upon my memory) out of that honest traveller, in his fifty-fifth page, the history of Inkle and Yarico. Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years, embarked in the Downs, in the good ship called the Achilles, bound for the West-Indies, on the sixteenth of June, sixteen hundred and fortyseven, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandize. Our adventurer was the third son of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to instil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and consequently giving him a quick view of loss and advantage, and preventing the natural impulses of his passion, by prepossession towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a person every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders. It happpened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in some distress, put into a creek on the main of America, in search of provisions. The youth, who is the hero of my story, among others went on shore on this occasion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who slew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer escaped, among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprise they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American; the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and consequently solicitous for his preservation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a stream to slake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would sometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers: then open his bosom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for she every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and beads. She likewise brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers had presented to her, so that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beast, and most party-coloured feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him asleep in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occasions to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time; they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and oxen. To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his lost time and to weigh with himself how many days' interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which consideration, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant ; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiserate her condition, told him that she was with child by him : but he only made use of that imformation, to rise in his demands upon the purchaser.' I was so touched with this story (which I think should be always a counterpart to the Ephesian Matron) that I left the room with tears in my eyes, which a women of Arietta's good sense did, I am sure, take for greater applause than any compliments I could make her. ON THE FEMALE CHARACTER. (From the Works of Father Fitz-Eustace.) "Oh woman, lovely woman! nature form'd thee OTWAY. Addison has written an admirable paper respecting Salamanders. 66 They are," says he, "heroines in chastity, that tread upon fire, and live in the midst of flames, without being hurt. They know no distinction of sex in those with whom they converse, -grow familiar with a stranger at first sight,-and are not so narrowspirited, as to observe whether the persons they talk to, be in breeches or petticoats." Such is his description of Salamanders, and I am sorry to see a numerous class of the abovementioned persons holding a situation in English society. There has of late appeared a prevalent desire of introducing French breeding and French manners into this island. The looseness, the profligacy, and, I may say, the immorality of the French, are ill suited to the English nation; but an attempt has been made and a partial success has been the consquence. Young men have been sent over to France for the purpose of finishing their education; that, by mixing in French society, they may be enabled to soften and ameliorate the native asperity of the English character. Young women, to the shame of their parents be it spoken, have been delivered over to the tuition of French teachers, and sent to the Continent with the like intention. There, even before they have begun to judge for themselves, and form just estimates of men and things they have beheld, practised, and admired, the manners and breeding of the French nation; and they have returned to England, Frenchified in their notions, habits, and mode of life. I do not here mean to insinuate, that sending them to France is improper; but only, that they should remain in England until they have arrived at a proper state of maturity both in body and mind; and then real improvement would be the consequence of foreign travel*. "My Italian master told me, that throughout all Italy, (and it may be added throughout all France), people of good society (BON TON) are totally without religion."-SCOTT'S SKETCHES OF MANNERS, &C. IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND SWITZERLAND. : The looseness of manners among the French is occasioned by a delusive mode of thinking and reasoning*. Thus, only to confine myself to the economy of their own inhabitations; the lady will admit visiters into her bed-room, and go through the whole routine and ceremony of receiving morning calls, before she is out of her bed. She will dress herself behind the curtain, while the gentleman is sitting in the room, and can plainly distinguish her every movement. The women are so far dead to every sense of decency and decorum,-dead to shame,-dead to modesty. The fashion among the French is, that the ladies and gentlemen should not separate after dinner, as among the English the females remain to take a free and unrestrained share in the conversation. Licentiousness and grossness have no effect in the separation of the sexes. This custom of itself naturally indicates, that the morals are loose and lax, and require some certain modifications; at least, they are not suited for the English, especially boarding-school misses, and boys in their teens. "The French," says the late Mr. Scott, in his Visit to Paris are a clever people, they are an active people, they are a gay people; but they are not deep or sound thinkers,-they do not feel virtuously, or permanently, or kindly,-they have no native relish for the charms of nature, the shallow sophistications, and theatrical forms of artificial systems, are their favourites,-they can see nothing but simple facts, they cannot detect causes, consequences, or connexions, and what is worst of all, their actions are not indexes to their hearts," The greatest ornament in the female character is that modesty and delicacy, which endeavours to avoid the public eye, and is suffused with blushes at the admiration it unwittingly occasions. I would not wish my readers to understand by this, that females should be insensible to applause; but only that a due observance of caution is absolutely necessary. Applause is dangerous, especially to minds which are not rightly attempered : it dazzles the eyes, and stupifies the senses, and ravishes the heart. It may be assimilated to laudanum ; a small quantity is useful and serviceable, an over-dose productive of the most fatal consequences. Some persons, who have imagined themselves in possession of more real philosophy than their neighbours, have, wittily in their own estimations, asked, why should females, who are not aware of having committed any thing wrong, blush? Why should this manifest indication of guilt appear in the countenance, when the thoughts are pure, and the heart innocent? But, by what argument, by what reasoning, have they arrived at this conclusion? Instead of being the attendant upon guilt, blushing is the companion of innocence: it is alone produced by the Vide Scott's Visit to Paris. "Mens sibi conscia recti." It is the demonstrative feature of sensibility and susceptibility of mind; and, in my humble estimation, when a female, however lovely, ceases to blush, she immediately loses her most powerful attraction. Instead of this, what is the general behaviour at present observed by females* ? A confident ease, an unabashed countenance,- -a pertness of speech,-an obtrusive familiarity, are universally manifest. Coquetry and flirtation seem in a great measure, to be the order of the day; and that sterling modesty, which once characterized the women of England, is quickly evaporating. Openness, frankness, and a candid disposition, are real ornaments to the female sex ; but even these qualities should be kept within prescribed limits; which, when exceeded, must of necessity offend every liberal-minded man. "Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines Men sometimes endeavour to persuade females, that excess in frankness and candour is an utter impossibility. They have even laughed at and praised indelicacy of expression, betokening the above qualities: but a moment's reflection would immediately point out the fallacy and the gross impropriety of these assertions. However diverted men may appear at the moment, yet, subsequently, such behaviour must raise their thorough contempt. "No man but a brute or a fool," says an elegant writer, “will insult a women with conversation which he sees gives her pain; nor will he dare to do it if she resent the injury with becoming contempt. There is a dignity in conscious virtue, which is able to awe the most shameless and abandoned of men." Fulvia is a female, who is neither possessed of beauty, fortune, nor accomplishments, but entertains a great opinion of her own personal attractions. She wears a wig, with curls hanging in rich and clustering luxuriance adown her neck ;-has grey eyes and black eyebrows; long sharp-pointed, and skinny nose; shrivelled cheeks, rusty teeth, and thin chin, between which and the nose there appears to exist so warm a sympathy, that they seem to mourn their separation, and are desperately striving to form a junction; all which, added to a natural Grecian stoop to her back, give her a formidable appearance. She is almost a second Will Wastle's wife and yet she fancies herself " a person to be loved." This creature is husband-sick, and has endeavoured to entrap several young fellows, who fortunately for themselves, have es * This has reference only to the introduction of French fashions |
