himself. But a hoary-headed sachem among the Indians resolved the mystery by informing us, that his tribe had always sharpened their arrows on this identical rock, and occasioned those ambiguous characters in the operation.

1

Within the neighbourhood of my chateau, our fair countrywomen are peculiarly remarkable for every grace of beauty and endowment of the understanding. The precepts of education fall on their minds, like dews distilling upon the mulberry of Calabria and producing the most delicious manna. Indeed it fills my old heart with ecstasy, when I mingle among those interesting females. Here, you never behold the ociliad of coquetry or the simper of affectation, the wrinkle of ridicule or the forehead of pride, the flounting attire of wealth or the rags of slothful poverty. Envy is excluded by general competence; and the arts of imported politeness appear unknown. What a contrast to the manners of the city! There, Fashion and Folly hold divided sway, glittering in the pomp of gewgaws, and charming with the melody of French airs and Italian madrigals. All kneel before the toilette, and Sylphs are the saints of their worship.

Amurath, califf of Bagdat, was distinguished throughout the east, on account of his splendour and magnificence. His robes exhibited the most gorgeous tissue of gold and silver; his turban contained in front, a crescent, where the topaz and amethyst the sapphire and ruby lent their rays to dazzle every eye. During his visits to the mosque, an old bonze frequently crossed his course, and gazed with fixed enthusiasm. At length falling . prostrate before the califf, he fervently expressed his gratitude, for being afforded gratuitously such a spectacle of grandeur. Agreeably to this estimate, how liberal are your belles publicly emulating peacocks and butterflies, and wearing in jewels, a thousand beeves upon their bodies, when the gallery of the mountebank commands its price, and every raree show-box gains its shilling for a peep.

Not many evenings ago, I met at a rustic wedding, some of my old acquaintances from town. Among the rest, that pink of gallantry and paragon of taste Belinda Blossom. Miss Lucretia Lovelace had likewise received a card. She however lamented

that the recent death of her nephew compelled her absence. Oh! how.impolite, how outrageously undutiful to dress up in mourning weeds, a damsel, that would have shone in the splendid pieballed trappings of the ton. How little resembling the magnanimity of Democritus! When the philosopher of Abdera was labouring under his last affliction, he overheard his landlady sorely grieve, that she should be prevented from partaking of a rich banquet with her neighbours, as there would be a corpse in her custody. Wherefore, although his extremities foretold that fate was nigh, he took a loaf of bread, newly baked, and pouring Falernian wine into it, lived upon its odour, until the feast was finished; when he willingly resigned a spirit, always reluctant to mar the mirth of his companions.

Miss Belinda Blossom is eminently conspicuous in balls, squeezes, routs, or simple tea-parties, and always presides as queen at every Twelfth-night entertainment. It is said, she charitably supports half a dozen French milliners, out of her own ridicule, and manages a correspondence with each important city of Europe, that she may receive the earliest advices of any change or revolution in the costume of its courts. Accordingly, she is the first to display the model of an imperial slip or birth-day curricle. Her wardrobe cost more than the famed Bodlean library; and, in truth, might be converted into the cabinet of a virtuoso. Among other precious commodities, she exults in the possession of a broach of Anne Bulleyn, the pearls and owches of lady Dorset, and the nose-rings, ear-bobs and feathers of the princess Pocahontas; being parapharnalia, that have descended through three generations of the Blossom family. Every element and clime have afforded their tribute of decoration.

Upon the present occasion, she wore a flaming red velvet, thickly bespangled, and being pretty nearly of the same admeasurement, both as to her polar and equatorial diameters, looked for all the world, like my grandmother's big levee pincushion. This accomplished belle, notwithstanding she has cleared out seven winters successively, on a voyage to Newyork and a market, still remains among the catalogue of maidens. An eminent lord high chancellor of England, during the reign

of Harry the Eighth, was offered by his friend, the choice of three daughters in matrimony. The youngest was his favourite; but to prevent any mortification, which might arise from slighting the claims of seniority, he obligingly bestowed his hand on the first-born. This punctilio of parlour chivalry, being obsolete among the courtiers of modern days, Miss Blossom, although the eldest of five sisters, has been postponed to all of them. Her failures she attributes entirely to the pitiable rotundity of her figure; and loudly exclaims against her mamma and papa, declaring that two such chunky, budgetty, turnip-shaped, squashformed animals as they, should never have thought the tythe part of a moment, on marriage. What a pity, dear Christopher, that your good old theorising progenitor cannot raise up his head from the grave, to explain to her one of his favourite projects!*

Miss Belinda, however, suffers the neglect of our sex, with the fortitude and philosophy of Patient Grizzle; and to show the

NOTE BY MYSELF.

