agree with me, that if an absolute prohibition be impracticable, a heavy duty should be laid on the importation of French fashions and fopperies into this kingdom. It is therefore but reasonable, that all French cooks, valets de chambre, milliners, mantuamakers, hair-cutters, &c. should be at least doubly taxed, as it is notorious that they exact from the dupes, who employ them, more than double the wages or price for their labours, than our own modest countrymen would require. This tax, I make no doubt, would produce no inconsiderable sum for the public use and as our ladies, though I would not suspect that they have French hearts, are ambitious of wearing French complexions, a further sum might also be raised by fixing a high duty upon rouge and carmine. There are many other particulars in the fashionable world which might be turned in the same manner to the public good. A tax on kept mistresses, for example, who are now become so very numerous, that I question not but a duty, properly levied on them, would be sufficient to maintain all the widows of our soldiers and sailors who shall happen to be killed in the service. A heavy duty might also be laid on all Bagnios, French-wine-houses, Coventgarden coffee-houses, &c. and since, in spite of laws and decency, these places are suffered to be kept open, it is surely equitable that they should pay round taxes for the relief of the nation, as well as an annual tribute for the connivance of the neighbouring justices. To add to this scheme, and to make vice and folly farther contribute to the public necessity, I would also propose, that Messieurs Harris, Derry, and the rest of the fraternity of pimps, retained as caterers to the voluptuous at any tavern or bagnio, should enter all the hacks in their service at an excise office appropriated to this pur pose; and that, to prevent frauds, as well as to point out the means of application to the office for redress in case of complaint, these hacks should all be marked and numbered, like the hackneycoaches. 'As it is incumbent on every Englishman to expose his life in defence of his country against the common enemy, I must particularly recommend, that some means may be devised, that the gallant feats of those men of honour, who rather choose to risk their lives in the modish way of duelling, may be attended with some advantage to their countrymen. I would therefore advise, that swords and pistols, of a settled length and bore, with the Tower stamp, be provided by the government for the use of duellists, and that they shall not presume to make use of any other, under pain of incurring the guilt of murder. These weapons may be let out at a certain price; and if one of the parties happen to kill the other, the survivor shall be subject to a fine according to his rank and station, and a jury shall be directed to bring in a verdict-self-defence. In like manner, persons of quality may have leave granted them to put an end to their own lives, after an ill run at cards, or the like emergent occasions; when, on paying a certain rate, they may be indulged in a private execution from the hands of Jack Ketch, and the coroner's inquest shall be directed to bring in their verdict-lunacy. 'SIR, Iam, Sir, your humble servant, &c.' 'To MR. TOWN. 'As you are a Connoisseur, I shall make no apology for desiring you to give the following advertisement (which has already appeared in the Daily Advertiser) a place in some corner of your paper. By doing this you will greatly oblige the virtuosi in flowers, as well as Your humble servant, &c.' 'TO BE SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION, At Half-a-Guinea each Plant, 'An Auricula, raised by Mr. William Redmond, at Islington, named the Triumph; having fine grass, a strong stem, a certain blower, a large trusser, the fingers a just length, a good pip for size and shape, the eye extremely white, the thrum full, the margin a beautiful purple black, finely variegated with silver and green, continues long in bloom, and dies in colour. No plant to be sold for less than one guinea after the subscription is closed, until the bloom is over.' N° 111. THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1756. Tandem desine matrem.--HOR. With dear mamma O make not such a pother! THE generality of the young unmarried ladies of the present age dislike no company so much as the elderly persons of their own sex, whether married or unmarried. Going with an old maiden aunt, a mamma, or grand-mamma to the play, or to Ranelagh, is so insipid an amusement, that it robs their entertainment of the very name of a party of pleasure. To be handed into a box, walk in the public gardens, or make one at a card-table at a rout, with a sprightly young nobleman, or gallant colonel of the guards, has some life in it: but to be kept perpetually under the wing of an old lady, can have no charms for a woman of spirit. The presence of these antiquated females imposes a constraint on their behaviour: they are, indeed, like the Duennas in Spain, spies on the conduct of the gay and young; and a good old gentlewoman, with a blooming beauty by her side, watches her every motion, and is as much frighted, if the pretty creature makes any advances to a man, as a hen, who has been fostermother to a brood of ducklings, is alarmed at their taking to the water. This loose coquet behaviour so much in vogue, and consequently so genteel, has, I must own, no charms in my eye, as a modest deportment appears to me most natural and becoming in the fair sex; and I am always glad to see a young lady of suffi. cient sense and discretion, to behave with an innocent cheerfulness, instead of apparent uneasiness and constraint, before her more aged female friends and relations. But though a daughter should prefer no company to her mother, a son, who always dangled at the side of his mamma, would appear as ridiculous as if he wore his sister's petticoats; and however amiable this maidenly demeanour might seem in a young girl, I cannot view it with equal approbation in the character of a male-virgin;-a character, with which I shall here present the reader, as drawn by one of my correspondents. 'SIR, 'To MR. Town. "You have already given us several instances of those ambiguous creatures among the men, who are both male and female: permit me to add to them an account of those lady-like gentlemen, whom we may distinguish by the title of "their mother's own sons;" who have in vain changed the bib and leading-strings for the breeches, and stick as close to their mammas, as a great calf to the side of an old cow. I am intimately acquainted with one of these over-grown babies; who is indeed too big to be dandled in the lap, or fed with a pap-spoon, though he is no more weaned from his mother, than if he had not yet quitted the nursery. "The delicate Billy Suckling is the contempt of the men, the jest of the women, and the darling of his mamma. She dotes on him to distraction; and is in perpetual admiration of his wit, and anxiety for his health. The good young gentleman, for his part, is neither undutiful nor ungrateful: she is the only woman that he does not look on with indifference; and she is his tutoress, his physician, and his nurse. She provides his broth every evening; will not suffer him to look into a book by candle-light lest he should hurt his eyes; and takes care to have his bed warmed: : nay, I have known him sit with his mamma's white handkerchief round his neck through a whole visit, to guard him from the wind of that ugly door, or that terrible chink in the wainscot. 'But however familiarly he may behave in his addresses to his mother, and whatever little acts of gal lantry may pass between them, no encouragement can prevail on him to treat other women with the same freedom. Being once desired at a ball to dance a minuet, instead of taking out any of the young ladies, he could pitch upon no partner so agreeable, to whom he might offer the compliment of his hand, as his mother; and I remember when he was once called upon in a large company at a tavern to give a lady in his turn, he plainly shewed who was the sole mistress of his affections, by toasting his mother. The gallant custom of challenging a lady to drink a bumper, by leaving it to her option whe |