little time made that promise good. In short, all
the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at
least my vanity forbid me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign
judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at last, gave it thus highly
in my favour; and I met with, even in my own sex, some that were
above denying me that justice, whilst others praised me yet more
unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to detract from me, in points of person
and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is, I own, too strong
of self praise; but I should be ungrateful to nature, and to a form to
which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I
to suppress, through an affectation of modesty, the mention of such
valuable gifts.

Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my head
that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for
sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere friendship and
kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention,
had, under pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me, without the
least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which remained to me
after the expenses of my journey.

After some little time most agreebly spent before the glass, in scarce
self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in
it, I was sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me,
and wished me joy of my new clothes, which she was not ashamed to say,
fitted me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time; but
what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow? At the same
time, she presented me to another cousin of her own creation, an elderly
gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room, and on my dropping a
curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted that I had
only presented my cheek to him: a mistake, which, if one, he immediately
corrected, by gluing his lips to mine, with an ardour which his figure
had not at all disposed me to thank him for: his figure, I say, than
which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly and
disagreeable were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.

Imagine to yourself, a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made,
with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggle eyes, that stared as if he
was strangled; an out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth,
livid lips, and breath like a Jake's: then he had a peculi