state, that my residence lay among the manufacturing districts; but lest
any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them,
that in my estimation _all_ country towns, from the elegant Bath, down
to the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or
mercantile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively,
comparatively, and superlatively, manufacturing towns!

Club-rooms, ball-rooms, card-tables, and confectioners' shops, are the
_factories;_ and gossips, both male and female, are the _labouring
classes_. Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs; the
manufacturers I allude to weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of tomorrow
will seldom be the same that is publicly worn to-day; and were it not
for the zeal and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to
replace the stuff that is worn out hour by hour.

No man or woman who ever ventures to deviate from the beaten track
should ever live in a country town. The gossips all turn from the task
of nibbling one another, and the character of the _lusus naturae_ becomes
public property. I am the mother of a family, and I am known to have
written romances. My husband, in an evil hour, took a fancy to a house
at a watering-place, which, by way of distinction, I shall designate by
the appellation of _Pumpington Wells_: there we established ourselves in
the year 1800.

The _manufacturers_ received us with a great show of civility,
exhibiting to us the most recent stuff, and discussing the merits of the
newest fabrications. We, however, were not used to trouble ourselves
about matters that did not concern us, and we soon offended them.

We turned a deaf ear to all evil communications. If we were told that