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THE TRAVELLER:

AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE.

As soon as I perceived the first sparkling fires of day, I mounted my ass, and took the path which leads to the high road of Babylon; scarce was I there, when in raptures Í exclaimed,

O how mine eyes do wander with joy o'er yon green hills! with what delicious perfumes do these flow'ry meadows embalm the air!

I am in a beautiful avenue, my ass and I may retire under the shade of its trees when it shall seem good

unto us.

How serene the Heavens! how fine a day! how pure the air I breathe! well mounted as I am, I shall arrive before dusk.

Whilst I uttered these words, besotted with joy, I looked kindly down upon my ass, and gently stroking him,

From afar I see a troop of men and women mounted upon beautiful camels, with a serious and disdainful air, All clothed in long purple robes, with belts and golden fringes, interspersed with precious stones.

Their camels soon came up with me; I was dazzled by their splendour, and humbled by their grandeur.

Alas! all my endeavours to stretch myself served only to make me appear more ridiculously vain.

Mine eyes did measure them incessantly; scarce did my head reach their ancles; I was sorely vexed from the bottom of my soul, nevertheless did I not give over following them.

Then did I wish that my ass could raise himself as high as the highest of camels, and fain would I have seen his long ears peep over their lofty heads.

I continually incited him by my cries, I press'd him with my heels and my halter; and though he quickened his pace, yet six of his steps scarce equalled one of the camels.

In short, we lost sight of them, and I all hopes of overtaking them. What difference, cried I, between their lot and mine! Why are they not in my place? or why am I not in theirs?

Wretch that I am! I sadly journey on alone upon the vilest and the slowest of animals; they, on the contraryVOL IV.

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happy they!-would blush to have me in their train; so despicable am I in their eyes!

Busied in these reflections, and lost in thought, my ass, finding I no longer pressed him, slackened his pace, and, presently stooped to feed upon the thistles.

The grass was goodly; it seemed to invite him to rest; so he laid him down: I fell; and like unto him who from a profound sleep awaketh in surprise, so was I on a sudden awakened from my meditations.

As soon as I got up, the voice of thousands came buzzing in my ears; I looked around, and beheld a troop still more numerous than the former.

These were mounted as poorly as myself; their linen tunics the same as mine; their manners seemed familiar; I addressed the nearest.

Do your utmost, says I, you will never be able, mounted as you are, to overtake those who are a-head of you.

Let us alone, says he, for that; the madmen! they risk their lives; and for what? to arrive a few minutes before us.

We are all going to Babylon; an hour sooner or later, in linen tunic or purple robes, on an ass or a camel, what matters it, when once one is arrived; nay, upon the road, so you know how to amuse yourself?

You, for example; what would have become of you had you been mounted on a camel! your fall, says he, would have been fatal. I sighed, and had nothing to reply.

Then looking behind me, how great was my surprise to see men, women, and children, following us a-foot, some singing, others skipping on the tender grass; their poor backs bowed under their burdens.

Then cried I, transported beyond myself, They go to Babylon as well as I and is it they who rejoice? and is it I who am sad? when on a sudden my oppressed heart became light; and I felt a gentle joy flow within my

veins.

Ere we got in, we overtook the first party; their camels had thrown them; their long purple robes, their belts, and gold fringes interspersed with diamonds, were all covered with mud.

Then, ye powerful of the earth, even then it was I perceived the littleness of human grandeur; but the just estimation I made of it did not render me insensible to the misfortunes of others.

EMPLOYMENT FOR A WIFE.

[EXTRACTED FROM A BOOK OF HUSBANDRY, PUBLISHED IN THE EARLY PART OF THE 16TH CENTURY.]

If a man had presumed to hint to the late Mrs. Woolstoncroft, that a married woman who followed these directions might be as happy in herself, and as useful a member of society, as one formed upon her plan, and exhibited in a certain singular and very reprehensible book, published since her death, the bare supposition would probably have produced a sneer from the heroine, and a contemptuous frown in the philosopher, who, in the memorial he has left of his deceased wife, has palpably overleaped the boundaries of decorum and good sense: perhaps the sceptic, who is for discussing and unveiling every thing, had in his mind the sentiment of a certain poet, and was of opinion that he was

"Never so sure our wonder to create

As when he touch'd the bounds of all we hate." But the old-fashioned doctrine of domestic duties, and female occupations, must not be forgotten.

"When first thou awakest in the morning, lift up thy heart and voice in thankfulness to God, who made thee; thus calling to mind thy Maker at thy early rising, thou shalt speed better for it the rest of the day.

