who would take proper care of his servants, and expend his money with economy." The distressed husband proceeds to complain; that he one day observed her face painted, and that she wore high-heeled shoes; that he chid her severely for such follies, and asked whether she could imagine to pass such silly tricks upon a husband? If she wanted to have a better complexion, why not weave at her loom standing upright; why not employ herself in baking and other family exercises, which would give her such a bloom as no paint could imitate? But when the Athenian manners came to be more polished, greater indulgence was given to the ladies in dress and ornament. They consumed the whole morning at the toilette, employing paint, and every drug for cleaning and whitening the skin: they laid red upon their lips, and took great care of their teeth: their hair, made up in buckles with a hot iron, was perfumed and spread upon their shoulders: their dress was elegant, and artfully contrived to set off a fine shape. Such is the influence of appetite for dress: vanity could not be the sole motive, as married ladies were never seen in public. PIETY communicates a divine lustre to the female mind: wit and beauty, like the flowers of the field, may flourish and charm for a season; but let it be remembered, that, like the fragrant blossoms that bloom in the air, these gifts are frail and fading: age will nip the bloom of beauty; sickness and sorrow will stop the current of wit and humour; but, in that gloomy time which is appointed for all, piety will support the drooping soul, like a refreshing dew upon the parched earth. CONGREVE is the author of a part of No. 42, in the Tatler, in which he has depicted the character of Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of the earl of Huntingdon, one of the most accomplished ladies of her time. Scarce has any age, says an annotator on the paper, since the commencement of the Christian era, produced a lady of such high birth and superior accomplishments, who was a greater blessing to many, or a brighter pattern to all. By all accounts she must have been little less than the angels. But Steele seems to have exerted all his powers, where, in No. 49, he speaks of the same lady, and presents to us a portrait with which no one can refrain from being enamoured. Aspasia must be allowed to be of the first order of love, whose unaffected freedom and conscious innocence give her the attend. ance of the graces in all her actions. That awful distance which we bear toward her in all our thoughts about her, and that cheerful familiarity with which we approach her, are certain instances of her being the truest object of love of any of her sex. In this accomplished lady, love is the constant effect, because it is never the design. Yet though her mien carries more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; and to love her is a liberal education; for, it being the na ture of all love to create an imitation of the beloved person in the lover, a regard for Aspasia naturally produces decency of manners, and good conduct of life in her admirers. No person can be perfectly agreeable without a portion of wit and vivacity; but that perspicacity which is employed in discovering and exposing the foibles of others, particularly of those with whom we live in habits of intimacy, is but another name for treachery and ill nature; and vivacity, unaccompanied by tenderness and delicacy, is, like the picture of a gaudy landscape, eminent only for its brilliant colouring. We turn away from it in disgust, when our eyes are attracted by the labours of another artist, whose tints, if less vivid, are more delicate, though he has employed his skill only in portraying Poverty at the door of Contentment, or Innocence reposing on a bank of flowers. THE following epitaph upon the celebrated mathematician, M'Laurin, to whom the method of fluxions owes its security from all future metaphysical assailants, is attributed to Dr. JOHNSON, and is certainly worthy of his taste in Latin composition: H. L. P. E. Non ut nomine paterno consulat; Nam tali auxilio nil eget; Sed ut in hoc infelici campo, Ubi Luctus regnant et Pavor, Mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium: Hujus enim scripta evolve Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem Corpori caduco superstitem crede. It would not be easy to do justice to this elegant and nervous sentence in English; but the following may serve to convey some notion of it. "His son erected this monument, not to perpetuate his father's name, for it needs no such aid; but that in this valley of tears, where Fear and Sorrow hold their reign, mortals might derive some consolation: for, let them study his works, and be inspired with the belief, that the capacious mind, which grasped such sublime systems, survived the perishing body." SPECIMEN OF ANCIENT BRITISH TRIADS. THREE things will not be had without every one its companion: day without night, idleness without hunger, and wisdom without respect. Three things which are not easily counted: the particles of light, the words of a talkative woman, and the devices of a miser. The three charities to the age that follows: planting of trees, improvement of science, and the education of children in