to this circle, it knows how to do without a great number of witnesses and the mad glare of a multitude.

I shall here give you Pliny's receipt for making friendship.

In Pliny's Natural History, we find this curious receipt for making a Roman friendship, the principal ingredients of which were-union of hearts (a flower that grew in several parts of the empire), sincerity, frankness, disinterestedness, pity, and tenderness; of each an equal quantity: these were all made up together with two rich. oils, which they called perpetual kind wishes and serenity of temper; and the whole was strongly perfumed with the desire of pleasing, which gave it a most grateful smell, and was a sure restorative against vapours of all sorts. The cordial thus prepared was of so durable a nature, that no length of time could waste it; but what is more remarkable (says our author), it encreased in its weight and value the longer it was kept.

CHAP. V.

OF THE LUXURY OF WOMEN.

LUXURY has so much relation to women, and possesses such great attractions for them that a work that is consecrated to them ought not to pass over such an important subject. It is not intended here to treat upon it politically, but in the relation it has with the sex, who are its declared protec

tors.

I am not desirous of proposing here the antient times as models. Luxury is as antient as the world. There have always been> women capable of abusing that which is at their disposal, by making it subservient to their vanity. In the early ages they abused: less, because they possessed less. Luxury. was then proportioned to the rudeness of

the times, and the small number of discoveries.

The female savages of Canada pride themselves as much in their shells and feathers as our ladies in their jewels.

Luxury has increased gradually with riches. It reigned very antiently through all the East; it was carried to great lengths by the Athenian women; and was pursued to the highest excess in the unhappy time in which one city alone absorbed the treasures of the whole world.

But, in all ages, there have been but few persons who have regulated their desires by their wants.

Our times, which may be compared to the most ostentatious of the Roman empire, offer still many examples of a wise moderation. In the midst of this immense luxury, which swallows up the greatest fortunes, we find distinguished women enemies to all ostentation. Quiet spectatresses of the follies of their fellow-citizens they know how to reconcile what is due to their rank with

G

decency, with that sweet simplicity inseparable from true grandeur.

Public good and private interest are equally interested in prohibiting Luxury, the corrupter of all states.

The Roman ladies sacrificed, with pleasure, their jewels and trinkets to this love for the public good. Such a sacrifice is not expected from the English ladies; but it is to be wished they would moderate a little the inclination they have for every thing that dazzles.

The search after agreeable things can only be blamed by persons enemies of the human race and themselves. They cannot, without a sort of barbarity, reject with disdain all those amiable and useful arts which increase the pleasures of society. It is to confess that they are not born to relish its sweets, and to shew themselves only worthy of living among bears; to declaim against decency, complaisance, and taste, for which we are indebted to politeness and the arts. But are there not means of fixing just

bounds to the search after conveniencies and pleasures? Do our pretty voluptuaries think that this refinement, which is every day increasing, is a benefit? Is that excess of delicacy proper to increase our pleasure or their own?

It is easy to see that this false delicacy only leads women on from error to error. They become enamoured of trifles, with which they are disgusted within the day, and which they exchange for others of as trifling a value. They wish, incessantly, to be retouching the work of Nature; they disfigure it, and render it hardly to be known under a load of frivolous ornaments.

Art, used every where, has so dazzled the imagination, that they are no longer sensible of the beauties of Simplicity.

Objects have been valued not according to their excellence, but as they were scarce a sure method of being led away by a false judgement.

When the goodness or utility of things no longer regulate the taste, these tastes