Pagina-afbeeldingen
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tive to the fuperficial Parts of Life, than the folid and fubftantial Bleffings of it. A Girl, who has been trained up in this kind of Converfation, is in danger of every Embroidered Coat that comes in her Way. A Pair of fringed Gloves may be her Ruin. In a word, Lace and Ribbons, Silver and Gold Galloons, with the like glittering Gewgaws, are fo many Lures to Women of weak Minds or low Educations, and, when artificially difplayed, are able to fetch down the most airy Coquet from the wildest of her Flights and Rambles.

TRUE Happiness is of aretired Na ture, and an Enemy to Pomp and Noife; it arifes, in the first place, from the Enjoyment of one's felf; and, in the next, from the Friendship and Conver fation of a few felect Companions. It loves Shade and Solitude, and naturally haunts Groves and Fountains, Fields and Meadows: In fhort, it feels every thing it wants within itself, and receives no Addition from Multitudes of Witneffes and Spectators. On the contrary, falfe Happiness loves to be in a Crowd, and to draw the Eyes of the World upon her. She does not receive any Satisfaction from the Applaufes which

fhe

the gives herfelf, but from the Admiration which the raifes in others. She Hourishes in Courts and Palaces, Theatres and Affemblies, and has no Exiftence but when the is looked upon.

AURELIA, though a Woman of Great Quality, delights in the Privacy of a Country Life, and paffes away a great part of her Time in her own Walks and Gardens. Her Husband, who is her Bofom Friend, and Companion in her Solitudes, has been in Love with her ever fince he knew her. They both abound with good Senfe, confummate Virtue, and a mutual Efteem; and are a perpetual Entertainment to one another. Their Family is under fo regular an Oeconomy, in its Hours of Devotion and Repaft, Employment and Diverfion, that it looks like a little Common-wealth within it felf. They often go into Company, that they may return with the greater Delight to one another; and fometimes live in Town, not to enjoy it fo properly as to grow weary of it, that they may renew in themselves the Relifh of a Country Life. By this means they are happy in each other, beloved by their Children, adored by their Servants, and are beF 3

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come the Envy, or rather the Delight, of all that know them.

HOW different to this is the Life of Fulvia! fhe confiders her Husband as her Steward, and looks upon Difcretion and good Housewifry as little domeftick Virtues, unbecoming a Woman of Quality. She thinks Life loft in her own Family, and fancies her felf out of the World when she is not in the Ring, the Play-house, or the Drawing-Room: She lives in a perpetual Motion of Body, and Reftlessness of Thought, and is never eafie in any one Place, when the thinks there is more Company in another. The miffing of an Opera the first Night, would be more afflicting to her than the Death of a Child. She pities all the valuable Part of her own Sex, and calls every Woman of a prudent modeft retired Life, a poor-fpirited unpolifhed Creature. What a Mortification would it be to Fulvia, if the knew that her setting her felf to View is but expofing her felf, and that the grows Contemptible by being Confpicuous.

I cannot conclude my Paper, without obferving that Virgil has very finely touched upon this Female Paffion for

Drefs

Drefs and Show, in the Character of Camilla; who, though the feems to have shaken off all the other Weakneffes of her Sex, is ftill defcribed as a Woman in this Particular. The Poet tells us, that after having made a great Slaughter of the Enemy, the unfortunately caft her Eye on a Trojan, who wore an embroidered Tunick, a beautiful Coat of Mail, with a Mantle of the fineft Purple. A Golden Bow, fays he, bung upon his Shoulder; his Garment was buckled with a Golden Clafp, and his Head covered with an Helmet of the fame Shining Metal. The Amazon immediately fingled out this well-dreffed Warrior, being feized with a Woman's Longing for the pretty Trappings that he was adorned with.

-Totumque incauta per agmen

Famineo præde & fpoliorum ardebat amore.

This heedlefs Pursuit after these glittering Trifles, the Poet (by a nice concealed Moral) reprefents to have been the Deftruction of his Female He

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N° 16. Monday, March 19.

Quod verum atque aecens curo & rogo,& omnis in hoc fum.

Hor.

Have received a Letter, defiring me to be very fatyrieal upon the little Muff that is now in Fafhion; another informs me of a pair of Silver Garters buckled below the Knee, that have been lately feen at the Rainbow Coffee-houfe in Fleet-ftreet; a third fends me an heavy Complaint against fringed Gloves. To be brief, there is fcarce an Ornament of either Sex which one or other of my Correfpondents has not inveighed against with fome Bitternefs, and recommended to my Observation. I must therefore, once for all, inform my Readers, that it is not my Intention to fink the Dignity of this my Paper with Reflections upon Redheels or Top-knots, but rather to enter into the Paffions of Mankind, and to correct those depraved Sentiments

that

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