, I presume, from the practice of the fair in general, no way favourable to the preservation or the improvement of beauty.

It was, perhaps, from this very inclination for investigating truth, that Bolton drew an advantage in his approaches towards her esteem. As he was just returned from the seat of learning, where discussions of that fort are common, she naturally applied to him for assistance in her researches▪ by assistance, I mean opposition; it being the quality of that desire after knowlege with which this lady was endued, to delight in nothing so much, as in having its own doctrines confronted with opposi•e ones, till they pommel, and bel•bour one another without mercy; the contest having one advantage peculiar to battles of this kind, that each party, far from being weakened by its exertion, commonly appears to have gained strength, as well as honour, from the rencounter.
Bolton indeed did not possess quite so much of this quality as his antagonist: he could not, in common good-breeding, refuse her challenge; but he often maintained the conflict in a manner rather dastardly for a philosopher. He gave, however, full audience to the lady's arguments; and if he sometimes showed an unwillingness to reply, she considered it as a testimony of her power to silence. But she was generous in her victories: whenever she conceived them completely obtained, she celebrated the prowess of her adversary, and allowed him all that wisdom which retreats from the fortress it cannot defend.
There was, perhaps, another reason, as forcible as that of obliging Mrs. Selwyn, or attaining the recondite principles of philosophy, which increased Bolton's willingness to indulge that lady in becoming a party to her disquisitions. There was a spectatress of the combat, whose company might have been purchased at the expence of sitting to hear Aquinas himself dispute upon theology—Miss Lucy Sindall. My readers have been acquainted, in the Introduction, with my prepossession in her favour, and the character Mrs. Wistanly gave in justification of it. They were deceived by neither.
With remarkable quickness of parts, and the liveliest temper, she possessed all that tenderness which is the chief ornament of the female character; and, with a modesty that seemed to shrink from observation, she united an ease, and a dignity, that universally commanded it. Her vivacity only rose to be amiable; no enemy could ever repeat her wit, and she had no friend who did not boast of her good-humour.
I should first have described her person; my readers will excuse it; it is not of such minds