have induced them to conceal. They boasted of their intrigues, as if seduction and adultery were meritorious actions and titles of honor. In 'Sir Charles Grandison,' Harriet Byron says, in one of her letters to Lucy Selby, "I am very much mistaken, if every woman would not find her account, if she wishes herself to be thought well of, in discouraging every reflection that may have a tendency to debase or expose the sex in general. How can a man be suffered to boast of his vileness to one woman in the presence of another, without a rebuke, that should put it to the proof whether the boaster was or was not past blushing?" Few women, in that age, had the courage and the sense of Stella, of whom Swift tells us in his 'Character of Mrs. Johnson,' that when "a coxcomb of the pert kind" began to utter some doubles entendres in the company of herself and several other ladies, and "the rest flapped their fans, and used the other common expedients practised in such cases, of appearing not to mind or comprehend whatever was said," she sternly rebuked him, and said: "Sir, all these ladies and I understand your meaning very well, having, in spite of our care, too often met with those of your sex who wanted manners and good sense. But, believe me, neither virtuous nor even vicious women love such kind of conversation. However, I will leave

you, and report your behavior, and whatever visit I make, I shall first inquire at the door whether you are in the house, that I may be sure to avoid you." And yet, strangely enough, in the short collection of Bons Mots de Stella,' which is given by Swift, there is one in which she made a joke of an intolerably vulgar and offensive expression, which Dr. Sheridan disgraced himself by uttering in her presence.*

Wo find the novelists introducing episodes which consist of stories told by women of their past lives, in which the most unblushing details of profligacy are given; and the curious circumstance is, that they do so with apparently an utter unconsciousness that they offend against propriety by the narrative, however much they may have offended against it by their acts.

In the 'Spiritual Quixote,' published in the middle of the century, the author, who was a clergyman, makes every lady in whom he wishes the reader to take interest, give the history, or others tell the history of her past life-and, however modest and respectable she may have been, she has always been the object of libertine attempts. When she tells the

* The difference, however, between the two cases is this, and it serves as an illustration of the manners of the time. The language in the one case was licentious; in the other, simply indecent. Stella had too much virtue to tolerate the one, and too little refinement to resent the other.

story herself, she does it with a plainness of speech that is astonishing. Such is the narrative of Miss Townsend with whom Wildgoose, the hero, falls in love; and such is the story of Mrs. Rivers, the charming wife of Mr. Rivers, as told by her husband, who has settled down with her in an old country house, and taken to farming. One of the chapters is headed 66 Narrative of a Licentious Amour," and this narrative is supposed to be related by a gentleman in presence of several respectable unmarried ladies who make comments upon it as it proceeds.

Even in the 'Female Quixote,' written by a lady, which is as free as any of the old novels from licentiousness, we have the history of Miss Groves told with apparent unconsciousness of its impropriety. 'Peregrine Pickle' belongs to a different school, and in it, of course, we might expect any thing. There is introduced a long episode called 'The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,' or, in other words, the adventures of a kept mistress, who in early life was married to a nobleman.* And the reason for mentioning them

*The lady of quality was Lady Vane, daughter of Mr. Hawes, a South-Sea director, first married to Lord William Hamilton, and secondly to Lord Vane. See 'Walpole's Letters, edited by Cunningham, vol. i. p. 91. It was not an uncommon practice to make living persons figure in fiction, and describe their adventures and—amours. In 1780, Sir Herbert Croft, Bart.,

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here is, that although they are the frankest possible confession of a life of profligacy, they are told by "her Ladyship" after she has become repentant and virtuous "in a select party," in hopes that they may perceive that, however much her head might have erred, her heart had always been uncorrupted!

Lord Chesterfield says, speaking of the reign of Queen Anne, "No woman of fashion could receive any man at her morning toilet without alarming her husband and his friends." But this I do not believe. It is not likely that women of fashion denied themselves in such a case a liberty which women of the middle classes were freely allowed to use. In Mrs. Heywood's novel of Miss Betsy Thoughtless,' of which I shall speak more particularly hereafter, we find the heroine, a young unmarried lady, receiving as a matter of course male visitors in her dressingroom while performing her toilet. At Bath, ladies bathed in public, and, if we were to take literally the description in Miss Burney's 'Evelina,' we might suppose that the only part of the body that was covered

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published a novel called 'Love and Madness, a Story too true, in a series of letters between parties whose names would perhaps be mentioned were they less known or less lamented.' This purported to be the correspondence between Miss Ray, the mistress of Lord Sandwich, and the Rev. Mr. Hackman, who shot her at the door of the opera, and was afterward hanged.

was the head-for Evelina says: "As to the pumproom I was amazed at the public exhibition of the ladies in the bath; it is true that their heads are covered with bonnets, but the very idea of being seen in such a situation by whoever pleases to look is indelicate." But we can correct this impression from the account given of the same scene by another young lady, Miss Lydia Melford, in 'Humphry Clinker: ' "Right under the pump-room window is the king's bath a large cistern-where you see the patients up to their neck in the hot water. The ladies wear jackets and petticoats of brown linen with chip hats, in which they fix their handkerchiefs to wipe the sweat from their faces; but they look so flushed and so frightful, that I always turn my eyes another way."

No complaint was more common than that of insults offered to women when travelling in a public conveyance, by the loose and indecent talk of their male companions. And they were not always so fortunate as to find an Ephraim the Quaker, who was in the stage-coach with the Spectator when a recruiting. officer began to be impertinent to a young lady, and who was abashed by his rebuke: "Thy mirth, friend, savoreth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a type of thee, it soundeth because it is