Mauper-happy manner of delivering abstruse science with tuis ease. This met with violent opposition from a people, though fond of novelty in everything else, yet, however, in matters of science, attached to ancient opinions with bigotry. As the old and obstinate fell away, the youth of France embraced the new opinions, and now seem more eager to defend Newton than even his countrymen.

The oddity of character which great men are sometimes remarkable for, Maupertuis was not entirely free from. Though born to a large fortune, when employed in mathematical inquiries, he disregarded his person to such a degree, and loved retirement so much, that he has been more than once put on the list of modest beggars by the curates of Paris, when he retired to some private quarter of the town, in order to enjoy his meditations without interruption. The character given of him by one of Voltaire's antagonists, if it can be depended upon, is much to his honour. "You," says

this writer to Mr. Voltaire, "you were entertained by the King of Prussia as a buffoon, but Maupertuis as a philosopher." It is certain, that the preference which this royal scholar gave to Maupertuis was the cause of Voltaire's disagreement with him. Voltaire could not bear to see a man, whose talents he had no great opinion of, preferred before him as president of the Royal Academy. His Micromegas' was designed to ridicule Maupertuis; and, probably, it has brought more disgrace on

the author than the subject. Whatever absur- Mauperdities men of letters have indulged, and how tuis fantastical soever the modes of science have been, their anger is still more subject to ridi

THE BEE

No. II. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1759

ON DRESS

On Dress FOREIGNERS observe, that there are no ladies in the world more beautiful, or more ill-dressed, than those of England. Our countrywomen have been compared to those pictures, where the face is the work of a Raphael, but the draperies thrown out by some empty pretender, destitute of taste, and unacquainted with design.

If I were a poet, I might observe, on this occasion, that so much beauty set off with all the advantages of dress, would be too powerful an antagonist for the opposite sex; and, therefore, it was wisely ordered that our ladies should want taste, lest their admirers should entirely

want reason.

But to confess a truth, I do not find they have a greater aversion to fine clothes than the women of any other country whatsoever. I can't fancy that a shop-keeper's wife in Cheapside has a greater tenderness for the fortune of her husband than a citizen's wife in Paris; or,

that Miss in a boarding-school is more an econo- French mist in dress than Mademoiselle in a nunnery. and Although Paris may be accounted the soil in English which almost every fashion takes its rise, its influence is never so general there as with us. They study there the happy method of uniting grace and fashion, and never excuse a woman for being awkwardly dressed, by saying her clothes are in the mode. A French woman is a perfect architect in dress; she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a squabby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to a general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.

The English ladies, on the contrary, seem to have no other standard of grace but the run of the town. If fashion gives the word, every distinction of beauty, complexion, or stature, ceases. Sweeping trains, Prussian bonnets, and trollopees, as like each other as if cut from the same piece, level all to one standard. The Mall, the gardens, and play-houses, are filled with ladies in uniform : and their whole appearance shows as little variety or taste, as if their clothes were bespoke by the colonel of a marching regiment, or fancied by the artist who dresses the three battalions of guards.

But not only the ladies of every shape and complexion, but of every age too, are possessed of this unaccountable passion levelling all distinction in dress. The lady of no quality travels fast behind the lady of some quality, and a woman of sixty is as gaudy as her granddaughter. A friend

Mall.

Cousin of mine, a good-natured old man, amused me the Hannah other day, with an account of his journey to the It seems, in his walk thither, he, for some time, followed a lady who, as he thought by her dress, was a girl of fifteen. It was airy, elegant, and youthful. My old friend had called up all his poetry on this occasion, and fancied twenty Cupids prepared for execution in every folding of her white negligée. He had prepared his imagination for an angel's face, but what was his mortification to find that the imaginary goddess was no other than his cousin Hannah, some years older than himself!

But to give it in his own words :-" After the transports of our first salute," said he, "were over, I could not avoid running my eye over her whole appearance. Her gown was of cambric, cut short before, in order to discover a highheeled shoe, which was buckled almost at the toe. Her cap consisted of a few bits of cambric, and flowers of painted paper struck on one side of her head. Her bosom, that had felt no hand, but the hand of time, these twenty years, rose suing to be pressed. I could, indeed, have wished her more than a handkerchief of Paris net to shade her beauties; for, as Tasso says of the rosebud,Quanto si mostra men tanto è più bella,' a female breast is generally thought more beautiful as it is more sparingly discovered.

"As my cousin had not put on all this finery for nothing, she was at that time sallying out to the Park, when I had overtaken her. Perceiving, however, that I had on my best wig,