"I fancy, when money is to be got, I can smell it out as
well as another. Everybody, let me tell you, would not have talked
people out of this. Mind that, I say; everybody would not have cajoled
this out of her, mind that." The wife then joined in the applause of
her husband's sagacity; and thus ended the short dialogue between them
on this occasion.
We will therefore take our leave of these good people, and attend
his lordship and his fair companions, who made such good expedition
that they performed a journey of ninety miles in two days, and on
the second evening arrived in London, without having encountered any
one adventure on the road worthy the dignity of this history to
relate. Our pen, therefore, shall imitate the expedition which it
describes, and our history shall keep pace with the travellers who are
its subject. Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the
ingenious traveller in this instance, who always proportions his
stay at any place to the beauties, elegancies, and curiosities which
it affords. At Eshur, at Stowe, at Wilton, at Eastbury, and at Prior's
Park, days are too short for the ravished imagination; while we admire
the wondrous power of art in improving nature. In some of these, art
chiefly engages our admiration; in others, nature and art contend
for our applause; but, in the last, the former seems to triumph.
Here Nature appears in her richest attire, and Art, dressed with the
modestest simplicity, attends her benignant mistress.
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