gance as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires, which stood so excessively high, on each side of the head, that a woman, who was but a pigmy without her head-dress, appeared like a colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur Paradin says, 'that these old-fashioned fontanges rose an ell above the head: that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of crape fastened to the tops of them, which were curiously fringed, and hung down their backs like streamers.'

The women might possibly have carried this Gothic building much higher had not a famous monk, Thomas Conecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and resolution. This holy man travelled from place to place to preach down this monstrous commode; and succeeded so well in it, that as the magicians sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned as well for the sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that he had often a congregation of twenty thousand people; the men placing themselves on the one side of his pulpit, and the women on the other, that appeared, to use the similitude of an ingenious writer, like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds. He so warmed and animated the people against this monstrous ornament, that it lay under a kind of persecution; and, whenever it appeared in public, was pelted down by the rabble, who flung stones at the persons that wore it. But notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while the preacher was among them, it began to appear again some months after his departure, or, to tell it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, the women, that like snails in a fright had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over.' This

NO. 98. extravagance of the women's head-dresses in that age is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre in his history of Bretagne, and by other historians, as well as the person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only time for the making of laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention. I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the masterpiece of Nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance as well as the highest station in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and real ishly contrive to call off the eye from great and foolbeauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and bone-lace.

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No. 99. SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1711.

— Turpi secérnis honestum.

HOR. SAT. i. 6. 63.

You know to fix the bounds of right and wrong.

THE club, of which I have often declared myself a member, were last night engaged in discourse upon that which passes for the chief point of honour among men and women; and started a great many hints upon the subject, which I thought were entirely new. I shall therefore methodize the several reflections that arose upon this occasion, and present my reader with them for the speculation of this day; after having premised, that if there is any thing in this paper which seems to differ with any passage of last Thursday's, the reader will consider this as the sentiments of the club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond.

The great point of honour in men is courage, and in women chastity. If a man loses his honour in one rencounter, it is not impossible for him to regain it in another: a slip in a woman's honor is irrecoverable. I can give no reason for fixing the point of honour to these two qualities, unless it be that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualification which renders them the most amiable in the eyes of the contrary sex. Had men chosen for themselves without regard to the opinions of the fair sex, I should believe

the choice would have fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women determined their own point of honour, it

have been in, where I have been the strangest fellow in the world, where nobody in the world had such servants as they, where sure they were the unluckiest people in the world in servants, and so forth. All I mean by this representation is, to show you that we poor servants are not, what you called us too generally, all but that we are what we are, according to rogues; the example of our superiors. In the family I am now in, I am guilty of no one sin but lying; which I do with a grave face in my gown and staff every day I live, and almost all day long, in denying my lord to impertinent suitors, and my lady to unwelcome visitants. But, Sir, I am to let you know that I am, when I can get abroad, a leader of the servants: I am he that keeps time with beating my cudgel against the boards in the gallery at an opera: I am he that am touched so properly at a tragedy, when the people of quality are staring at one another during the most important incidents. When you hear in a crowd a cry in the right place, a hum where the point is touched in a speech, or a huzza set up where it is the voice of the people; you may conclude it is begun or joined by,

T

66 SIR "Your more than humble servant, "THOMAS TRUSTY."

No. 97. THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1711.

Projecere animas.—

VIRG. EN. vi. 436.

They prodigally threw their lives away.

AMONG the loose papers which I have frequently spoken of heretofore, I find a conversation between Pharamond and Eucrate upon the subject of duels, and the copy of an edict issued in consequence of

that discourse.

Eucrate argued, that nothing but the most severe and vindictive punishment, such as placing the bodies of the offenders in chains, and putting them to death by the most exquisite torments, would be sufficient to extirpate a crime which had so long prevailed, and was so firmly fixed in the opinion of the world as great and laudable; but the king answered, that indeed instances of ignominy were necessary in the cure of this evil; but, considering that it prevailed only among such as had a nicety in their sense of honour, and that it often happened that a duel was fought to save appearances to the world, when both parties were in their hearts in amity and reconciliation to each other, it was evident that turning the mode another way would effectually put a stop to what had being only as a mode; that to such persons, poverty and shame were torments sufficient; that he would not go further in punishing in others, crimes which he was satisfied he himself was most guilty of, in that he might have prevented them by speaking his displeasure sooner.' Besides which the king said 'he was in general averse to tortures, which was put