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N° CCLXV. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3..

DIXERIT E MULTIS ALIQUIS, QUID VIRUS IN ANGUES
ADJICIS? ET RABIDE TRADIS OVILE LUPE?

OVID. DE ART. AM. LIB. III. VER. 7.

BUT SOME EXCLAIM-WHAT PHRENZY RULES YOUR MIND?
WOULD YOU INCREASE THE CRAFT OF WOMAN-KIND;
TEACH THEM NEW WILES AND ARTS? AS WELL YOU MAY
INSTRUCT A SNAKE TO BITE, OR WOLF TO PREY.

CONGREVE.

ONE of the fathers, if I am rightly be fubftituted in the place of those anti

informed, has defined a woman to be (or pionóspor-An animal that delights in finery.' I have already treated of the fex in two or three papers, conformably to this definition, and have in particular obferved, that in all ages they have been more careful than the men to adorn that part of the head, which we generally call the outside.

This obfervation is fo very notorious, that when in ordinary difcourfe we fay a man has a fine head, a long head, or a good head, we exprefs ourselves metaphorically, and fpeak in relation to his understanding; whereas when we fay of a woman, he has a fine, a long, or a good head, we fpeak only in relation to her commode.

It is obferved among birds, that nature has lavished all her ornaments upon the male, who very often appears in a most beautiful head-drefs: whether it be a creft, a comb, a tuft of feathers, or a natural little plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle on the very top of the head. As nature on the contrary has poured out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the female part of our fpecies, fo they are very affiduous in beftowing upon themselves the finest garnitures of art. The peacock, in all his pride, does not difplay half the coJours that appear in the garments of a British lady, when he is dreffed either for a ball or a birth-day.

But to return to our female heads. The ladies have been for fome time in a kind of moulting feafon, with regard to that part of their drefs, having catt great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in fome measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form, which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would

quated commodes. But our female projectors were all the latt fummer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend to any thing elfe; but having at length fufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, that if you light your fire at both ends, the middle will fhift for itself.*

I am engaged in this fpeculation by a fight which I lately met with at the opera. As I was standing in the hinder part of the box, I took notice of a little cluster of women fitting together in the prettieft coloured hoods that I ever faw, One of them was blue, another yellow, and another philemot; the fourth was of a pink colour, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-coloured assembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an embaffy of Indian queens; but upon my going about into the pit, and taking them in front, I was immediately unde ceived, and faw so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be Englifh. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from obferving any farther the colour of their hoods, though I could eafily perceive by that unspeakable fatisfaction which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on thofe pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.

1 am informed that this fashion fpreads daily, infomuch that the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to hang out different colours, and to fhew their principles in their head-drefs. Nay, if I may believe my friend Will Honeycomb, there is a

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certain old coquette of his acquaintance who intends to appear very fuddenly in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not questioning but that among fuch variety of colours the fhall have a charm for every heart.

My friend Will, who very much values himself upon his great infight into gallantry, tells me, that he can already guefs at the humour a lady is in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco know the difpofition of their prefent emperor by the colour of the drefs which he puts on. When Melefinda wraps her head in flame colour, her heart is fet upon execution. When the covers it with purple, I would not,' fays he, advise her lover to approach her; but if the appears in white, it is peace, and he may hand her out of the box with fafety.'

Will informs me likewife, that thefe hoods may be used as fignals.

Why elfe,' fays he, does Cornelia always put on a black hood when her husband is gone into the country?'

Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of gallantry. For my own part, I impute this diverfity of colours in the hoods to the diverfity of complexion in the faces of my pretty countrywomen. Ovid in his Art of Love has given fome precepts as to this particular, though I find they are different from those which prevail among the moderns. He recommends a red triped filk to the pale complexion, white to the brown, and dark to the fair. On the contrary, my friend Will, who pretends to be a greater mafter in this art than Ovid, tells me, that

the paleft features look the most agreeáble in white farfanet; that a face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest fcarlet; and that the darkest complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood. In fhort, he is for lofing the colour of the face in that of the hood, as a fire burns dimly, and a candle goes half out, in the light of the fun. This,' fays he, your Ovid himfelf has hinted where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the • blue water nymphs are dressed in skycoloured garments; and that Aurora, who always appears in the light of the rifing fun, is robed in faffron.'

Whether thefe his obfervations are justly grounded I cannot tell: but I have often known him, as we have food together behind the ladies, praife or difpraife the complexion of a face which he never faw, from obferving the colour of her hood, and has been very feldom out in these his gueffes.

As I have nothing more at heart than the honour and improvement of the fairfex, I cannot conclude this paper without an exhortation to the British ladies, that they would excel the women of all other nations as much in virtue and good fenfe, as they do in beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as induftrious to cultivate their minds, as they are to adorn their bodies: in the mean while I fhali recommend to their moft ferious confideration the faying of an old Greek poet

Γυναικὶ κόσμος ὁ τρόπος, κ ̓ ἐ χρυσία.

с

N° CCLXVI. FRIDAY, JANUARY 4.

