MIRROR OF THE GRACES.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUBJECT.

In discoursing on the degree of consequence, in the scale of creation, that may be allowed to the human body, two extremes are generally adopted. Epicureans, for obvious reasons, exalt our corporeal part to the first rank; and Stoics, by opposite deductions, degrade it to the last. But to neither of these opinions can the writer of these pages concede.

The body is as much a part of the human creature as the mind; by its outward expression, we convey to others a sense of our opinions, hopes, fears, and affections—we communicate love, and we excite it. We enjoy, not only the pleasures of the senses, but the delights which shoot from mind to mind, in the pressure of a hand, the glance of an eye, and the whisper of the heart. Shall we then despise this ready and obedient vehicle of all that passes within the invisible soul? Shall we contemn it as a lump of encumbering clay—as a piece of corruption, fitter for the charnel-house than the bosom of affection?

These ascetic ideas may be consistent with the thankless superstition of the ancient Zenos, or the modern fanatics, who see neither beauty nor joyfulness in the works of the bounteous Lord of Nature; but the rational and fair-judging mind, which acknowledges “use and decency” in all the Creator’s works, while it turns from the pagan devotion which the libertine pays to his own body, regards that inferior part of himself with the respect which is due to it in consideration of its Maker and its purpose.

“Reverence thyself!” says the philosopher, not only with relation to the mind which directs, but to the body which executes. God created the body, not only for usefulness, but adorned it with loveliness; and what he has made so pleasing, shall we disesteem, and refuse to apply to its admirable destination?—The very approving and innocent complacency we all feel in the contemplation of beauty, whether it be that of a landscape or of a flower, is a sufficient witness that the pleasure which pervades our hearts at the sight of human charms, was planted there by the Divine Framer of all things, as a principle of delight and social attraction. To this end, then, I seek to turn your attention, my fair countrywomen, upon YOURSELVES!—not only to the cultivation of your minds, but to maintain in its intended station that inferior part of yourselves, which mistaken gravity would, on the one hand, lead you to neglect as altogether worthless; and vanity, on the other, incline you too much to cherish, and egregiously to over-value.

From this you will gather, that the PERSON of a woman is the primary subject of this discourse.

Mothers, perhaps, (those estimable mothers who value the souls as the better parts of their daughters,) may start at such a text. But I call them to recollect, that it is “good all things should be in order!” This is a period when absurdity, bad taste, shamelessness, and self-interest, in the shapes of tire-men and tire-women, have arranged themselves in close siege around the beauty, and even chastity, of your daughters; and to preserve these graces in their original purity, I, a woman of virtue and a Christian, do not think it beneath my dignity to lift my pen.

Dr. Knox will not refuse to be my auxiliary, as a grave auxiliary may be necessary to give consequence to a subject usually deemed so trivial. “Taste requires a congruity between the internal character and the external appearance,” says he; “and the imagination will involuntarily form to itself an idea of such a correspondence. First ideas are in general of considerable consequence; and I should, therefore, think it wise in the female world to take care that their appearance should not convey a forbidding idea to the most superficial observer.”

Another author shall speak for me besides this respected moralist. The very High Priest of the Graces, the discriminating Chesterfield, declared, that “a prepossessing exterior is a perpetual letter of recommendation.” To show how different such an exterior is from affectation and extravagance, is one object of these pages; and I hope that my fair and candid readers will, after perusal, lay them down with a conviction that beauty is a blessing, and is to be used with maidenly discretion; that modesty is grace; simplicity elegance; and consistency the charm which rivets the attracted heart of well-judging men.

That you have sought my sentiments on these subjects makes it easier to me to enter into the minute detail I meditate. Indeed, I have ever blamed, as impolitic, the austerity which condemns, without distinction, any attention to personal appearance. It is surely more reasonable to direct the youthful mind to that medium between negligence and nicety which will preserve the person in health and elegance, than, by leaving a young woman ignorant of the real and supposed advantages of these graces, render her liable to learn the truth in the worst way from strangers, who will either insult her aggravated deformity, or teach her to set off her before-obscured charms with, perhaps, meretricious assistance.

It is unjust and dangerous to hold out false lights to young persons; for, finding that their guides have, in one respect, designedly led them astray, they may be led likewise to reject as untrue all else they have been taught; and so nothing but disappointment, error, and rebellion can be the consequence.

Let girls advancing to womanhood be told the true state of the world with which they are to mingle. Let them know its real opinions on the subjects connected with themselves as women, companions, friends, relatives. Hide not from them what society thinks and expects on all these matters; but fail not to show them, at the same time, where the fashions of the day would lead them wrong—where the laws of heaven and man’s approving (though not always submitting) reason, would keep them right.

Let religion and morality be the foundation of the female character. The artist may then adorn the structure without any danger to its safety. When a girl is instructed on the great purposes of her existence,—that she is an immortal being, as well as a mortal woman,—you may, without fearing ill impressions, show her, that as we admire the beauty of the rose, as well as esteem its medicinal power, so her personal charms will be dear in the eyes of him whose heart is occupied by the graces of her yet more estimable mind. We may safely teach a well-educated girl, that virtue ought to wear an inviting aspect—that it is due to her excellence to decorate her comely apparel. But we must never cease to remember that it is VIRTUE we seek to adorn. It must not be a merely beautiful form; for that, if it possess not the charm of intelligence, the bond of rational tenderness, is a frame without a soul—a statue which we look on and admire, pass away and forget. We must impress upon the yet ingenuous maid, that while beauty attracts, its influence is transient, unless it presents itself as the harbinger of that good sense and principle which can alone secure the affection of a husband, the esteem of friends, and the respect of the world. Show her that regularity of features and symmetry of form are not essentials in the composition of the woman whom the wise man would select as the partner of his life. Seek, as an example, some one of your less fair acquaintance, whose sweet disposition, gentle manners, and winning deportment, render her the delight of her kindred, the dear solace of her husband. Show your young and lovely pupil what use this amiable woman has made of her few talents; and then call on her to cultivate her more extraordinary endowments to the glory of her Creator, the honor of her parents, and to the maintenance of her own happiness in both worlds. To do this, requires that her aims should be virtuous, and the means she employs to reach them of the same nature.

We know, from every record under heaven, from the sacred page to that of the heathen world, that woman was made to be the help-mate of man—that, by rendering herself pleasing in his sight, she is the assuager of his pains, the solacer of his wo, the sharer of his joys, the chief agent in the communication of his sublunary bliss. This is beautifully alluded to in the Book of Genesis, where the work of Creation is represented as incomplete, and the felicity of Paradise itself imperfect, till woman was bestowed to consummate its delights:—

We have all read in the sacred oracles, that “a woman’s desire is unto her husband!” and for that tender relation, the first on earth, (for, before the bonds of relationship, man and woman became a wedded pair,) woman must leave father and mother, and cleave unto him alone. Hence, I shall no longer beg the question, whether it be not right that a chaste maid should adorn herself with the graces of youth and modesty, and, with a sober reference to the duties of her sex, present herself a candidate for the love and protection of manliness and virtue, in the most agreeable manner possible.

By making the fairness of the body the sign of the mind’s purity, man is imperceptibly attracted to the object designed for him by Heaven as the partner of his life, the future mother of his children, and the angel which is to accompany him into eternity. Hence, insignificant as the means may seem, the end is great; and poor as we may choose to consider them, we all feel their effects, and enjoy their sweetness.

Having thus explained my subject, my fair friends will readily perceive, that there cannot be anything hostile to female delicacy in the prosecution of my scheme. I give to woman all her privileges; I allow her the empire of all her personal charms; I will assist her to increase their force: but it must be with a constant reference to their being the ensign of her more estimable mental attractions. She must never suppose that when I insist on attention to person and manners, I forget the mind and heart; or when I commend external grace, that I pass unregarded the internal beauty of the virgin soul.

In order to give a regular and perspicuous elucidation of the several branches of my subject, I shall arrange them under separate heads. Sometimes I may illustrate by observations drawn from abroad, at other times by remarks collected at home. Having been a traveller in my youth, whilst visiting foreign courts with my husband, on an errand connected with the general welfare of nations, I could not overlook the influence which the women of every country hold over the morals and happiness of the opposite sex in every rank and degree.

Fine taste in apparel I have ever seen the companion of pure morals, whilst a licentious style of dress was as certainly the token of the like laxity in manners and conduct. To correct this dangerous fashion, ought to be the study and attempt of every mother—of every daughter—of every woman.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE MANNERS AND FASHIONS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT TIMES.

When Innocence left the world, astonished man blushed at his own and his partner’s nakedness, and coverings were soon invented. For many an age, the twisted foliage of trees, and the skins of beasts, were the only garments which clothed our ancestors. Decoration was unknown, excepting the wild flower, plucked from the luxuriant shrub, the shell from the beach, or the berry off the tree. Nature was then unsophisticated; and the lover looked for no other attraction in his bride, than the peach-bloom on her cheek—the downcast softness of her consenting eye.

