and makes the ladies' faces the principal objects of fight. Every beautiful perfon fhines out in all the excellence with which nature has adorned her: gaudy ribbons and glaring colours being now out of use, the sex has no opportunity given them to disfigure themselves, which they feldom fail to do whenever it lies in their power. When a woman comes to her glass, she does not employ her time in making herself look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as much another creature as fhe poffibly can. Whether this happens because they stay fo long, and attend their work fo diligently, that they forget the faces and perfons which they first fat down with, or whatever it is, they feldom rise from the toilet the fame women they appeared when they began to drefs. What jewel can the charming Cleora place in her ears, that can please her beholders fo much as her eyes? The cluster of diamonds upon the breast can add no beauty to the fair cheft of ivory which fupports it. It may indeed tempt a man to steal a woman, but never to love her. Let Thaleftris change herself into a motley, parti-coloured animal: the pearl necklace, the flowered ftomacher, the artificial nosegay, and shaded furbelow, may be of use to attract the eye of the beholder, and turn it from the imperfections of her features and shape. But if ladies will take my word for it (and as they dress to please men they ought to confult our fancy rather than their own in this particular) I can affure them, there is nothing touches our imagination fo much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. There might be more agreeable ornaments found in our own manufacture, than any that rise out of the looms of Perfia.

This, I know, is a very harsh doctrine to woman kind, who are carried away with everything that is fhowy, and with what delights the eye, more than any one fpecies of living creatures whatsoever. Were the minds of the fex laid open, we should find the chief idea in one to be a tippet, in another a muff, in a third a fan, and in a fourth a fardingal. The memory of an old vifiting lady is fo filled up with gloves, filks, and ribbons, that I can look upon it as nothing else but a toy-shop. A matron of my acquaintance complaining of her daughter's

vanity, was obferving, that she had all of a fudden held up her head higher than ordinary, and taken an air that shewed a fecret fatisfaction in herself, mixed with a scorn of others. "I did not know," fays my friend, "what to make of the carriage of this fantastical girl, till I was informed by her eldest sister that she had a pair of striped garters on. This odd turn of mind often makes the fex unhappy, and disposes them to be ftruck with every thing that makes a shew, however trifling and fuperficial.

Many a lady has fetched a figh at the tofs of a wig, and been ruined by the tapping of a fnuff-box. It is impoffible to describe all the execution that was done by the shoulder-knot while that fashion prevailed, or to reckon up all the virgins that have fallen a facrifice to a pair of fringed gloves. A fincere heart has not made half fo many conquests as an open waistcoat; and I should be glad to fee an able head make fo good a figure in a woman's company as a pair of red heels. A Grecian hero, when he was asked whether he could play upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply when he anfwered, "No; but I can make a great city of a little one." Notwithstanding his boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of any toast in town, whether she would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman. I do not speak this out of any averfion that I have to the fex, on the contrary, I have always had a tenderness for them; but I must confess it troubles me very much to fee the generality of them place their affections on improper objects, and give up all the pleafures of life for gewgaws and trifles.

Mrs. Margery Bickerstaff, my great aunt, had a thousand pounds to her portion, which our family was defirous of keeping among themselves, and therefore used all poffible means to turn off her thoughts from marriage. The method they took was, in any time of danger to throw a new gown or petticoat in her way. When she was about twenty-five years of age, she fell in love with a man of an agreeable temper and equal fortune, and would certainly have married him had not my grandfather, Sir Jacob, dreffed her up in a fuit of flowered fatin, upon which the fet fo immoderate a value upon herself,

In the fortieth

that the lover was contemned and difcarded. year of her age, fhe was again fmitten, but very luckily tranfferred her paffion to a tippet, which was prefented to her by another relation who was in the plot. This, with a white farfenet hood, kept her fafe in the family till fifty. About fixty, which generally produces a kind of latter fpring in amorous conftitutions, my aunt Margery had again a colt's tooth in her head, and would certainly have eloped from the Manfion House, had not her brother Simon, who was a wife man and a scholar, advised to drefs her in cherry-coloured ribbons, which was the only expedient that could have been found out by the wit of man to preferve the thousand pounds in our family, part of which I enjoy at this time.

This discourse puts me in mind of an humourist mentioned by Horace, called Eutrapelus, who, when he defigned to do a man a mischief, made him a present of a gay fuit; and brings to my memory another paffage of the fame author, when he defcribes the most ornamental drefs that a woman can appear in with two words, fimplex munditiis, which I have quoted for the benefit of my female readers.

Is mihi demum vivere & frui anima videtur, qui aliquo negotio intentus, præclari facinoris aut artis bona famam quarit. SAL. In my opinion, that man may be truly faid to live, and enjoy his foul, who, giving his mind to bufinefs, purfues a reputation by Jome famous action or honeft art.

T has coft me very much care and thought to marshal and fix the people under their proper denominations, and to range them according to their refpective characters. These my endeavours have been received with unexpected fuccefs in one kind, but neglected in another; for though I have many readers, I have but few converts. This must certainly proceed from a false opinion, that what I write is defigned rather to amuse and entertain, than convince and inftruct. I entered upon my effays with a declaration that I fhould confider mankind in quite another manner than they had hitherto been reprefented to the ordinary world, and afferted that none but a ufeful life fhould be with me any life at all. But left this doctrine fhould have made this fmall progress towards the conviction of mankind, because it may appear to the unlearned light and whimfical, I must take leave to unfold the wifdom and antiquity of my first propofition in these my effays, to wit, "That every worthless man is a

dead man." This notion is as old as Pythagoras, in whose school it was a point of difcipline, that if among the Axsçıx or probationers, there were any who grew weary of studying to be useful, and returned to an idle life, the rest were to regard them as dead; and upon their departing to perform their ob fequies, and raise them tombs with infcriptions to warn others of the like mortality, and quicken them to refolutions of refining their fouls above that wretched ftate. It is upon a like fuppofition, that young ladies at this very time, in Roman Catholic countries, are received into fome nunneries with their coffins, and with the pomp of a formal funeral, to fignify, "That henceforth they are to be of no further use, and confequently dead." Nor was Pythagoras himself the first author of this symbol, with whom, and with the Hebrews, it was generally received. Much more might be offered in illuftration of this doctrine from facred authority, which I recommend to my readers own reflection, who will easily recollect from places which I do not think fit to quote here, the forcible manner of applying the words, "dead and living," to men as they are good or bad.

I have therefore compofed the following scheme of existence for the benefit both of the living and the dead, though chiefly for the latter, whom I must desire to read it with all poffible attention. In the number of the dead, I comprehend all perfons, of what title or dignity foever, who bestow most of their time in eating and drinking, to support that imaginary existence of theirs, which they call life; or in dreffing and adorning those shadows and apparitions which are looked upon by the vulgar, as real men and women. In short, whoever refides in the world without having any bufinefs in it, and paffes away an age without ever thinking on the errand for which he was sent hither, is to me a dead man to all intents and purposes, and I defire that he may be so reputed. The living are only those that are fome way or other laudably employed in the improvement of their own minds, or for the advantage of others; and even amongst these I shall only reckon into their lives that part of their time which has been spent in the manner above-mentioned. By thefe means, I am afraid, we shall find the longest lives not to confift of many months, and the greatest part of the