Friend Lyttleton here alludes to a curious project of my grandfather Casl wallader, for imparting every endowment of perfect beauty mathematically, without any reference, however, to the harmonic triangle of Pythagoras. The hint was perhaps originally derived from lord Verulam's Sylva Sylvarum or Natural Philosophy (Cent. 1. 28.) and is withal so curiously extended, that I may in some future paper, descant upon it. At present, let the following extract suffice.-Parents, it is true, are highly responsible for the form and features of their children. But there is no necessity of taking the pains to match man and wife, that Frederic of Prussia used to get a corps of grenadiers. Hymen may throw size ace, or two aces together, and yet the hit be good. The Chinese manufacture the sweet little feet of their females, in iron slippers-Bears lick their cubs, into the most marvellous symmetry-The ancients framed the macrocephali, or lank and lean-headed logicians, by manual pressure-Apples may be made to assume the configuration of pears; or pears, that of apples-Our faces and limbs are just as plastic-By due art and cultivation, daughters may prove as fair as Lais or Aspasia; and sons graceful as Apollo or Alcibiades. After the same management, I can bestow on ambitious personages, the stutter of Demosthenes, the wart of Tully, the crooked neck of Alexander, the bandy legs of Marius, the altitude of John of Gaunt, the belly of Cardinal Wolsey, or the hump-back of Richard.--Crochet's miscellanies, in manuscript, No. XLV.

sweetness of her temper, during her matin devotions at the mirror, coaxes a smile upon her lip, which lasts until dinnertime. She is distinguished throughout her neighbourhood, for the salt of her sayings, and the smartness of her repartees, yet as honest Tom Brown would pronounce, her humour is like the spirit in a blind horse, only serving to risk his shins.

Nam quæ docta nimis cupit, et facunda videri,
Crure tenus medio tunicas, succingere debet,
Cadere Sylvano porcum, quadrante lavaris.

Even wit's a burthen when it talks too long;

But she, that hath no continence of tongue,
Should walk in breeches, and should wear a beard
And mix among the philosophic herd.

Juv. 6 sat.

DRYDEN.

An elegant French writer observes, that spiders might weave Italian gauze, or lustrings, or changeable silks, if they could associate in friendship together, instead of spinning out their cobwebs. So Miss Belinda Blossom, that pink of gallantry and paragon of taste, would be a seraph, an angel of the seventh Heaven, if she were not guilty of certain monstrous faults and unseemly foibles.

With regard to our country married ladies, they sufficiently answer every qualification. Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is above rubies? She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she reacheth forth her hand to the needy. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children arise up and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her. Situated in the centre of conjugal bliss, a sigh will oft prevail, when I reflect, that I am a lonely being, without an object to engage my affections, and make cheerful by her smiles, the dark winter of age. Hope once spread before my eyes, a harvest of joys, whose fruition would prove a foretaste of Elysium, yet the wanton gossip soon laughed to scorn my easy credulity, and fulfilled her promise to a rival.

Moralists, who would direct our steps in the pursuit of happiness, and virtuous men, who proved by experiment, many modes of human life, have regarded retirement, as fraught with peculiar felicities. Seneca inculcated this doctrine, and eloquently petitioned his imperial pupil, that he might practise it. Marcus Agrippa, the illustrious leader of the armies of Augustus, relinquished without a sigh, all his honourable preferment, for the solitude of Lesbos. Every contemplative mind turns with rapture, from the pomp and refinement, that prevail in cities, to the simplicity of rustic manners. Here, Nature seldom appears otherwise, than in her primitive loveliness; and although Tiberius, may have extended the example of his licentious court amid the rocks of Capræa, yet there seemed a guardian genius, ever watchful to save the sylvan shades from any lasting pollution.

Luxury is more baneful than pestilence or the sword, and always selects for its ravages, that scene, where they may prove most extensive. Its victims are not entangled in any thicket where age may have wandered alone for recreation, or youth through pastime. They themselves voluntarily prepare the sacrifice their own hands bind them to the altar, and present the instruments of immolation-An ascendancy gained, its progress is accelerated, until it break into corruption. Then every vice predominates; reason is bewildered; the heart debased, and this noblest work of God sinks from his rank in the creation.

If we examine the books of Tacitus, a picture is presented to our view, at which the soul recoils with horror. Rome displays herself in the full maturity of sin-All the laurels that bloomed around the tombs of her heroes are trod into the dust-her triumphal arches form a gray and drooping ruin-her temples only. mock the glory of ages that have passed-Virtue is proscribed-Philosophy inculcating its divine precepts, expires in the bathConjugal affection is stigmatised with obloquy, and Love, resisting Lust, provokes the knife of venal Murder-Nero is beheld on the house-top of Mæcenas, chanting blithely to his harp the siege of Troy, whilst the flames of palaces and towers cheer his song;