In after times, when Avarice ploughed the earth, and Ambition bestrode it, the gem and the silken fleece, the various product of the loom, and the Tyrian mystery of dyes, all united to give embellishments to beauty, and splendor to majesty of mien. But even at that period, when the east and south laid their decorating riches at the feet of woman, we see, by the sculpture yet remaining to us, that the dames of Greece (the then exemplars of the world) were true to the simple laws of just taste. The amply-folding robe, cast round the harmonious form; the modest clasp and zone on the bosom; the braided hair, or the veiled head; these were the fashions alike of the wife of a Phocion, and the mistress of an Alcibiades. A chastened taste ruled at their toilets; and from that hour to this, the forms and modes of Greece have been those of the poet, the sculptor, and the painter.

Rome, queen of the world! the proud dictatress to Athenian and Spartan dames, disdained not to array herself in their dignified attire; and the statues of her virgins, her matrons, and her empresses, show, in every portico of her ancient streets, the graceful fashions of her Grecian province.

The irruption of the Goths and Vandals made it needful for women to assume a more repulsive garb. The flowing robe, the easy shape, the soft, unfettered hair, gave place to skirts, shortened for flight or contest—to the hardened vest, and head buckled in gold or silver.

Thence, by a natural descent, have we the iron boddice, stiff farthingale, and spiral coiffure, of the middle ages. The courts of Charlemagne, of our Edwards, Henries, and Elizabeth, all exhibit the figures of women as if in a state of siege. Such lines of circumvallation and outworks; such impregnable bulwarks of whale-bone, wood, and steel; such impassable mazes of gold, silver, silk, and furbelows, met a man’s view, that, before he had time to guess it was a woman that he saw, she had passed from his sight; and he only formed a vague wish on the subject, by hearing, from an interested father or brother, that the moving castle was one of the softer sex.

These preposterous fashions disappeared, in England, a short time after the Restoration; they had been a little on the wane during the more classic, though distressful reign of Charles I.; and what the beautiful pencil of Vandyke shows us, in the graceful dress of Lady Carlisle and Sacharissa, was rendered yet more correspondent to the soft undulations of nature, in the garments of the lovely, but frail beauties of the Second Charles’s court. But as change too often is carried to extremes, in this case the unzoned tastes of the English ladies thought no freedom too free; their vestments were gradually unloosened of the brace, until another touch would have exposed the wearer to no thicker covering than the ambient air.

The matron reign of Anne, in some measure, corrected this indecency. But it was not till the accession of the House of Brunswick, that it was finally exploded, and gave way by degrees to the ancient mode of female fortification, by introducing the hideous Parisian fashion of hoops, buckram stays, waists to the hips, screwed to the circumference of a wasp, brocaded silks stiff with gold, shoes with heels so high as to set the wearer on her toes; and heads, for quantity of false hair, either horse or human, and height to outweigh, and perhaps outreach, the Tower of Babel! These were the figures which our grandmothers exhibited; nay, such was the appearance I myself made in my early youth; and something like it may yet be seen at a drawing-room, on court-days.

When the arts of Sculpture and Painting, in their fine specimens from the chisels of Greece and the pencils of Italy, were brought into this country, taste began to mould the dress of our female youth after their more graceful fashion. The health-destroying boddice was laid aside; brocades and whale-bone disappeared; and the easy shape and flowing drapery again resumed the rights of nature and of grace. The bright hues of auburn, raven, or golden tresses, adorned the head in its native simplicity, putting to shame the few powdered toupees, which yet lingered on the brow of prejudice and deformity.

Thus, for a short time, did the Graces indeed preside at the toilet of the British beauty; but a strange caprice seems now to have dislodged these gentle handmaids. Here stands affectation distorting the form into a thousand unnatural shapes; and there, ill-taste, loading it with grotesque ornaments, gathered (and mingled confusedly) from Grecian and Roman models, from Egypt, China, Turkey, and Hindostan. All nations are ransacked to equip a modern fine lady; and, after all, she may perhaps strike a contemporary beau as a fine lady, but no son of nature could, at a glance, possibly find out that she meant to represent an elegant woman.

To impress upon your minds, my fair friends, that symmetry of figure ought ever to be accompanied by harmony of dress, and that there is a certain propriety in habiliment adapted to form, age, and degree, shall be the purport of my next observations.

ON THE FEMALE FORM.

To preserve the health of the human form, is the first object of consideration. This is of primary importance, for with its health we necessarily maintain its symmetry, and improve its beauty.

The foundation of a just proportion, in all its parts, must be laid in infancy; for, “as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” A light dress, which gives freedom to the functions of life and action, is the best adapted to permit unobstructed growth; for thence the young fibres, uninterrupted by obstacles of art, will shoot harmoniously into the form which nature drew. The garb of childhood should in all respects be easy; not to impede its movements by ligatures on the chest, the loins, the legs, or the arms. By this liberty, we shall see the muscles of the limbs gradually assume the fine swell and insertions which only unconstrained exercise can produce. The shape will sway gracefully on the firmly poised waist; the chest will rise in noble and healthy expanse; and the human figure will start forward at the blooming age of youth, maturing into the full perfection of unsophisticated nature.

The lovely form of woman, in particular, thus educated, or rather thus left to its natural bias, assumes a variety of interesting characters. In one youthful figure, we see the lineaments of a wood-nymph; a form slight and elastic in all its parts. The shape,

A foot light as that of her whose flying step scarcely brushed the “unbending corn;” and limbs, whose agile grace moved in gay harmony with the turns of her swan-like neck and sparkling eyes.

Another fair one appears with the chastened dignity of a vestal. Her proportions are of a less aërial outline. As she draws near, we perceive that the contour of her figure is on a broader and less flexible scale than that of her more ethereal sister. Euphrosyne speaks in the one, Melpomene in the other.

Between these two lies the whole range of female character in form; and, in proportion as the figure approaches the one extreme or the other, we call it grave or gay, majestic or graceful. Not but that the same person may, by a happy combination of charms, unite these qualities in different degrees, as we sometimes see graceful majesty and majestic grace. Unless the commanding figure softens the amplitude of its contour with a gentle elegance, it may possess a sort of regal consequence, but it will be that of a heavy and harsh importance; and, on the other hand, unless the slight and airy form, full of youth and animal spirits, superadds to these attractions the grace of a restraining dignity, her vivacity will be deemed levity, and her activity the romping of a wild hoyden.

Young women, therefore, when they present themselves to the world, must not implicitly fashion their demeanors according to the levelling rules of the generality of school-governesses; but, considering the character of their own figures, allow their deportment, and select their dress, to follow and correct the bias of nature.

There is a class of female contour which bears such faint marks of any positive character, that the best advice I can give to them who have it, is to assume that of the sedate. Such an appearance is unobtrusive; it is amiable, and not only secure from animadversion, but very likely to awaken respect and love. Indeed, in all cases, a modest reserve is essential to the perfection of feminine attraction.

As it has been observed, that, during the period of youth, different women wear a variety of characters, such as the gay, the grave, &c. when it is found that even this loveliest season of life places its subjects in varying lights, how necessary does it seem that women should carry this idea yet further by analogy, and recollect that she has a summer as well as a spring, an autumn, and a winter! As the aspect of the earth alters with the changes of the year, so does the appearance of a woman adapt itself to the time which passes over her. Like the rose, she buds, she blooms, she fades, she dies!

When the freshness of virgin youth vanishes—when Delia passes her teens, and approaches her thirtieth year, she may then consider her day as at the meridian; but the sun which shines so brightly on her beauties, declines while it displays them. A few short years, and the jocund step, the airy habit, the sportive manner, must all be exchanged for “faltering steps and slow.” Before this happens, it would be well for her to remember that it is wiser to throw a shadow over her yet unimpaired charms, than to hold them in the light till they are seen to decay.

Each age has an appropriate style of figure and pleasing; and it is the business of discernment and taste to discover and maintain those advantages in their due seasons.

The general characteristics of youth, are meek dignity, chastened sportiveness, and gentle seriousness. Middle age has the privilege of preserving, unaltered, the graceful majesty and tender gravity which may have marked its earlier years. But the gay manners of the comic muse must, in the advance of life, be discreetly softened down into little more than cheerful amenity. Time marches on, and another change takes place. Amiable as the former characteristics may be, they must give way to the sober, the venerable aspect with which age, experience, and “a soul commercing with the skies,” ought to adorn the silver hairs of the Christian matron.

Nature having maintained a harmony between the figure of woman and her years, it is decorous that the consistency should extend to the materials and fashion of her apparel. For youth to dress like age, is an instance of bad taste seldom seen. But age, affecting the airy garments of youth, the transparent drapery of Cos, and the sportiveness of a girl, is an anachronism as frequent as it is ridiculous.