virtue. Three persons who ought to have pity shown them: the stranger, the widow, and the orphan. Three things, however bad they may be, which are better to be possessed of than to be without them: a priest, a king, and a wife. The three ornaments of a country: a barn, the shop of ant artist, and a school. THOSE moralists please me best who take it for granted, that a benevolent God must delight in the felicity of his creatures; who teach man to be happy in this world, in order to fit him for the next; and who maintain, with the poet, that to enjoy is to obey. Gratifications which interfere with the welfare of others, are, no doubt, to be forborne; but, benevolence and prudence permitting, it is surely as much a sin to lose an opportunity of doing oneself a pleasure, or to seize an opportunity of doing ●neself a pain, as if any other sensitive being were concerned. This was not the system of bishop Jeremy Taylor, who expresses his sentiments in the following beautiful period: "He that takes off the yoke of obedience, and unties the bands of discipline, and preaches a cheap religion, and presents heaven in the midst of flowers, and strews carpets softer than the Asian luxury in the way, and sets the songs of Zion to the tunes of Persian and lighter airs, and offers great liberty in bondage under afflictions and sins, and reconciles eternity with present enjoyment, he shall have his school filled with disciples; but he that preaches the cross, and the severities of Christianity, and the strictnesses of holy life, he shall have the lot of his blessed Lord, he shall be thought ill of, and deserted." COMUS, to borrow the language of a sister art, possesses an Ionic simplicity, and a Doric sweetness, that is truly enchanting. The celebrated Horace Walpole observes well, that Milton's tenderness always imprints ideas as graceful as Guido's Madonnas, and the three pieces, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Comus, may be personified by the three Graces. As a drama it is, however, certainly defective: the dialogue is too much extended, and excites too little interest; and, to be known to advantage, it must be read rather than exhibited. If the Paradise Lost resemble the ocean infuriate by a storm, and the Paradise Regained, smooth and gentle river that brings both health and happiness, Comus is like a rill, that sometimes bubbles over pebbles, and sometimes creeping under the mossy rock, sooths every listener to repose with its pleasing murmurs. The first partakes of the wild sublimity of Angelo, the next of the mild and tender Raphael, while Comus blends the romantic scenery of a Claude with the exquisite polish and splendor of a Titian. The outline of this poem was taken from "The Old Wives' Tale," a pleasant conceited comedy, written by George Peel, in 1595. It seems as if Milton designed it as a vehicle, by which he could inculcate the most exquisite morality, and the most enchanting, though visionary sentiments. He may be styled, with Virgil, the Plato poetarum, and he seems willing to exclaim with Cicero: "Errare meherculè malo cum Platone, quam cum istis vera sentire. * Ælius Lampridius, Alex. Severus, p. 349. An ardent love of traditionary fables and legendary lore, had filled his mind with all the enthusiasm that marked the pensive genius of Tasso and Collins, Ariosto and Spencer. His Sabrina is a lady, who, tradition informs us, was the daughter of Locrine, the son of Brutus, who, flying from the rage of her stepmother, Guendolen, consigned herself to the flood; the water-nymphs, in ⚫ pity of her misfortunes, bore her to the hall of Nereus, who, in each sense, dropping in ambrosial oils, made her the goddess of the Severn. In this fable we find the invention of Ovid mixed with the more chaste and elegant diction of Horace: the song of the spirit is most beautiful, and such an assemblage of enchanting images, as we find in the sister's song to the echo, perhaps, cannot be found in so small a compass, in the whole range of English poetry. The moral inculcated in this piece is CHASTITY. Milton was himself a man of the nicest delicacy, and he seemed to think chastity and modesty the two most alluring qualifications of the sex. What an exquisite passage is that upon this subject, beginning 1. 425. He seemed to consider that modesty excelled as much as the Ionic surpasses all the other orders of architecture, in neatness, simplicity, and elegance. His imagination in this piece evidently was on the wing: the most sportive genius, the same varied and beautiful excursions of fancy that decorates his L'Allegro, sport in his Comus; he peoples the colours of the rainbow (1. 300) as he does afterwards the ideal waste and gloomy kingdoms of Chaos. His general descriptions are extremely wild and beautiful. I quote the following, to explain, in the words of Dr. Warton, a singular, concise, and enchanting expression: I know each lane, and every alley, green, Milton's mind was fraught with every finer feeling, which led him to indulge in the various and delightful paths of music, poetry, and philosophy: in these he particularly excelled, and he delighted in celebrating their influence over the mind and the * A bourn is a deep, winding, and narrow valley, with a rivulet in the midst. |