 unlaboured ornament to her. All natural its curls: Art has no share in the lustre it gives to her other beauties.
I mentioned her Neck—Here I dare not trust myself—Inimitable creature! All-attracting loveliness!
Her Arm—Your Ladyship knows my passion for a delicate Arm.—By my Soul, madam, your own does not exceed it.
Her Hands are extremely fine. Such Fingers! And they accustomed to the Pen, to the Needle, to the Harpsichord; excelling in all—O madam! women have Souls. I am now convinced they have. I dare own to your Ladyship, that once I doubted it, on a supposition that they were given us for temporary purposes only.—And have I not seen her dance? Have I not heard her sing?—But indeed, mind and person, she is all harmony.
Then for Reading, for acquired knowledge, what Lady so young—But you know the character of her grandfather Shirley. He was a man of universal

learning, and, from his public employments abroad, as polite as learned. This Girl, from Seven years of age, when he came to settle in England, to Fourteen, when she lost him, was his delight; and her education and instruction the amusement of his vacant hours. This is the Period, he used to say, in which the foundations of all female goodness are to be laid, since so soon after Fourteen they leap into women.
The dead languages he aimed not to teach her, lest he should overload her young mind: But in the Italian and French he made her an adept.
Nor were the advantages common ones which she received from his Lady, her grandmother, and from her aunt Selby, her father's sister, a woman of equal worthiness. Her grandmother particularly is one of the most pious, yet most chearful, of women. She will not permit her daughter Byron, she says, to live with her, for both their sakes—For the Girl's sake, because there is a greater resort of company at Mr. Selby's, than at Shirley-Manor; and she is afraid, as her grand-child has a serious turn, that her own contemplative life may make her more grave than she wishes so young a woman to be. Youth, she says, is the season for chearfulness—For her own sake, Because she looks upon her Harriet's company as a cordial too rich to be always at hand; and when she has a mind to regale, she will either send for her, fetch her, or visit her at Mrs. Selby's. One
