| Citation |
GG(J.769.006
1 Mar 1769:11 (283)
The Fatal Indifference: or the Interesting History of Mrs.
Matilda Markham. Printed from her own manuscript.
I was a daughter of a gentleman, who held an employment
under the Governor, that amounted to 500 L a year; yet
though this employment was his principal dependence, and
though he was always under a necessity of appearing rather
elegantly in the world, still no care was omitted to give
his favourite Matilda a finished education. I was therefore
instructed at an early period in French and Italian, was
taught all the fashionable needleworks that keep a young
woman regularly employed, without answering any one purpose
of real ability, and made such of mistress of the
harpsichord before I attained my fourteenth year, that I was
considered by the connoisseurs on this instrument, as a kind
of musical miracle: Add to all these accomplishments, that
I sung with some voice and much taste, danced with
remarkable grace, and possessed a person which was the
incessant object of general adulation. . . [12 lines,
narrative suggesting these talents were useless.] [My
father] fancied that the knowledge of a language or two,
would necessarily give me good sense, and believed the turn
of my disposition must be right, because I sung prettily,
and made a figure at my harpsichord. -- Alas! how severely
has experience convinced me, that a single scruple of
discretion outweighs all the benefits to be reaped from the
French or the Italian; and how heartily do I wish that the
hours which have been so prodigally lavished in the
attainment of mere embellishments, had been wisely employed
in the less fashionable studies of regulating a family. . .
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