and had not neglected the proprietors of legacies from old aunts, cousins, or any other enriching windfall, nor even dowagers if they had a fortune as well as a jointure. Indeed it had been observed, that when a lady, to whom he had paid no attention before, happened to have benefited by any such casualty, he immediately ordered a new pair of buck-skin breeches, and rode off a courting. If these expeditions proved unsuccessful, it was not for the want of a fixed plan of operations. He had been instructed by a friend, that ladies were fond of receiving love-letters. He, therefore, like Parson Adams with his sermons, generally travelled with one about him, in case of what might happen. Not being a man of very fertile invention, the composition of such productions was not to him a matter of ready execution. The best substitute
