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a meagre diet-are no great matters; but the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund, which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm;-the captive, who lies down counting over and over again, in the days of his afflic tion, languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the order of mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it have been opened to you, for the ransom of the unfortunate. The Monk made me a bow. But, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upop the English shore. The Monk gave a cordial wave with his head-as much as to say, No doubt; there is misery enough in every corner of the world as well as within our convent. But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal-we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour-and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God.

The poor Franciscan made no reply; a hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry.-Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him. He showed none but letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands with resignation on his breast, and retired.

My heart smote me the moment he shut the door. Pshaw! said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times. But it would not do every ungracious syllable I had uttered, crowded back in my imagination. 1 reflect ed I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language-1 considered his grey hairs, his courteous figure seemed to reenter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus ?I would have given twenty livres for an advocate-I have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along.

XI-On the Head-Dress of the Ladies.

THERE is not so variable a thing in nature, as a lady's head-dress; within my own memory, I have known it rise

and fall above thirty degrees. About ten years ago it shot
up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of
our species were much taller than the men. The women
were of such an enormous stature, that "we appeared as
grasshoppers before them." At present, the whole sex is
in a manuer dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of beauties,
that seem almost another species. I remember several la-
dies who were once very near seven feet high, that at present
want some inches of five How they came to be thus cur-
tailed, I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be at present
under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether
they have cast their head-dresses, in order to surprise us with
something in that kind which shall be entirely new; or
whether some of the tallest of the sex, being too cunning for
the rest, have contrived this method to make themselves ap-
pear sizeable, is still a secret; though I find most are of
opinion, they are at present like trees new lopped and prun-
ed, that will certainly sprout out, and flourish with greater
heads than before. For my own part, as I do not love to
be insulted by women who are taller than myself, I admire
the sex much more in their present humiliation, which has
reduced them to their natural dimensions, than when they
had extended their persons, and lengthened themselves out
into formidable and gigantic figures. I am not for adding
to the beautiful edifices of nature, nor for raising any whim-
sical superstructure upon her plans: I must therefore repeat
it, that I am highly pleased with the coiffure now in fash-
ion, and think it shows the good sense which at present very
much reigns among the valuable part of the sex.
One may
observe that women in all ages have taken more pains than
men to adorn the outside of their heads; and indeed I very
much admire, that those architects, who raise such power-
ful structures out of ribbands, lace and wire, have not been
recorded for their respective inventions. It is certain there
have been as many orders in these kind of buildings, as in
those which have been made of marble; sometimes they
rise in the shape of a pyramid, sometimes like a tower, and
sometimes like a steeple. In Juvenal's time, the building
grew by several orders and stories, as he has very humour
ously described it :-

With curls on curls they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower;

A giantess she seems; but look behind,

And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.

But I do not remember, in any part of my reading, that the head-dress aspired to so great an extravagance, 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 fontages 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 Connecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and resolution. This holy man travelled from place to place, topreach 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 nanner 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 they appeared, to use the similitude of an inge nious 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 who 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 extrava-gance of the women's head-dresses in that age, is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre, in the history of Bre-tagne, and by other historians, as well as the person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for the making of laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same inanuer, 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 master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station in the human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermillion ; 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 de scribed; 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 foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribbands and bone lace..

XII.-On the Present and a Futuré State. A LEWD young fellow seeing an aged hermit go by. him barefoot, "Father," says he, " you are in a very mis erable condition, if there is not another world." "True, son," said the hermit; "but what is thy condition if there is?"Man is a creature designed for two different states of being, or rather for two different lives. His first life is short? and transient; his second permanent and lasting. The question we are all concerned in, is this-In which of these two lives is it our chief interest to make ourselves happy ? Or, in other words-Whether we should endeavour to se cure to ourselves the pleasures and gratifications of a life, which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmost length, of a very inconsiderable duration; or to secure to ourselves the pleasures of a life which is fixed and settled, and will never end? Every man, upon the first hearing of this question, knows very well which side of it he ought to close with But however right we are in theory, it is plain, that in practice we adhere to the wrong side of the question. We make provision for this life as though it were never to have an end; and for the other life, as though it were never to have a beginning.

Should a spirit of superior rank, who is a stranger to human nature, accidentally alight upon the earth and take a survey of its inhabitants-What would his notions of us be ? Would he not think that we are a species of beings made for quite different ends and purposes than what we really are? Must he not imagine that we were placed in this world to get riches and honours? Would he not think that it was our duty to toil after wealth, and station, and title? Nay, would he not believe we were forbidden poverty, by threats of eternal punishment, and enjoined to pursue our pleasures, under pain of damnation? He would certainly imagine that we were influenced by a scheme of duties quite opposite to those which are indeed prescribed to us. And, truly, ac-cording to such an imagination, he must conclude that we are a species of the most obedient creatures in the universe ; that we are constant to our duty; and that we keep a steady eye on the end for which we were sent thither.

But how great would be his astonishment, when he learnt. that we were beings not designed to exist in this world abovethree score and ten years; and that the greatest part of this. busy species fall short even of that age! How would he be lost in horror and admiration, when he should know that this set of creatures, who lay out all their endeavours for this life, which scarce deserves the name of existence, when, I say, he should know that this set of creatures are to exist to all eternity in another life, for which they make no preparations? Nothing can be a greater disgrace to reason, than that men, who are persuaded of these two different states of: being, should be perpetually employed in providing for a life of three score and ten years, and neglecting to make. -provision for that, which, after many myriads of years, will be still new, and still beginning; especially when we con-. sider, that our endeavours for making ourselves great, or, rich, or honourable, or whatever else we place our happiness. in, may, after all, prove unsuccessful; whereas, if we constantly and sincerely endeavour to make ourselves happy in the other life, we are sure that our endeavours will succeed, and that we shall not be disappointed of our hope,

The following question is started by one of our school. men. Supposing the whole body of the earth were a great ball or mass of the finest sand, and that a single grain or particle of this sand should be annihilated every thousand. years-Supposing, then, that you had it in your choice to be happy all the while this prodigious mass of sand was con

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