"Having arrayed thyself as becometh a decent housewife, sweep thy house and dress thy dish-board, and see that all things be set in due order within and without, that the kine be milked, the calves suckled, and the milk skimmed; then let the young children be taken up, washed right wholesomely all over them in spring water, combed and kirtled, and sit down with thy family to breakfast. "Corn and malt must be ordered for the mill; and, that thou have thy measure again, meet it to and from the miller, who else will not deal truly with thee; or thy malt will not be dried as it should be.

"Thou must make butter and cheese according as the weather urgeth, and the cows fill the dishes; the swine must be served morning and evening, not forgetting the poultry; and when the time of year cometh, thou wilt take good heed how thy hens, ducks, and geese, do lay; gather up their eggs diligently, and when they wax broody, set them right cunningly, so that neither beast

swine, nor vermin, hurt or molest them; all whole-footed fowls, thou knowest, will sit a month; and all cloven-footed fowls three weeks, except pea-hens, turkeys, cranes, and bustards.

"I advise thee earnestly to remember well one thing; when in winter time, that the days be short and the evenings long, and thou sitteth by the fire, and hast supped, consider in thy mind whether the works that thou and thy maiden do are of advantage equal to the fire and candle, the meat and the drink, that they consume; if not, go to thy bed, sleep, and be up by time to breakfast before day-light, that thou mayest have all the day before thee entire, to thy business.

"In the beginning of March it is time for a wife to have an eye to her garden, and to get as many good seeds and herbs as she can for the pot and the platter; in March also is the season to sow flax and hemp; it needeth not for me to shew how it should be sown, weeded, pulled, watered, dried, beaten, broken, tawed, hackled, spun, wounden, warped and wove, for in such matters, peradventure, thou art better instructed than me.

"It is my business to observe, that although a woman cannot wholly and altogether get her living honestly by the distaff, yet it should always be ready for a pastime; it stoppeth many unemployed gaps, and provideth articles both for bed and board, for which hard money must otherwise go forth from thy husband's purse; there be spinsters, as well as wives, who make it a matter of conscience never to buy sheets, body clothes, towels, shirts, smocks, and such like.

"It is a wife's occupation to winnow all manner of corn, and to keep a watchful eye that the day-labourers and outdwellers bring not with them, nor carry forth nor conceal their pokes (bags), which, under a pretence of holding their bottle and scrip, only serve to lower the heap on the barn floor.

"It is a wife's occupation to wash and to wring, or to see well after and be among them, that the soap and firewood be not made waste of; to be brisk at harvest; and in time of need, while the coppers are boiling the provisiou, to help her husband to load the waggon or the cart; to go or ride to market, and sell her butter, cheese, eggs, chickens, geese, and pigs; to purchase all necessary things, and to make a true reckoning and account thereof to her husband when she returns."

To address the above homely directions indiscriminately to women of all ranks would be caricaturing advice, and converting wholesome rules into ironical ridicule.

Yet, if the majority of our young women of scanty expectations would not fix their eyes so steadily as for the most part they do on the more elevated and wealthy classes of society, whom they vainly and ruinously attempt to imitate; if in their views, their education, their habits, their dress, and their manners, they could happily be prevailed on to attend more to domestic duty, and less to trifling amusement and ornamental accomplishment; if they could be convinced that to make a pudding or a shirt, or even their own gowns, is a species of knowledge rather more useful than dancing a minuet, talking bad French, or spoiling a piano-forte; we might in that case hope to see gradually diminished that shocking and enormous mass of venal beauty, which renders our passing the streets, after a certain hour, distressing to our feelings, hazardous to the morals, and injurious to the health of the rising generation.

Women, indeed, formed on the narrow unphilosophic plan here aimed at, would probably not reach that criterion of absolute perfection and equality sought after and expected by Mrs. Woolstoncroft; they perhaps would, in some respects, come under the description of what she calls domestic drudges: surely a more desirable state than being drudges to infamy and prostitution.

Women thus educated and thus instructed, would probably revolt at living as concubines with one man, or at indulging warm wishes for another, the husband of a friend; they would not only submit to stated returns of religious worship without repugnance, but would seize with eagerness and pleasure every opportunity of pouring forth their hearts in gratitude and adoration to the Almighty Creator of the universe.

When their last hour was come, as reasonable beings, sensible of their frailties and faults, they would naturally cast an anxious eye towards that world unknown; they would neither desire nor deserve the panegyric of a moderu philosopher, by quitting a scene of trial and temptation, on which eternal happiness or eternal misery depended, with cold indifference, or suppressed anxiety.

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