Virgin, bridal Beauty, when she arrays herself with taste, obeys an end of her creation—that of increasing her charms in the eyes of some virtuous lover, or the husband of her bosom. She is approved. But when the wrinkled fair, the hoary-headed matron, attempts to equip herself for conquest, to awaken sentiments which, when the bloom on her cheek has disappeared, her rouge can never recall; and, despite of all her efforts, we can perceive “memento mori” written on her face, then we cannot but deride her folly, or, in pity, counsel her rather to seek for charms, the mental graces of Madame de Sevigné, than the meretricious arts of Ninon de l’Enclos.

But that, in some cases, wrinkles may be long warded off, and auburn locks preserve a lengthened freshness, is not to be denied; and, where nature prolongs the youth of a Helen or a Sarah, it is not for man to see her otherwise. These are rare instances; and, in the minds of rational women, ought rather to excite wonder, than desire to emulate their extended reign. But what ought to be, we know is not always adopted. St. Evremond has told us, that “a woman’s last sighs are for her beauty;” and what this wit has advanced, the sex has ever been too ready to confirm. A strange kind of art, a sort of sorcery, is prescribed by tradition, and in books, in the form of cosmetics, &c., to preserve female charms in perpetual youth. But I fear that, until these composts can be concocted in Medea’s caldron, they will never have any better effect than exercising the faith and patience of the credulous dupes, who expect to find the elixir vitæ in any mixture under heaven.

The rules which I would lay down for the preservation of the bloom of beauty, during its natural life, are few, and easy of access. And, besides having advantage of speaking from my own wide and minute observation, I have the authorities of the most eminent physicians of every age, to support my argument.

The secret of preserving beauty lies in three things,—temperance, exercise, and cleanliness.—From these few heads, I hope much good instruction may be deduced. Temperance includes moderation at table, and in the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A young beauty, were she fair as Hebe, and elegant as the Goddess of Love herself, would soon lose these charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, and late hours.

I guess that my delicate young readers will start at this last sentence, and wonder how it can be that any well-bred woman should think it possible that pretty ladies could be guilty of either of the two first-mentioned excesses. But, when I speak of inordinate eating, &c., I do not mean feasting like a glutton, or drinking to intoxication. My objection is not more against the quantity than the quality of the dishes which constitute the usual repast of women of fashion. Their breakfasts not only set forth tea and coffee, but chocolate, and hot bread and butter. Both of these latter articles, when taken constantly, are hostile to health and female delicacy. The heated grease, which is their principal ingredient, deranges the stomach; and, by creating or increasing bilious disorders, gradually overspreads the fair skin with a wan or yellow hue. After this meal, a long and exhausting fast not unfrequently succeeds, from ten in the morning till six or seven in the evening, when dinner is served up; and the half-famished beauty sits down to sate a keen appetite with Cayenne soups, fish, French patées steaming with garlic, roast and boiled meat, game, tarts, sweetmeats, ices, fruits, &c. &c. &c. How must the constitution suffer under the digestion of this melange! How does the heated complexion bear witness to the combustion within! And, when we consider that the beverage she takes to dilute this mass of food, and assuage the consequent fever in her stomach, is not merely water from the spring, but champagne, madeira, and other wines, foreign and domestic, you cannot wonder that I should warn the inexperienced creature against intemperance. The superabundance of aliment which she takes in at this time, is not only destructive of beauty, but the period of such repletion is full of other dangers. Long fasting wastes the powers of digestion, and weakens the springs of life. In this enfeebled state, at the hour when nature intends we should prepare for general repose, we put our stomach and animal spirits to extraordinary exertion. Our vital functions are overtasked and overloaded;—we become hectic—for observation strongly declares that invalid and delicate persons should rarely eat solids after three o’clock in the day, as fever is generally the consequence; and thus, almost every complaint that distresses and destroys the human frame, may be engendered.

Besides, when we add to this evil the present mode of bracing the digestive part of the body, in what is called long stays, to what an extent must reach the baneful effects of a protracted and abundant repast? Indeed, I am fully persuaded that long fasting, late dining, and the excessive repletion then taken into the exhausted stomach, with the tight pressure of steel and whalebone on the most susceptible parts of the frame then called into action, and the midnight, nay, morning hours, of lingering pleasure, are the positive causes of colds taken, bilious fevers, consumptions, and atrophies. By the means enumerated, the firm texture of the constitution is broken, and the principles of health being in a manner decomposed, the finest parts fly off, and the dregs maintain the poor survivor of herself, in a sad kind of artificial existence. Delicate proportion gives place either to miserable leanness or shapeless fat. The once fair skin assumes a pallid rigidity, or a bloated redness, which the vain possessor would still regard as the roses of health and beauty.

To repair these ravages, comes the aid of padding, to give shape where there is none; long stays, to compress into form the chaos of flesh; and paints of all hues, to rectify the disorder of the complexion. But useless are these attempts. If dissipation, disease, and immoderation, have wrecked the fair vessel of female charms, it is not in the power of Esculapius himself to refit the shattered bark; or of the Syrens, with all their songs and wiles, to conjure its battered sides from the rocks, and make it ride the seas in gallant trim again.

It is with pleasure that I turn from this ruin of all that is beauteous and lovely, to the cheering hope of preserving every charm unimpaired; and by means which the most ingenuous mind need not blush to acknowledge.

The rules, I repeat, are few. First, Temperance: a well-timed use of the table, and so moderate a pursuit of pleasure, that the midnight ball, assembly, and theatre, shall not too frequently recur.

My next specific is that of gentle and daily Exercise in the open air. Nature teaches us, in the gambols and sportiveness of the young of the lower animals, that bodily exertion is necessary for the growth, vigor, and symmetry of the animal frame; while the too studious scholar, and the indolent man of luxury, exhibit in themselves the pernicious consequences of the want of exercise.

This may be almost always obtained, either on horseback or on foot, in fine weather; and when that is denied, in a carriage. Country air in the fields, or in gardens, when breathed at proper hours, is an excellent bracer of the nerves, and a sure brightener of the complexion. But these hours are neither under the mid-day sun in summer, when its beams scorch the skin and ferment the blood; nor beneath the dews of evening, when the imperceptible damps, saturating the thinly-clad body, send the wanderer home infected with the disease that is to lay her, ere a returning spring, in the silent tomb! Both these periods are pregnant with danger to delicacy and carelessness.

The morning, about two or three hours after sunrise, is the most salubrious time for a vigorous walk. But, as the day advances, if you choose to prolong the sweet enjoyment of the open air, then the thick wood or shady lane will afford refreshing shelter from the too intense heat of the sun. In short, the morning and evening dew, and the unrepelled blaze of a summer noon, must alike be ever avoided as the enemies of health and beauty.

Cleanliness, my last recipe, (and which is, like the others, applicable to all ages,) is of most powerful efficacy. It maintains the limbs in their pliancy, the skin in its softness, the complexion in its lustre, the eyes in their brightness, the teeth in their purity, and the constitution in its fairest vigor. To promote cleanliness, I can recommend nothing preferable to bathing.

The frequent use of tepid baths is not more grateful to the sense than it is salutary to the health, and to beauty. By such ablution, all accidental corporeal impurities are thrown off; cutaneous obstructions removed; and while the surface of the body is preserved in its original brightness, many threatening disorders are removed or prevented. Colds in the young, and rheumatic and paralytic affections in the old, are all dispersed by this simple and delightful antidote. By such means the women of the East render their skins softer than that of the tenderest babes in this climate, and preserve that health which sedentary confinement would otherwise destroy.

This delightful and delicate Oriental fashion is now, I am happy to say, prevalent almost all over the continent. From the Villas of Italy, to the Chateaux of France; from the Castles of Germany, to the Palaces of Muscovy; we may everywhere find the marble bath under the vaulted portico or the sheltering shade. Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of those genial friends to cleanliness and comfort. The generality of English ladies seem to be ignorant of the use of any bath larger than a wash-hand basin. This is the more extraordinary to me, when I contemplate the changeable temperature of the climate, and consider the corresponding alterations in the bodily feelings of the people. By abruptly checking the secretions, it produces those chronic and cutaneous diseases so peculiar to our nation, and so heavy a cause of complaint.

This very circumstance renders baths more necessary in England than anywhere else; for as this is the climate most subject to sudden heats and colds, rains and fogs, tepid immersion is the only sovereign remedy against their usual morbific effects. Indeed, so impressed am I with the consequence of their regimen, that I strongly recommend to every lady to make a bath as indispensable an article in her house as a looking-glass:

It may be remarked, en passant, that rubbing of the skin in the bath is an excellent substitute for exercise, when that is impracticable out-of-doors.

I must not draw this chapter to a close without offering my fair readers a few remarks on the malignant influence exercised on the features by an ill-regulated temper. The face is the index of the mind. On its expressive page are recorded in characters lasting as life itself, the gloom of sullenness, the arrogance of pride, the withering of envy, or the storm of anger; for, even after the fury of the tempest has subsided, its fearful devastations remain behind.

The first emotions of anger are apparent to the most superficial observer. Every indulgence in its paroxysms, both adds strength to its authority, and engraves its history in deeper relief on the forehead of its votaries. What a pity it is that antiquity provides us with no authentic portrait of the illustrious Xantippe! for I am sure the features of that lady would lend their ready testimony to the value of my admonitions.

