church twice a-day, suffering their lines to be broken by no Sunday cavaliers; nobly asserting the wall, as the most powerful, and not claiming it as the weakest. In the evening, their ardour will be called forth on disputed points; in the course of which, if any quarrel take place, the decision of it will be postponed to Monday morning.

My friend had said a great deal more on each day's employment; but the limits of my paper oblige me to content myself with mentioning only the most remarkable particulars. He dwells much on the necessity of making an entire alteration in the mode of their dress, which he wishes to be rendered as expedite as possible, and compatible with the fullest play of their muscles and proportions; and those who are destined to military lives are to be arrayed like the "florentes ara caterva," or brazen troops of Camilla. In the article of food, the firmest aliments, and those which throw in the greatest nourishment, should in all cases be preferred: and according to him, the morning, noon, and evening repast, should all consist of solid meat, or marrow puddings, diluted with home-brewed ale, or stout October.

Tea is entirely banished from his ideal republic, as only fit to please the masculine effeminacy of male housewives. He makes it a great point, that their games should be the most athletic and robust; such as wrestling, coits, cricket, hop-scotch, and Hunt the devil to Highgate.

Whether our projector will ever bring this laudable plan to bear, is yet a doubt with me, notwithstanding the fondness of the age for novelties and inversions. I am sure, however, my friend will put forth all his might, in a cause which he has so much at heart.

As his plan is to be laid very broad, he has form

ed a club of Bill-of-Rights Women, who have drawn up a Magna Charta, or Charta Foresta, which they propose to send to the heads of the nation, by whom if they be not weighed as they could wish, they will throw into the lighter balance the sword of Brennus. For my own part, being an old man, and somewhat timorous, I do not enter into this ingenious plan with all the warmth it may deserve: I have been so long used to love my countrywomen in their usual forms, that I do not like to hazard any change. Nor am I sure they would be gainers by the promotion, or I might perhaps be tempted to become of their party, out of pure love and veneration. I am a friend to the sense of that ancient epigram, which represents the naked Venus as more formidable than Pallas with her shield and buckler.

My mother is decidedly against the scheme, and raises her voice above her usual tones in speaking about it. She reminds me, that Rome (for the old lady is more of a classic than she desires to be thought) was rescued from two imminent catastrophes by the blandishments of her sex; alluding to the story of Coriolanus's wife and mother, who turned that exasperated chief from his fatal purpose by their tears and entreaties; and that of the Sabine ladies, who reconciled by the same means two furious armies, on the point of falling upon each

other.

I shall, however, wait till I see the effects of my correspondent's plan, before I declare myself more decidedly about it; and shall remain in tranquil suspense till I see a regiment of female dragoons, and a woman in armour at the Lord Mayor's show. We are much afraid that a few of these spirited female adventurers will claim to be admitted into our club; for some of our old bachelors, who pique

themselves greatly upon their gallantry, would be very much chagrined at being forced upon a refusal. Mr. Barnaby the churchwarden, who is a very plain speaker upon all occasions, and very jealous of the credit of our society, raised the echo three times about it last night, and paid a guinea for declaring, with a tremendous oath, that he would never give up the exclusive, unalienable, hereditary right of wearing breeches, which he conceived to be transmitted to us through as long a line of ancestry as any privilege we enjoy, and as sacred as our property and our lives. But I will venture to break in upon Mr. Barnaby's harangue, for the sake of introducing a little story, which some of my readers may be pleased with.

One of the latest European travellers to the interior parts of South America, as he pursued his journey along the famous river Orelana, in the country of Amazonia, came up with an old man who was employed in catching tortoises. He put many questions to him, and found him very communicative and full of information. Among other anecdotes, he obtained from him the following.-In the centre of the mountains of Guiana lived a nation of Cougnontain Secouima (women without husbands), who had separated themselves entirely from men, and went about in armed troops. Though they admitted the males among them once a year, yet they abstained from forming any attachments; and it was one of their most sacred and inviolable laws, that new connections should be made at every fresh intercourse with our sex. The offspring, if male, was sent to the father, to be educated by him; if female, it was brought up by the mother. The favourite ornament of these female warriors was a certain green gem, which they found in great abundance on the other side of a river

called the Black river; and hither the young women of quality used to repair every month in armed bodies, in search of this decoration of their ears and wrists.

It happened on a certain day, as some of the flower of the Amazonian maidens were out on this errand, they fell in with a troop of Indian youths, who were going on an embassy to a neighbouring tribe. The young men were so struck with the beauty of these adventurers, that they immediately laid at their feet a part of the presents with which they were loaded for the purposes of their commission. The desire of pleasing each other soon became mutual, and grew so rapidly, that the next day they joined in building little temporary cottages on the spot. Every month they met together at the same place, where the strictest decorum was preserved. The women slept always in separate lodgings; their heads reposing on their bucklers, and their feet covered with the fleeces of the lama, the presents of their lovers. The youths also assisted them in gathering the green gems, and were delighted with the occupation of decorating their persons and their arms with the costliest they could find. At every fresh meeting they brought with them the plumage of green parrots for their helmets, and chains of lion's teeth for their necks and wrists; not forgetting to load themselves with presents of fish and venison, and fruits of the fairest kinds, such as guavas, bananas, pomegranates, and pine-apples. By the force of these assiduities, they obtained a promise from the female warriors, to choose them for their temporary husbands, when the time should arrive which was appointed by the laws of the Amazonian state for the intercourse of the sexes.

This moment at length came, and their tender

engagements were faithfully performed. The short interval allowed them was passed in the fondest endearments; but at the end of the fourth day the terrible order for separation was issued, and proclaimed by the rattling of their spears against their corslets, and such funereal shouts as it was their custom to raise in sorrow for departed friends. They took a final leave of each other, never to meet again but in the land of souls. The male pledges of their loves were sent back to their fathers; and the females were brought up by the mothers for the supply of the commonwealth.

It so happened, that, in the course of some sixteen years, a war broke out between the very tribe to which these Indians belonged, and the nation of the Amazons. After many desperate encounters, and a great deal of bloodshed, the men proved an overmatch for the women, burned and laid waste their country, and advanced towards their last town, with minds prepared to revenge their fallen associates. The little devoted capital was thrown into terrible consternation; the air was filled with the shrieks of helpless virgins miserably murdered by their own mothers, to save them from the bloody hands of an exasperated enemy:

In the midst of this cruel disorder, one of those very women who had been made mothers in the amorous adventure with the Indian youths, was inspired by her guardian spirit with a thought that saved the remnant of her countrywomen. Gathering together all she could muster of her comrades, who had shared in the expedition after the green gems, she made a short harangue, full of the most touching remonstrances, on the necessity of laying aside all measures of resistance; and besought them vehemently to try what the force of nature might do for them,