ID VERO EST, QUOD EGO MIHI PUTO PALMARIUM,
ME REPERISSE, QUOMODO ADOLESCENTULUS
MERETRICUM INGENIA ET MORES POSSIT NOSCERE:
MATURE UT CUM COGNORIT PERPETUO ODERIT.

TER. EUN. ACT. V. SC. 4.

1 LOOK UPON IT AS MY MASTER-PIECE, THAT I HAVE FOUND OUT HOW A YOUNG FELLOW MAY KNOW THE DISPOSITION AND BEHAVIOUR OF HARLOTS, AND BY EARLY KNOWING COME TO DETEST THEM.

Novice or wickedness which people fpect the fincerity of their virtue, who are

fall into from indulgence to defires which are natural to all, ought to place them below the compaffion of the virtuous part of the world; which indeed often makes me a little apt to fu

too warmly provoked at other people's perfonal fins. The unlawful commerce of the fexes is of all other the hardest to avoid; and yet there is no one which you fhall hear the rigider part of wo

mankind

mankind fpeak of with fo little mercy. It is very certain that a modeft woman cannot abhor the breach of chastity too much; but pray let her hate it for herfelf, and only pity it in others. Will Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies, the outrageously virtuous.

I do not defign to fall upon failures in general, with relation to the gift of chastity, but at prefent only enter upon that large field, and begin with the confideration of poor and public whores. The other evening paffing along near Covent Garden, I was jogged on the elbow as I turned into the piazza, on the right-hand coming out of James Street, by a young flim girl of about feventeen, who with a pert air afked me if I was for a pint of wine. I do not know but I fhould have indulged my curiofity in having fome chat with her, but that I am informed the man of the Bumper knows me; and it would have made a ftory for him not very agreeable to fome part of my writings, though I have in others fo frequently faid that I am wholly unconcerned in any fcene I am in, but merely as a fpectator. This impediment being in my way, we stood under one of the arches by twilight; and there I could obferve as exact features as I had ever feen, the molt agreeable fhape, the finest neck, and bofom, in a word, the whole perfon of a woman exquifitely beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced wantonnefs in her look and air; but I faw it checked with hunger and cold: her eyes were wan and eager, her drefs thin and tawdry, her mien genteel and childish. This ftrange figure gave me much anguifh of heart, and to avoid being feen with her I went away, but could not forbear giving her a crown. The poor thing fighed, curtfied, and with a bleffing expreffed with the utmost vehemence, turned from me. This creature is what they call newly come upon the town,' but, who, I fuppofe, falling into cruel hands, was left in the first month from her difhonour, and expofed to pafs through the hands and difcipline of one of thofe hags of hell whom we call bawds. But left I fhould grow too fuddenly grave on this fubject, and be myfelf outrageoufly good, I fhall turn to a fcene in one of Fletcher's plays, where this character is drawn, and the economy of whoredom most admirably defcribed. The paffage I would point to is in the third

fcene of the fecond act of the Humorous Lieutenant. Leucippe, who is agent for the king's luft, and bawds at the fame time for the whole court, is very pleasantly introduced, reading her mi nutes as a perfon of bufinefs, with two maids, her under-fecretaries, taking inftructions at a table before her. Her women, both thofe under her present tutelage, and thofe which he is laying wait for, are alphabetically fet down in her book; and the is looking over the letter C, in a muttering voice, as if between foliloquy and speaking out, the fays

Hermaidenhead will yield me; let me fee now; She is not fifteen they fay: for her complexion

Cloe, Cloe, Cloe, here I have her,
Cloe, the daughter of a country gentleman;
Her age upon fifteen. Now her complexion.
A lovely brown; here 'tis; eyes black and
rolling,

The body neatly built; fhe ftrikes a lute well,
Sings most enticingly: thefe helps confider'd,

Her maidenhead will amount to fome three hundred,

Or three hundred and fifty crowns, 'twill
bear it handfomely,
Her father's poor, fome little share deducted,
To buy him a hunting nag-

Thefe creatures are very well instructed in the circumstances and manners of all who are any way related to the fairone whom they have a defign upon. As Cloe is to be purchafed with three hundred and fifty crowns, and the father taken off with a pad; the merchant's wife next to her, who abounds in plenty, is not to have downright money, but the mercenary part of her mind is engaged with a prefent of plate and a little ambition. She is made to understand that it is a man of quality who dies for her. The examination of a young girl for bu finefs, and the crying down her value for being a flight thing, together with every other circumftance in the scene, are inimitably excellent, and have the true fpirit of comedy; though it were to be wished the author had added a circumftance which should make Leucippe's bafenefs more odious.

It must not be thought a digreffion from my intended fpeculation, to talk of bawds in a difcourfe upon wenches; for a woman of the town is not thoroughly and properly fuch, without having gone through the education of one of thefe houfes. But the compaffionate

cafe

:

Plate I.

Smirke del.

SPECTATOR

Bublifhed as the Act directs, by Harrifon &C. Dec:244785.

Birrell sculp

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