When good-humor and vivacity reign within, the face is lighted up with benignant smiles; where peace and gentleness are the tenants of the bosom, the countenance beams with mildness and complacency. Evil temper has, with truth, been called a more terrible enemy to beauty than the small-pox. I beseech you, therefore, as you value the preservation of your charms, to resist the dominion of this rude despoiler, to foster and encourage the feelings of kindliness and good-humor, and to repress every emotion of a contrary character.

I shall conclude this important subject by remarking with the Spectator, that “no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more than she can be witty only by the gift of speech.”

THE SAME SUBJECT, OF FEMALE BEAUTY, MORE EXPLICITLY CONSIDERED.

So far, my friends, I have thrown together my sentiments on the aggregate of the female form: I shall now descend to particulars, and leave it to your judgments to adopt my suggestions according to the correspondence with your different characters.

The preservation of an agreeable complexion (which always presupposes health) is not the most insignificant of exterior charms. Though we yield due admiration to regularity of features, (the Grecian contour being usually so called,) yet when we consider them merely in the outline, our pleasure can go no further than that of a cold critic, who regards the finely proportioned lineaments of life as he would those of a statue. It is complexion that lends animation to a picture; it is complexion that gives spirit to the human countenance. Even the language of the eyes loses half its eloquence, if they speak from the obscurity of an inexpressive skin. The life-blood in the mantling cheek; the ever-varying hues of nature glowing in the face, “as if her very body thought;” these are alike the ensigns of beauty and the heralds of the mind; and the effect is, an impression of loveliness, an attraction, which fills the beholder with answering animation and the liveliest delight.

As a Juno-featured maid with a dull skin, by most people, will only be coldly pronounced critically handsome; so a young woman with very indifferent features, but a fine complexion, will, from ten persons out of twelve, receive spontaneous and warm admiration.

The experience (when once we admit the proposition that it is right to keep the casket bright which contains so precious a gem as the soul) must induce us to take precautions against the injuries continually threatening the tender surface of the skin. It may be next to an impossibility, to change the color of an eye, to alter the form of the nose, or the turn of the mouth; but though Heaven has given us a complexion which vies with the flowers of the field, we yet have it in our power to render it dingy by neglect, coarse through intemperance, and sallow by dissipation.

Such excesses must therefore be avoided; for, though there may be a something in the pallid cheek which excites interest, yet, without a certain appearance of health, there can never be an impression of loveliness. A fine, clear skin, gives an assurance of the inherent residence of three admirable graces to beauty; Wholesomeness, Neatness, and Cheerfulness. Every fair means ought to be sought to maintain these vouchers, for not only health of body, but health of mind.

I have already given some hints to this purpose; at least as far as relates to the purity of the alimentary springs of sublunary life: those which are in the heart, and point through time into eternity, must not be less observed; for, unless its thoughts are kept in corresponding order and the passions held in peace, all prescriptions will be vain to keep those boiling fluids in check, which, in spite of Roman fard and balm of Mecca, will spread themselves over the skin, and there show an outward and visible sign of the malignant spirit within. Independent of these intellectual causes of corporeal defects, disorders of the skin, arising from accidental circumstances, are more frequent in this country than in any other; and the fashions of the day are still more inimical to the complexion of its inhabitants, than the climate. The frequent and sudden changes from heat to cold, by abruptly exciting or repressing the regular secretions of the skin, roughen its texture, injure its hue, and often deform it with unseemly, though transitory, eruptions. All this is increased by the habit ladies have of exposing themselves unveiled, and frequently without bonnets, in the open air. The head and face have then no defence against the attacks of the surrounding atmosphere, and the effects are obvious. The barouche, for this reason, and the more consequential one of subjecting its inmates to dangerous chills, is a fatal addition to the variety of English equipages. Our autumnal evenings, with this carriage and our gossamer apparel, have already sent many of my young female acquaintance to untimely graves.

To remedy these evils, I would strenuously recommend, for health’s sake, as well as for beauty, that no lady should make one in any riding, airing, or walking party, without putting on her head something capable of affording both shelter and warmth. Shakspeare, the poet of the finest taste in female charms, makes Viola regret having been obliged to “throw her sun-expelling mask away!” Such a defence I do not pretend to recommend; but I consider a veil a useful as well as elegant part of dress; it can be worn to suit any situation; open or close, just as the heat or cold may render it necessary.

The custom which some ladies have, when warm, of powdering their faces, washing them with cold water, or throwing off their bonnets, that they may cool the faster, are all very destructive habits. Each of them is sufficient (when it meets with any predisposition in the blood) to spread a surfeit over the skin, and make a once beautiful face hideous forever.

The person, when overheated, should always be allowed to cool gradually, and of itself, without any more violent assistant than, perhaps, the gentle undulation of the neighboring air by a fan. Streams of wind from opened doors and windows, or what is called a thorough air, are all bad and highly dangerous applications. These impatient remedies for heat are often resorted to in balls and crowded assemblies; and as frequently as they are used, we hear of sore throats, coughs, and fevers. While it is the fashion to fill a drawing-room like a theatre, similar means ought to be adopted, to prevent the ill effects of the consequent corrupted atmosphere, and the temptation to seek relief by dangerous resources. Instead of the open balcony, and yawning door, we should see ventilators in every window; and thus feel a constant succession of pure and temperate air.

Excessive heat, as well as excessive cold, is apt to cause distempers of the skin; and as the fine lady, by her strange habits, is as prone to such changes as the desert-wandering gipsy, it is requisite that she should be particularly careful to correct the deforming consequences of her fashionable exposures. For her usual ablution, night and morning, nothing is so fine an emollient for any rigidity or disease of the face as a wash of French or white brandy, and rose-water; the spirit making only one-third of the mixture. The brandy keeps up that gentle action of the skin which is necessary to the healthy appearance of its parts. It also cleanses the surface. The rose-water corrects the drying property of the spirit, leaving the skin in a natural, soft, and flexible state. Where white or French brandy cannot be obtained, half the quantity of spirits of wine will tolerably supply its place.

The eloquent effect of complexion will, I hope, my fair friends, obtain your pardon for my having confined your attention so long to what is generally thought (though in contradiction to what is felt) a trifling feature, if so I may be allowed to name it.

I am aware of your expectations, that I would give the precedence, in this dissertation, to the eye. I subscribe to its supereminent dignity; for none can deny that it is regarded by all nations as the faithful interpreter of the mind, as the window of the soul, the index in which we read each varied emotion of the heart; it is, indeed, the “spirit’s throne of light.” But how increased an expression does this intelligent feature convey, when aided by the glowing tints of an eloquent complexion! Indeed, it is the happy coincidence of the eye and the complexion which forms the strongest point of what the French call contenance.

The animated changes of sensibility are nowhere more apparent than in the transparent surface of a clear skin. Who has not perceived, and admired, the rising blush of modesty enrich the cheek of a lovely girl, and, in the sweet effusion, most gratefully discern the true witness of the purity within? Who has not been sensible to the sudden glow on the face, which announces, ere the lips open, or the eye sparkles, the approach of some beloved object? Nay, will not even the sound of his name paint the blooming cheek with deeper roses?

Shall we reverse the picture? I have shown how the soul proclaims her joy through its wondrous medium; shall she speak her sorrows too? Then let us call to mind, who have beheld the deadly paleness of her who learns the unexpected destruction of her dearest possessions! Perhaps a husband, a lover, or a brother, mingled with the slain, or fallen, untimely, by some dreadful accident. Sudden partings like these

We see the darkened, stagnant shade which denotes the despair-stricken soul. We behold the livid hues of approaching frenzy, or the blacker stain of settled melancholy! Heloisa’s face is paler than the marble she kneels upon. In all cases the mind shines through the body; and according as the medium is dense or transparent, so the light within seems dull or clear.

Advocate as I am for a fine complexion, you must perceive, that it is for the real, and not the spurious. The foundation of my argument, the skin’s power of expression, would be entirely lost, were I to tolerate that fictitious, that dead beauty, which is composed of white paints and enamelling. In the first place, as all applications of this kind are as a mask on the skin, they can never, but at a distant glance, impose for a moment on a discerning eye. But why should I say a discerning eye? No eye that is of the commonest apprehension can look on a face bedaubed with white paint, pearl powder, or enamel, and be deceived for a minute into a belief that so inanimate a “whited wall” is the human skin. No flush of pleasure, no shudder of pain, no thrilling of hope, can be descried beneath the encrusted mould; all that passes within is concealed behind the mummy surface. Perhaps the painted creature may be admired by an artist as a well-executed picture; but no man will seriously consider her as a handsome woman.

White painting is, therefore, an ineffectual, as well as dangerous practice. The proposed end is not obtained; and, as poison lurks under every layer, the constitution wanes in alarming proportion as the supposed charms increase.

