selves to the drapery. Is it surprizing that they should be so frequently the dupes of a turn of mind which prevents their seeing other than the superficiality of things? Besides, what real distinction can they hope for from all this tinsel, when we see the laymen of the present day exhaust in their apparel, their furniture, and their equipages, every thing which riches and taste can bring together to dazzle the eyes? Can we ac count for the wonderful pride of such people?

We have seen the wife of a stock-jobber, in a palace in the country, distributing, by way of lottery, after a sumptuous repast, valuable trinkets to a numerous assembly. The guineas of great families which are decayed, fill, in the present day, the antichambers of the lowest men; and we see, confounded together under the same garb of magnificence, women of no condition with those of the highest rank.

Is it proper, then, for these to ruin their families with difficulty to attain to such despicable models?

All the world agree that there is nothing more imposing than this prostituted eclat, yet nobody leaves it off. When once luxury has reduced all ranks to a level; "When," "the prop of

as the Friend of Men says, rank is laid low, pomp signifies no longer any thing." This is our case; and our society will soon be only a masquerade, where each one wears not the dress most suitable to his character, but the most conformable to his fancy, and that under which he expects to be least known.

It appears that such a reverse ought to produce a greater effect than the sumptuary laws.

If any thing could cry down a vain pride, it should be to see men of the vilest stamp clothed with it; but they are, in this respect, always children; and women had rather partake of these fancied advantages with persons the most disreputable, than see themselves deprived of them.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE DRESS OF WOMEN.

WE have here before us an article of luxury which affects women the closest, and that, consequently, in which it is most difficult to reform them. We even run a risk of displeasing them, if we attack, in a direct manner, this interesting part of their employment. We have no design of undertaking it. The end which they propose to themselves in raising, with art, the elegant edifice of their attire, is too much to the advantage of men, for them to have any desire of overturning it.

The aim of women, when they deck themselves with so much care, is, most assuredly to please; and even to please us, according to our ideas. Behold us, thereby, fixed

upon as the natural judges of their charms. We may then give them some advice, and pronounce upon the form in which we wish they would regulate it.

Women have judged that Art might assist Nature, and that their allurements could borrow from it new charms. They are not deceived. Dress, employed with management, puts beauty in its meridian; but, it appears to me, they have sometimes abused its assistance.

Inasmuch as a few ornaments relieve the lustre of beauty, they have concluded, that, by multiplying these ornaments, they cannot but add to their graces. They have, in consequence, heaped upon themselves all kinds, independent of the jewels, gildings, ribands, lace, and filigree, that have been lavished upon all their habiliments. Flowers, feathers, all the productions of Nature, have been either placed or imitated upon different parts of their dress; stuffs of all colours have been employed, with a profusion which has been carried to excess;

and there is required, at this time, as much stuff to dress two women as would suffice for tapestry for a drawing-room. What has been the consequence of all these ornaments thus heaped together? The charms of the person have found themselves annihilated in this astonishing train; the number of gewgaws has caused them to lose sight of the regularity of features; the height has been diminished by the vast circumference of draperies, in such a manner, that the woman, we may say, has disappeared, and left nothing to be seen but the variegated frippery of her dress.

This, assuredly, was not the intention of women. There is some appearance that the first ornaments they invented were more fit to answer their views; but the desire they have had to outvie one another made them overstrain things from envy, and has distanced them more and more in proportion, without which there is no real charms.

Ornaments ought only to assist the graces, not stifle them. It is not the mass, but the