by necessity, or, at least, according to the common course of
things, succeeds something else, but which implies nothing consequent to
itself; the middle is connected on one side to something that naturally
goes before, and on the other to something that naturally follows it."

Such is the rule laid down by this great critick, for the disposition of
the different parts of a well-constituted fable. It must begin where it
may be made intelligible without introduction; and end where the mind is
left in repose, without expectation o