What is said against white paint, does not oppose, with the same force, the use of red. Merely rouging leaves three parts of the face, and the whole of the neck and arms, to their natural hues. Hence, the language of the heart, expressed by the general complexion, is not yet entirely obstructed. Besides, while all white paints are ruinous to health, (occasioning paralytic affections, and premature death,) there are some red paints which may be used with perfect safety.

A little vegetable rouge tinging the cheek of a delicate woman, who, from ill health or an anxious mind, loses her roses, may be excusable; and so transparent is the texture of such rouge, (when unadulterated with lead,) that when the blood does mount to the face, it speaks through the slight covering, and enhances the fading bloom. But, though the occasional use of rouge may be tolerated, yet my fair friends must understand that it is only tolerated. Good sense must so preside over its application, that its tint on the cheek may always be fainter than that nature’s pallet would have painted. A violent rouged woman is one of the most disgusting objects to the eye. The excessive red on the face gives a coarseness to every feature, and a general fierceness to the countenance, which transforms the elegant lady of fashion into a vulgar harridan.

While I recommend that the rouge we sparingly permit, should be laid on with delicacy, my readers must not suppose that I intend such advice as a means of making the art a deception. It seems to me so slight and so innocent an apparel of the face, (a kind of decent veil thrown over the cheek, rendered too eloquent of grief by the pallidness of secret sorrow,) that I cannot see any shame in the most ingenuous female acknowledging that she occasionally rouges. It is often, like a cheerful smile on the face of an invalid, put on to give comfort to an anxious friend.

That our applications to this restorer of our usual looks should not feed, like a worm, on the bud it affects to brighten, no rouge must ever be admitted that is impregnated with even the smallest particle of ceruse. It is the lead which is the poison of white paint; and its mixture with the red would render that equally noxious.

There are various ways of putting on rouge. Frenchwomen in general, and those who imitate them, daub it on from the bottom of the side of the face up to the very eye, even till it meets the lower eye-lash, and creeps all over the temples. This is a hideous practice. It is obvious that it must produce deformity instead of beauty, and, as I said before, would metamorphose the gentlest-looking fair Hebe into a fierce Medusa.

For brunettes, a slight touch of simple carmine on the cheek, in its dry powder state, is amply sufficient. Taste will teach the hand to soften the color by due degrees, till it almost imperceptibly blends with the natural hue of the skin. For fairer complexions, letting down the vivid red of the carmine with a mixture of fine hair powder, till it suits the general appearance of the skin, will have the desired effect.

The article of rouge, on the grounds I have mentioned, is the only species of positive art a woman of integrity or of delicacy can permit herself to use with her face. Her motives for imitating the bloom of health, may be of the most honorable nature, and she can with candor avow them. On the reverse, nothing but selfish vanity, and falsehood of mind, could prevail on a woman to enamel her skin with white paints, to lacker her lips with vermilion, to draw the meandering vein through the fictitious alabaster with as fictitious a dye.

Penciling eye-brows, staining them, &c., are too clumsy tricks of attempted deception, for any other emotion to be excited in the mind of the beholder, than contempt for the bad taste and wilful blindness which could ever deem them passable for a moment. There is a lovely harmony in nature’s tints, which we seldom attain by our added chromatics. The exquisitely fair complexion is generally accompanied with blue eyes, light hair, and light eye-brows and lashes. So far all is right. The delicacy of one feature is preserved in effect and beauty by the corresponding softness of the other. A young creature, so formed, appears to the eye of taste like the azure heavens, seen through the fleecy clouds on which the brightness of day delights to dwell. But take this fair image of the celestial regions, draw a black line over her softly-tinctured eyes, stain their beamy fringes with a sombre hue, and what do you produce? Certainly a fair face with dark eye-brows! But that feature, which is an embellishment to a brunette, when seen on the forehead of the fair beauty, becomes, if not an absolute deformity, so great a drawback from her perfections, that the harmony is gone; and, as a proof, a painter would immediately turn from the change with disgust.

Nature, in almost every case, is our best guide. Hence the native color of our own hair is, in general, better adapted to our own complexions than a wig of a contrary hue. A thing may be beautiful in itself, which, with certain combinations, may be rendered hideous. For instance, a golden-tressed wig on the head of a brown woman, makes both ridiculous. By the same rule, all fantastic tricks played with the mouth or eyes, or motions of the head, are absurd, and ruinous to beauty. They are solecisms in the works of nature.

In Turkey, it happened to be the taste of one of its great monarchs, to esteem large and dark-lashed eyes as the most lovely. From that time, all the fair slaves of that voluptuous region, when nature has not bestowed “the wild-stag eye in sable ringlets rolling,” supply the deficiency with circles of antimony; and so, instead of a real charm, they impart a strange artificial ghastliness to their appearance.

Our countrywomen, in like manner, when a celebrated belle came under the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, who exhibited to her emulative rivals the sweet peculiarities of her long and languishing eye, they must needs all have the same; and not a lady could appear in public, be her visual orbs large or small, bright or dull, but she must affect the soft sleepiness, the tender and slowly-moving roll of her subduing exemplar. But though Sir Peter’s gallant pencil deigned to compliment his numerous sitters by drowning their strained aspects after the model of the peerless belle, yet, in place of the nature-stamped look of modest languishment, he could not but often recognize the disgraceful leer and hideous squint. Let every woman be content to leave her eyes as she found them, and to make that use of them which was their design. They were intended to see with, and artlessly express the feelings of a chaste and benevolent heart. Let them speak this unsophisticated language, and beauty will beam from the orb which affectation would have rendered odious.

Analogy of reasoning will bring forward similar remarks with regard to the movements of the mouth, which many ladies use, not to speak with or to admit food, but to show dimples and display white teeth. Wherever a desire for exhibition is discovered, a disposition to disapprove and ridicule arises in the spectator. The pretensions of the vain are a sort of assumption over others, which arms the whole world against them. But, after all, “What are the honors of a painted skin?” I hope it will be distinctly understood by my fair friends, that I do not, by any means, give a general license to painting; on the contrary, that even rouge should only be resorted to in cases of absolute necessity.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON DRESS AND PERSONAL DECORATION.

Every person of just observation, who looks back on the fashions of our immediate ancestors, and compares their style of dress with that of the present times, will not hesitate to acknowledge the evident improvement in ease and gracefulness. When I say this, I mean to eulogize the taste which yet prevails with persons of real judgment, to maintain the ease and gracefulness of our assumed Grecian mode, against a new race of stay-makers, corset-inventors, &c., who have just armed themselves with whalebone, steel, and buckram, to the utter destruction of all the naturally-elegant shapes which fall into their hands.

Just before this attempted counter-revolution in the world of fashion, we found that our belles had gradually exploded the stiffness and formality which distinguished the brocaded dame of 1700, from the lawn-robed fair of the nineteenth century. In former ages it seemed requisite that every lady should cut out her garments by a certain erected standard. All seemed in a livery. One mode for gown, cap, and hat prevailed; and though the materials might be more costly in one than another, the outline was the same; and thus peculiar taste and fine form were lost, in the general prescription of one reigning costume.

But in our days, an Englishwoman has the extensive privilege of arraying herself in whatever garb may best suit her figure or her fancy. The fashions of every nation and of every era are open to her choice. One day she may appear as the Egyptian Cleopatra, then a Grecian Helen; next morning, the Roman Cornelia; or, if these styles be too august for her taste, there are sylphs, goddesses, nymphs of every region, in earth or air, ready to lend her their wardrobe. In short, no land or age is permitted to withhold its costume from the adoption of an Englishwoman of fashion.

With such a variety to choose from, she has no excuse, if she unite not the excellences of them all. It was so that the sculptor of Paphos formed the “beauteous statue that enchanted the world.” And in like manner female taste accomplishes its object. A judicious dresser will select from each mode that which is most distinguishable for utility and grace, and, combining, adopt them to advantage. This is the art which every woman who casts a thought on these subjects, ought to endeavor to attain.

Elegant dressing is not found in expense; money without judgment may load, but never can adorn. You may show profusion without grace: You may cover a neck with pearls, a head with jewels, hands and arms with rings, bracelets, and trinkets, and yet produce no effect, but having emptied some merchant’s counter upon your person. The best chosen dress is that which so harmonizes with the figure as to make the raiment pass unobserved. The result of the finest toilet should be an elegant woman, not an elegantly dressed woman. Where a perfect whole is intended, it is a sign of defect in the execution, when the details first present themselves to observation.

In short, the secret of dressing lies in simplicity, and a certain adaptation to your figure, your rank, your circumstances. To dress well on these principles—and they are the only just ones—does not require that extravagant attention to so trivial an object, as is usually exhibited by persons who make the toilet a study. When ladies place the spell of their attraction in their clothes, we generally see them arrayed in robes of a thousand makes and dyes, and curiously constructed of materials brought from, Heaven knows where. Thus, much time, thought, and wealth, are wasted on a comparatively worthless object. To lavish many of the precious hours of life in the invention and arrangement of dress, is as criminal an offence as to exhaust the finances of your husband or parents by a thriftless expenditure on its component parts.

