beauty of body, with an agreeable carriage, pleases the eye, and that pleasure consists in that we observe, all the parts with a certain elegance are proportioned to each other, so does decency of behaviour, which appears in our lives, obtain the approbation of all. This flows from the reverence we bear towards every good man, and to the world in general; for to be negligent of what any one thinks of you, not only shows you arrogant but abandoned." In all these considerations we are to distinguish how one virtue differs from another. As it is the part of justice never to do violence, it is of modesty never to commit offence. In this last particular lies the whole force of what is called Decency; to this purpose that excellent moralist above-mentioned talks of Decency; but this quality is more easily comprehended by an ordinary capacity, than expressed with all his eloquence. This decency of behaviour is generally transgressed among all or ders of men; nay, the very women, though themselves created it as it were for ornament, are often very much mistaken in this ornamental part of life. It would, methinks, be a short rule for behaviour, if every young lady in her dress, words, and actions, were only to recommend herself as a sister, daughter, or wife, and make herself the more esteerned in one of those characters. The care of themselves, with regard to the families in which women are born, is the best motive for their being courted to come into the alliance of other houses. Nothing can promote this end more than a strict preservation of Decency. I should be glad if a certain equestrian order of ladies, some of whom one meets in an evening at every outlet of the town, would take this subject into their serious consideration.

Going lately to take the air in one of the most beautiful evenings this season has produced; as I was admiring the serenity of the sky, the lively colours of the fields, and the variety of the landscape every way around me, my eyes were suddenly called off from

these inanimate objects by a little party of horsemen I saw passing the road. The greater part of them escaped my particular observation, by reason that my whole attention was fixed on a very fair youth who rode in the midst of them, and seemed to have been dressed by some description in a romance. His features, complexion, and habit, had a remarkable effeminacy, and a certain languishing vanity appeared in his air. His hair, well curled and powdered, hung to a considerable length on his shoulders, and was wantonly tied, as if by the hands of his mistress, in a scarlet riband, which played like a streamer behind him; he had a coat and waistcoat of blue camlet, trimmed and embroidered with silver; a cravat of the finest lace; and wore in a smart cock, a little beaver hat edged with silver, and made more sprightly by a feather. His horse too, which was a pacer, was adorned after the same airy manner, and seemed to share in the vanity of the rider. As I was pitying the luxury of this young person, who appeared to me to have been educated only as an object of sight, I perceived on my nearer approach, and as I turned my eyes downward, a part of the equipage I had not observed before, which was a petticoat of the same with the coat and waistcoat. After this discovery, I looked again on the face of the fair Amazon who had thus deceived me, and thought those features which had before offended me by their softness, were now strengthened into as improper a boldness; and though her eyes, nose, and mouth, seemed to be formed with perfect symmetry, I am not certain whether she, who in appearance was a very handsome youth, may not be in reality a very indifferent woman.

There is an objection which naturally presents itself against these occasional perplexities and mixtures of dress, which is, that they seem to break in upon that propriety and distinction of appearance in which the beauty of different characters is preserved; and if they should be more frequent than they are at present,

would look like turning our public assemblies into a general masquerade. The model of this Amazonian hunting-habit for ladies was, as I take it, first imported from France, and well enough expresses the gaiety of a people who are taught to do any thing, so it be with an assurance; but I cannot help thinking it sits awkwardly yet ou our English modesty. The petticoat is a kind of encumbrance upon it, and if the Amazons should think fit to go on in this plunder of our sex's ornaments, they ought to add to their spoils, and complete their triumph over us, by wearing the breeches.

If it be natural to contract insensibly the manners of those we imitate, the ladies who are pleased with assuming our dresses will do us more honour than we deserve, but they will do it at their own expense. Why should the lovely Camilla deceive us in more shapes than her own, and affect to be represented in her picture with a gun and a spaniel; while her elder brother, the heir of a worthy family, is drawn in silks like his sister? The dress and air of a man are not well to be divided; and those who would not be content with the latter, ought never to think of assuming the former. There is so large a portion of natural agreeableness among the fair sex of our island, that they seem betrayed into these romantic habits without having the same occasion for them with their inventors: all that needs to be desired of them is, that they would be themselves, that is, what Nature designed them. And to see their mistake when they depart from this, let them look upon a man who affects the softness and effeminacy of a woman, to learn how their sex must appear to us, when approaching to the resemblance of

a man.

T.

THE JOURNEY OF LIFE.

A VISION.

Nos populo damus

As the world leads, we follow.

SEN.

METHOUGHT I was just awoke out of a sleep,

that I could never remember the beginning of; the place where I found myself to be, was a wide and spacious plain, full of people that wandered up and down through several beaten paths, whereof some few were straight, and in direct lines, but most of them winding and turning like a labyrinth; but yet it ap peared to me afterwards, that these last all met in one issue, so that many that seemed to steer quite contrary courses, did at length meet and face one another, to the no small amazement of inany of them.

In the midst of the plain there was a great fountain: they called it the Spring of Self-Love; out of it issued two rivulets to the eastward and westward; the name of the first was Heavenly-Wisdom, its water was wonderfully clear, but of a yet more wonderful effect; the other's name was Worldly-Wisdom, its water was thick, and yet far from being dormant or stagnating, for it was in a continual violent agitation; which kept the travellers, whom I shall mention by and by, from being sensible of the foulness and thickness of the water, which had this effect, that it intoxicated those who drank it, and made them mistake every object that lay before them: both rivulets were parted near their springs into so many others, as there were straight and crooked paths, which they attended all along to their respective issues.

I observed from the several paths many now and then diverting, to refresh and otherwise qualify them. selves for their journey, to the respective rivulets that

ran near them; they contracted a very observable courage and steadiness in what they were about, by drinking these waters. At the end of the perspective of every straight path, all which did end in one issue and point, appeared a high pillar, all of diamond, casting rays as bright as those of the sun into the paths; which rays had also certain sympathising and alluring virtues in them, so that whosoever had made some considerable progress in his journey onwards towards the pillar, by the repeated impression of these rays upon him, was wrought into an habitual inclination and conversion of his sight towards it, so that it grew at last in a manner natural to him to look and gaze upon it, whereby he was kept steady in the straight paths, which alone led to that radiant body, the beholding of which was now a grown gratification to his nature.

At the issue of the crooked paths there was a great black tower, out of the centre of which streamed a long succession of flames, which did rise even above the clouds; it gave a very great light to the whole plain, which did sometimes outshine the light, and oppressed the beams of the adamantine pillar; though by the observation I made afterwards, it appeared that it was not for any diminution of light, but that this lay in the travellers, who would sometimes step out of the straight paths, where they lost the full prospect of the radiant pillar, and saw it but sideways: but the great light from the black tower, which was somewhat particularly scorching to them, would generally light and hasten them to their proper climate again.

Round about the black tower, there were, me thought, many thousands of huge misshapen ugly mon. sters: these had great nets, which they were perpetually plying and casting towards the crooked paths, and they would now and then catch up those that were nearest to them: these they took up straight, and whirled over the walls into the flaming tower, and they were no more seen nor heard of.