The taste I wish to inculcate, is that nicely-poised estimation of things, which shows it “worth our while to do well, what it is ever worth our while to do.” This disposition originates in a correct and delicate mind, and forms a judgment which makes elegance inseparable from propriety; and extending itself from great objects to small, reaches the most apparently insignificant; and thus, even in the change of the morning and evening attire, displays to the considerate observer a very intelligible index of the wearer’s well-regulated mind.

“Show me a lady’s dressing-room,” says a certain writer, “and I will tell you what manner of woman she is.” Chesterfield, also, is of opinion, that a sympathy goes through every action of our lives: he declares, that he could not help conceiving some idea of people’s sense and character from the dress in which they appeared when introduced to him. He was so great an advocate for pleasing externals, that he often said, he would rather see a young person too much than too little dressed, excess, on the fopish side, wearing off with time and reflection; but if a youth be negligent at twenty, it is probable he will be a sloven at forty, and disgustingly dirty at fifty. However this may be with the other sex, I beg leave to observe, that I never yet met with a woman whose general style of dress was chaste, elegant, and appropriate, that I did not find, on further acquaintance, to be, in disposition and mind, an object to admire and love.

This correspondence between the thoughts and the raiment being established, what was before insignificant becomes of consequence; and, being rightly understood, good sense will be as careful not to disparage her discretion, by extravagant dress, as she would to evince a sordid mind, by dirt and rags.

I think I see you, my friends, smile, incredulous, at the last sentence. What gentlewoman, you exclaim, who is above the most abject pecuniary embarrassments, can ever have chance of being so apparelled? A desire of singularity is a sufficient answer. There is a race of women, who, priding themselves on their superior rank, or wealth, or talents, affect to despise what they deem the adventitious aids of dress. Their appearance, in consequence, is frequently as ridiculous as disgusting. When this folly is seen in female authors, or what is much the same thing, ladies professing a particularly literary taste, we can at once trace its motives,—a conceited negligence of outward attractions, and a determination to raise themselves in the opinions of men, by displaying a contempt for what they deem the vain occupations of meaner souls. Wishing to be thought superior to founding any regard on external ornament, they forget external decency; and by slatternliness and affectation, render what is called a learned woman, a kind of scare-crow to her own sex, and a laughing-stock to the other. This error is not so common now with bookish ladies as it was in the beginning of the last century. Then our sex did, indeed, show that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” They did not imbibe sufficient to imbue them with a sense of its real properties, to show them causes and effects, to make them understand themselves, and close the book in humility. They, poor short-sighted creatures! exchanged the innocent ignorance of Eve for the empoisoned apple, which, under the cheat of displaying knowledge, fills the eater with a vain self-conceit, while it more openly exposes her mental nakedness to every eye.

The absurdity of their deductions is so obvious, that one wonders how any woman could fall into such an error. Who among them but would think it the height of folly to place over the door of a museum, to which the proprietor wished to attract visitors, the effigy of a monster, so disgusting as to deter men from entering to see what might otherwise have afforded them much pleasure? Such effigies might the slip-shod muses of the days of Anne have given of themselves; but most of the modern female votaries of Minerva, aware of the advantages of a prepossessing appearance, mingle with their incense to the Goddess a few flowers to the Paphian Graces; and, that they gain by the devotion, none who have been admitted to the acquaintance of our British Sapphos and Corinnas, can deny.

There is another class of persons, who neglect their exterior on account of the consequence they derive from their rank; but instances on such a plea are few, in comparison with the insolent slovenliness of the opposite sex, when, springing from the lower degrees in society, they amass or acquire large fortunes. They aim at notoriety; and common means, such as expense and show, not raising them into an eclat beyond their equally rich contemporaries, ambition leads them to seek notice by the assumption of a garb of almost pauper negligence. I remember, some years since, when on a visit at a large seaport town in the north of England, to have been attracted by seeing at the door of a handsome house in one of the principal streets an elegant modern chariot. I stopped, and, to my surprise, saw step into it an old man of the meanest and most dirty appearance. A few days afterwards, while viewing the docks with a gentleman who was an inhabitant of the place, I observed the same wretched-looking person conversing familiarly with a man of the first consequence in the town. I inquired of my friend the name and business of the shabby old fellow, and received the following brief answer. He had been taken, when a boy, from very indigent parents residing in a northern village; and, being a smart lad, was employed in the drudgery of a banking-house belonging to his benefactors. By assiduous application, and a deep cunning, aided by what is vulgarly called good luck, he gradually advanced himself to be one of the firm. Of course, his fortune then rose with the house, and his wealth, at the time I saw him, was computed at upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. Yet I am sure that an old-clothesman would not have given half-a-crown for the whole of the apparel (or rather rags) upon his back.

Now, as it is too often the custom with people, in forming an opinion, seldom to go beyond the surface, this modern Avaro was, by many, termed a man without pride! Few gave a guess at the real motive of all this studied negligence; but those who investigate the human character, and trace actions to the secret springs of the heart, saw, in this inattention to personal decency, the very acmé of personal pride. I shall prove my position by repeating the usual reply of this old man, when any of his acquaintance ventured to inquire why he wore such tattered garments. “Why,” he would answer, “were I to dress as smart as other people, no one would know T. W. from another man.”

Men may fall into this mistaken road to distinction, but women who have suddenly become wealthy seldom do. A passion for dress is so common with the sex, that it ought not to be very surprising, when opulence, vanity, and bad taste meet, that we should find extravagance and tawdry profusion the fruits of the union. And it would be well if a humor for expensive dress were always confined to the fortunate daughters of Plutus; but we too often find this ruinous spirit in women of slender means, and then, what ought to be one of the embellishments of life is turned into a splendid mischief. Alas! my friends, it must come under your own observations, that often does the foolish virgin, or infatuated matron, sell her peace or honor for a ring or a scarf!

A woman of principle and prudence must be consistent in the style and quality of her attire; she must be careful that her expenditure does not exceed the limits of her allowance; she must be aware, that it is not the girl who lavishes the most money on her apparel that is the best arrayed. Frequent instances have I known, where young women, with a little good taste, ingenuity, and economy, have maintained a much better appearance than ladies of three times their fortune. No treasury is large enough to supply indiscriminate profusion; and scarcely any purse is too scanty for the uses of life, when managed by a careful hand. Few are the situations in which a woman can be placed, whether she be married or single, where some attention to thrift is not expected. High rank requires adequate means to support its consequence—ostentatious wealth, a superabundance to maintain its domineering pretensions; and the middle class, when virtue is its companion, looks to economy to allow it to throw its mite into the lap of charity.

Hence we see, that hardly any woman, however related, can have a right to independent, uncontrolled expenditure; and that, to do her duty in every sense of the word, she must learn to understand and exercise the graces of economy. This quality will be a gem in her husband’s eyes; for, though most of the money-getting sex like to see their wives well dressed, yet, trust me, my fair friends, they would rather owe that pleasure to your taste than to their pockets!

Costliness being, then, no essential principle in real elegance, I shall proceed to give you a few hints on what are the distinguishing circumstances of a well-ordered toilet.

As the beauty of form and complexion is different in different women, and is still more varied, according to the ages of the fair subjects of investigation; so the styles in dress, while simplicity is the soul of all, must assume a character corresponding with the wearer.

The seasons of life should be arrayed like those of the year. In the spring of youth, when all is lovely and gay, then, as the soft green, sparkling in freshness, bedecks the earth; so, light and transparent robes, of tender colors, should adorn the limbs of the young beauty. If she be of the Hebe form, warm weather should find her veiled in fine muslin, lawn, gauzes, and other lucid materials. To suit the character of her figure, and to accord with the prevailing mode and just taste together, her morning robes should be of a length sufficiently circumscribed as not to impede her walking; but on no account must they be too short; for, when any design is betrayed of showing the foot or ankle, the idea of beauty is lost in that of the wearer’s odious indelicacy. On the reverse, when no show of vanity is apparent in the dress—when the lightly-flowing drapery, by unsought accident, discovers the pretty buskined foot or taper ankle, a sense of virgin timidity, and of exquisite loveliness together, strikes upon the senses; and Admiration, with a tender sigh, softly whispers, “The most resistless charm is modesty!”

In Thomson’s exquisite portrait of Lavinia, the prominent feature is modesty. “She was beauty’s self,” indeed, but-then she was “thoughtless of beauty;” and though her eyes were sparkling, “bashful modesty” directed them

The morning robe should cover the arms and the bosom, nay even the neck. And if it be made tight to the shape, every symmetrical line is discovered with a grace so decent, that vestals, without a blush, might adopt the chaste apparel. This simple garb leaves to beauty all her empire; no furbelows, no heavy ornaments, load the figure, warp the outlines, and distract the attention. All is light, easy, and elegant; and the lovely wearer, “with her glossy ringlets loosely bound,” moves with the Zephyrs on the airy wing of youth and innocence.

Her summer evening dress may be of a still more gossamer texture; but it must still preserve the same simplicity, though its gracefully-diverging folds may fall like the mantle of Juno, in clustering drapery about her steps. There they should meet the white slipper

In this dress, her arms, and part of her neck and bosom may be unveiled; but only part. The eye of maternal decorum should draw the virgin zone to the limit where modesty would bid it rest.

Where beauty is, ornaments are unnecessary; and where it is not, they are unavailing. But as gems and flowers are handsome in themselves, and when tastefully disposed doubly so, a beautiful young woman, if she chooses to share her empire with the jeweller and the florist, may, not inelegantly, decorate her neck, arms, and head, with a string of pearls, and a band of flowers.

Female youth, of airy forms and fair complexions, ought to reject, as too heavy for their style of figure, the use of gems. Their ornaments should hardly ever exceed the natural or imitated flowers of the most delicate tribes. The snow-drop, lily of the valley, violet, primrose, myrtle, Provence rose,—these and their resemblances, are embellishments which harmonize with their gaiety and blooming years. The colors of their garments, when not white, should be the most tender shades of green, yellow, pink, blue, and lilac. These when judiciously selected, or mingled, array the graceful wearer, like another Iris, breathing youth and loveliness.

Should a young woman, of majestic character, inquire for appropriate apparel, she will find it to correspond with her graver and more dignified mien. Her robes should always be long and flowing, and more ample in their folds than those of her gayer sister. Their substance should also be thicker, and of a soberer color. White is becoming to all characters, and not less so to Juno than to Venus; but when colors are to be worn, I recommend to the lady of majestic deportment, to choose the fuller shades of yellow, purple, crimson, scarlet, black, and gray. The materials of her dress in summer, cambrics, muslins, sarcenets; in winter, satins, velvets, broadcloth, &c. Her ornaments should be embroidery of gold, silver, and precious stones, with fillets and diadems of jewels, and waving plumes.

The materials for the winter dresses of majestic forms, and lightly-graceful ones, may be of nearly similar texture, only differing, when made up, in amplitude and abundance of drapery. Satin, Genoa velvet, Indian silks, and kerseymere, may all be fashioned into as becoming an apparel for the slender figure as for the more embonpoint; and the warmth they afford is highly needful to preserve health during the cold and damps of winter. When it is so universally acknowledged, the indispensable necessity of keeping the body in a just temperature between heat and cold, I cannot but be astonished at the little attention that is paid to so momentous a subject by the people of this climate. I wonder that a sense of personal comfort, aided by the well-founded conviction that health is the only preservative of beauty, and lengthener of youth, that it does not impel women to prefer utility before the absurd whims of an unreasonable fashion.

To wear gossamer dresses, with bare necks and naked arms, in a hard frost, has been the mode in this country, and unless a principle is made against it, may be so again, to the utter wretchedness of them, who, so arraying their youth, lay themselves open to the untimely ravages of rheumatisms, palsies, consumptions, and death.

While fine taste, as well as fashion, decrees that the beautiful outline of a well-proportioned form shall be seen in the contour of a nicely-adapted dress, the divisions of that dress must be few and simple. But, though the hoop and quilted petticoat are no longer suffered to shroud in hideous obscurity one of the loveliest works in nature, yet all intermediate covering is not to be banished. Modesty, on one hand, and Health, on the other, still maintain the law of “fold on fold.”

Some of our fair dames appear, summer and winter, with no other shelter from sun or frost, than one single garment of muslin or silk over their chemise—if they wear one! but that is often dubious. The indelicacy of this mode need not be pointed out; and yet, O shame! it is most generally followed. However, common as the crime is, (for who will say that it is not a sin against modesty?) it is quickly visited with its punishment. It loses its aim, if it hopes to attract the admiration of manly worth. No eye but that of a libertine can look upon so wanton a figure with any other sensations than those of disgust and contempt: and the end of all her arts being lost, the certainty of an early old age, chronic pains, and deeply-furrowed wrinkles, is thus incurred in vain.

No woman, even in the warmest flush of youth, ought to be prodigal of her charms; she should not “unmask her beauties to the moon;” or unduly expose the vital fluid, which animates her frame with life and joy. A momentary blast from the east may pierce her filmy robes, wither her bloom, and lay her low.

The Chemise (now too frequently banished) ought to be held as sacred by the modest fair as the vestal veil. No fashion should be able to strip her of that decent covering; in short, woman should consider it as the sign of her delicacy, as the pledge of honor to shelter her from the gaze of unhallowed eyes.

This indispensable vesture being once more appropriated to its ancient use, we shall next speak of the stays, or corsets. They must be light and flexible, yielding to the shape, while they support it. In warm weather, my fair reader should wear under her gown and slip a light cotton petticoat; these few habiliments are sufficient to impart the softening line of modesty to the defined outline of the form. Health, also, is preserved by their opposing the immediate influence of the atmosphere; and none will deny, that enough of female charms are thus displayed, to gratify the quick, discerning eye of taste.

During the chilling airs of spring and autumn, the cotton petticoat should give place to fine flannel; and in the rigid season of winter, another addition must be made, by rendering the outer garments warmer in their original texture: for instance, substituting satins, velvets, and rich stuffs, for the lighter materials of summer. And besides these, the use of fur is not only a salutary, but a magnificent and graceful appendage to dress.

Having laid it down as a general principle, that the fashion of the raiment must correspond with that of the figure, and that every sort of woman will not look equally well in the same style of apparel, it will not be difficult to make you understand, that a handsome person may make a freer use of fancy in her ornaments than an ordinary one. Beauty gives effect to all things; it is the universal embellisher, the setting which makes common crystal shine as diamonds. In short, fashion does not adorn beauty, but beauty fashion. Hence, I must warn Delia, that if she be not cast in so perfect a mould as Celia, she must not flatter herself that she can supply the deficiency by gayer or more sumptuous attire. Whims in dress may possibly pass with her, who, “in Parsian mode, or Indian guise, is still the fairest fair!” But caprices of this sort, in a plain woman, only render her defects more conspicuous; and she, who might have been regarded as a very pleasing girl, in an unobtrusive robe of simple elegance, is ridiculed and despised when descried in the inappropriate plumage of fancy and decoration.

Many men, while listening to the conversation of an ordinary, but sensible young woman, would never see that her hair was harsh, and of a bad color, were it not interwoven with a wreath of roses. They would not perceive the brownness and want of symmetry in her bosom, did not the sparkling necklace attract their eye to the spot. Neither would it strike them that her hands were coarse and red, did not the pearl bracelets and circles of rings tell them that she meant they should vie with Celia’s rose-tipped fingers.

As I recommend a restrained and quiet mode of dress to plain women, so, in gradation as the lovely of my sex advance towards the vale of years, I counsel them to assume a graver habit and a less vivacious air. Cheerfulness is becoming to all times of life, but sportiveness belongs to youth alone; and when the meridian or the decline of our days affects it, is ever heavy and out of place.

Let me show you, my fair friends, by conducting you into the Pantheon of ancient Rome, the images of yourselves at the different stages of your lives. First, behold that lovely Hebe; her robes are like the air, her motion is on the zephyr’s wing: that you may be till you are twenty. Then comes the beautiful Diana. The chaste dignity of the pure intelligence within pervades the whole form, and the very drapery which enfolds it harmonizes with the modest elegance, the buoyant health, which gives elasticity and grace to every limb: here, then, you see yourselves from twenty to thirty. At that majestic age, when the woman of mind looks round upon the world; back on the events which have past, and calmly forward to those which may be to come; all within ought to be settled on the firm basis of religion and sound judgment; and either as a Juno or a Minerva she stands forth in the power of beauty and of wisdom. At this period she lays aside the flowers of youth, and arrays herself in the majesty of sobriety, or in the grandeur of simple magnificence.

Contradictory as the two last terms may at first appear, they are consistent; and a glance on the works of Phidias, and of his best imitators, will sufficiently prove their beautiful union. Long is the reign of this commanding epoch of a woman’s age; for from thirty to fifty she may most respectably maintain her station on this throne of matron excellence. But at that period, when she has numbered half a century, then it becomes her to throw aside “the wimple and the crisping-iron, the ornament of silver, and the ornament of gold,” and gracefully acknowledging her entrance into the vale of years, to wrap herself in her mantle of gray, and move gently down till she passes through its extremest bourn to the mansions of immortality.

Ah! who is there amongst us, who, having once viewed the reality of this picture, would exchange such blessed relinquishment of the world and all its vanities, for the bolstered back, enamelled cheek, and be-wigged head of a modern old woman, just trembling on the verge of the grave, and yet a candidate for the flattery of men?

It has been most wisely said, (and it would be well if the waning queens of beauty would adopt the reflection,) that there is a time for everything! We may add, that there is a time to be young, a time to be old; a time to be loved, a time to be revered; a time to seek life, and a time to be ready to lay it down.

She who best knows how to fashion herself to these inevitable changes is the only truly, only lastingly fair. Her beauty is in the mind, and shown in action; and when men cease to admire the woman, they do better, they revere the saint.

ON THE PECULIARITIES OF DRESS, WITH REFERENCE TO THE STATION OF THE WEARER.

As there is a propriety in adapting your dress to the different seasons of your life, and the peculiar character of your figure, there is likewise a necessity that it should correspond with the station you hold in society.

This is a subject not less of a moral concern than it is a matter of taste. By the universality of finery, and expensive articles in dress, ranks are not only rendered undistinguishable, but the fortunes of moderate families, and of industrious tradesmen, are brought to ruin: the sons become sharpers, and the virtue of the wives and daughters too often follows in the same destruction.

It is not from a proud wish to confine elegance to persons of quality, that I contend for less extravagant habits in the middle and lower orders of people; it is a conviction of the evil which their vanity produces, that impels me to condemn in toto the present levelling and expensive mode.

A tradesman’s wife is now as sumptuously arrayed as a countess; and a waiting-maid as gaily as her lady. I speak not of our merchants, who, like those of Florence under the Medici family, have the fortunes of princes, and may therefore decorate the fair partners of their lives with the rich produce of the divers countries they visit; but I animadvert on our retail shopkeepers, our linen-drapers, upholsterers, &c. who, not content with gold and silver baubles, trick out their dames in jewels! No wonder that these men load their consciences with dishonest profits, or make their last appearance in the newspaper as insolvent or felo de se!

Should the woman of moderate fortune be so ignorant of the principles of real elegance as to sigh for the splendid apparels of the court, let her receive as an undeniable truth, that mediocrity of circumstances being able to afford clean and simple raiment, furnishes all that is essential for taste to improve into perfect elegance. Riches and splendor will attract notice, and may often excite admiration; but it is the privilege of propriety and sweet retiring grace alone to rivet the eye, and take captive the heart.

The fashion of educating all ranks of young women alike, is the cause why all ranks of women attempt to dress alike. If the brazier’s daughter is taught to sing, dance, and play, like the heiress to an earldom, we must not be surprised that she will also emulate the decorations of her rival. We see her imitate the coronet on Lady Mary’s brows; and though Miss Molly may possibly not be able to have her’s of gems, foil-stones produce a similar effect; then she looks for rings, bracelets, armlets, to give appropriate grace to the elegant arts she has learnt to practise; and when she is thus arrayed, she plays away the wanton and the fool, till some libertine of fortune buys her either for a wife or a mistress.

Were girls of the plebeian classes brought up in the praiseworthy habits of domestic duties; had they learned how to manage a house, how to economize and produce comfort at the least expense at their father’s frugal yet hospitable table, we should not hear of dancing-masters, and music-masters, of French and Italian masters; they would have no time for them. We should not see gaudy robes and glittering trinkets dangling behind the counter, or shining at a Sunday ordinary; we should not be told of the seduction, or ruin of those,

The appearance of these young women would not attract the flatterer; and their simple hearts know not the desires of luxury and vanity.

After having drawn this agreeable picture of her who has well chosen, I will leave this modern daughter of industry to her discreet and virtuous simplicity; and once more turn to her whose fortune and station render greater change and expense in apparel not only admissible but commendable. A woman with adequate means, when she fills an extensive wardrobe, encourages the arts and manufactures of her country, and replenishes the scanty purse of many a laborious family.

At this period of universal talent, articles of dress may be purchased at a price so insignificant as hardly to be named, or at the vast cost of half a fortune. A pretty muslin gown may be bought by the village girl for a few shillings; while a robe of the same material, but of a finer quality, cannot be purchased by a lady of rank for less than as many guineas. Indian muslin wrought with gold or silver is nearly as costly as the stately brocades of our ancestors, but it is infinitely more elegant.

Indeed, when we look back upon their heavy fashions, we cannot but see, that in almost every respect the advantage of the change is on our side. With the stiffness of cloth of gold and embroidered tissues, have also disappeared the enormous pile of hair, furbelows, feathers, diamond towers, windmills, &c. which a certain witty poet used to denominate “the building of the head.” Now, easy tresses, the shining braid, the flowing ringlet confined by the antique comb, or bodkin, give graceful specimens of the simple taste of modern beauty. Nothing can correspond more elegantly with the untrammelled drapery of our newly-adopted classic raiment than this undecorated coiffure of nature.

While we find that the pious Bishop Latimer remonstrated with the females of his time against the monstrous superfluity of their “roundabouts, artificial hips,” &c. &c. and recommended to their use the “honest single garment;”—our moralists, equally pious, take up the argument on the contrary side, and justly condemn the too adhesive and transparent robe worn by our contemporary belles! On this subject we must dissent from the venerable reformer of the sixteenth century; and agree with those of the nineteenth, that the single garment (as the texture now usually is) is not a meet covering for a christian damsel.

I am sorry to be obliged to call to your observation, my gentle friends, that the modern fair have deviated widely from that medium between the Bacchante and the Vestal, which a discreet candidate for admiration would wish to preserve. The nature of man is prone to extremes; and flying from the heavy farthingale and the stuffed petticoat, women assume almost the Spartan guise; and, not meeting minds in the opposite sex as pure as those in Lacedæmon, no wonder that the chaste matron, called upon to foretell the consequence, should remain silent, and veil her head.

“Good sense,” says La Rochefoucault, “should be the test of all rule, whether ancient or modern. Whatever is incompatible with good sense must be false.” Modesty should, on the same principle, be the test of the propriety of all personal apparel or ornament; for whatever is incompatible with her ordinances, must degrade and betray.

Hence you will perceive, my young readers, that in no case a true friend or lover would wish you to discover to the eye more of the “form divine” than can be indistinctly descried through the mysterious involvements of, at least, three successive folds of drapery. Love, friendship, and real taste, are alike delicate.

To the exposure of the bosom and back, as some ladies display those parts of their person, what shall we say? This mode (like every other which is carried to excess and indiscriminately followed) is not only repugnant to decency, but most exceedingly disadvantageous to the charms of nine women out of ten. The bosom and shoulders of a very young and fair girl may be displayed without exciting much displeasure or disgust; the beholder regards the too prodigal exhibition, not as the act of the youthful innocent, but as the effect of accident, or perhaps the designed exposure of some ignorant dresser. But when a woman, grown to the age of discretion, of her own choice “unveils her beauties to the sun and moon,” then, from even an Helen’s charms the sated eye turns away loathing.

Were we even in a frantic and impious passion to set virtue aside, policy should direct our damsels to be more sparing of their attractions. An unrestrained indulgence of the eye robs imagination of her power, and prevents her consequent influence on the heart. And if this be the case where real beauty is exposed, how much more subversive of its aim must be the studied display of an ordinary or deformed figure!

Judgment, as well as decency, declares, that it is sufficient in the evening and full-dress to disrobe the back of the neck to the top of the delicate undulation on the rise of the shoulder. Women, according to the fineness of their skins and proportions, must accept or decline the privileges which modesty grants. It is preposterous for her who is of a brown, dingy, or speckled complexion, to disarray her neck and arms, as her fairer rival may. A clear brunette has as much liberty in this respect as the fairest; but not so the muddy-skinned and ill-formed. A candid consideration of our pretensions on these subjects, and an impartial judgment, must decide our style of apparel, and consequently our respectability with the discerning.

Perhaps it is necessary to remind my reader that custom regulates the veiling or unveiling the figure, according to different periods in the day. In the morning, the arms and bosom must be completely covered to the throat and wrists. From the dinner-hour to the termination of the day, the arms, to a graceful height above the elbow, may be bare; and the neck and shoulders unveiled as far as delicacy will allow.

As Cicero said of action, so say ye of the essentials of your charms. What is the eloquence of your beauty?—Modesty! What is its first argument?—Modesty! What is its second?—Modesty! What is its third?—Modesty!—What is its peroration, the winding up of all its charms, the striking spell that binds the heart of man to her forever?—Modesty!!!—In the words of Moore,

Modesty is all in all; for it comprises the beauties of the mind as well as those of the body; and happy is he who finds her!

The bosom, which nature has formed with exquisite symmetry in itself, and admirable adaptation to the parts of the figure to which it is united, has been transformed into a shape, and transplanted to a place, which deprives it of its original beauty and harmony with the rest of the person. This hideous metamorphosis has been effected by means of newly-invented stays, or corsets, which, by an extraordinary construction and force of material, force the figure of the wearer into whatever form the artist pleases.

Curiosity may incline you to wish to know something better of these buckram machines, that you may form an idea of their intention, use, or rather inutility. I will satisfy you by describing them to the best of my power.

The leader in this arming phalanx is usually called long-stay. And its announcement to the female world, if not by drum or trumpet, furnishes not only much matter for oratory in the advertisement, but a no inconsiderable fund of merriment to the readers of these curious performances. For instance, “Mrs. and Miss L. P. have willed it, and it is done at their house,” &c. &c. Here follows a list of their improved long stay, pregnant stay, divorces, &c. &c. O! female delicacy, where is thy blush, when thou lookest on such exposure of the chaste reserves of thy person!