beauty will not make an ill-natured fellow a good hufband, nor a filly woman a good wife; wifdom will be too hard for the frowardness of a pevifh temper, which is foftened by management more than beauty: a man cannot fee it when he is out of humour; then art and complacency will open his eyes, and restore it to its former empire. What a curfe is it to ladies to have this pride of beauty laft when they are old? How ridiculous is it in them to confound age and youth, to fill up and hide the breaches of time with patches and paint; to place the gay decorations of twenty on a withered carcafe of threefcore? yet how many examples of this kind do we daily meet with in the world; Women that think their beauty is the laft thing that fades, and that their spring holds all the year? These reflections on beauty have interrupted thofe on drefs; they cannot however be termed à digreffion, for why elfe do women drefs out as they do, unless it is to be handfome ? Affectation in drefs always miffes the end it aims at, and raifes contempt instead of admiration. Negligence is on the other hand an error that ought to be corrected; neatness, proportion, and decenty of drefs, are always commendable. Virtue itfelf is difagreeable in a floven; and that lady who takes no care of herself will find no body will care for her. The fault is the excefs: mind your perfons, but mind your understandings too, and do not be fools to be beaus and belles. Look on the fimplicity of the ancients in their ftatues; obferve efpecially the figures of the Greek and Roman ladies, you will find the hair tied negligently behind, the draperies full, and carelefly hanging, which give grace and majefty to the body. I doubt not, women that are not well inftructed in thefe things, would by the ftatues have a forry opinion of the antique dreffes; but when they are well taught what elegance, what proportion, and what convenience there are in them, they will be apt to think that D 2 the the ladies of Athens and Rome were as much politer than the moderns in their drefs as the men in their learning. A very learned prelate of this age has endeavoured to restore antique habits; but all that endeavour to govern the nation of fops, will find they have to do with a most unruly people, whofe heads being never fettled, how can we expect their habits should be? Were women's fouls, fays the bishop, ever fo little elevated above the prejudices of fashions, they would prefently have a great contempt for their affected curlings and frizlings, which are fo remote from the natural hair, and for dreffes of too fashionable and exact figure. I am fatisfied, it is not at all to be expected they should take up an antique outfide, it would be an extravagant thing to defire it: but yet they might without any fingularity, take the relish of the ancient fimplicity in habits, which is fo noble, fo gracious, fo comely; and befides, fo proper for Christian manners. Thus conforming themfelves to the prefent cuftoms, they would understand at least what they ought to think of the old one: they would hereby learn to obey the mode as a troublesome flavery; and then would only allow it what they could not refuse it. Let ladies, above all things, consult decency and ease; never to expofe nor torture nature. Fashion is always aiming at perfection, but never finds it, or never stops where it should: it is always mending, but never improving: a true labour in vain; and confequently thofe that follow it, are guilty of the highest folly and madness. To change for the fake of changing, is to fubmit to the government of caprice; and that man or woman that is given up to it, will furely be as whimsical in the other parts of their conduct. Is it fufficient for a reasonable mind, to like a thing purely because it is new, or to diflike it because it is not? muft a foolish fashion please me, for that it is a novelty, and a good one difplease, because I have tried it and found it fo? If fops reckon wife men out of their wits when they are out of the fashion, wife men have certainly much more ground to think them mad when they are in it. These 66 Thefe confiderations would arife from right reafon, if we had not the divine light of fcripture to be our guide. As men only, we fhould avoid foppery and extravagance; as Chriftians, we should study modefty and convenience. There are two paffages in the new teftament, which fet the best rule, particularly to women with respect to their habits," Let not your adorn"ing, fays the apostle, be that outward adorning of plait-"ing the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on "of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in "that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a "meek and quiet spirit, which is in the fight of God of great price." And again, "In like manner alfo, that "women adorn themselves in modeft apparel, with fhame"facedness and fobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold or "pearls, or coftly array, (but which becometh women pro"fefling godlinefs) with good works." Those who conftrue every thing in the facred writings to the letter, will run into innumerable errors. Many thoufand herefies have sprung up from this pretended fcrupu' us exactness. If allowances are not to be made for figui. 've expreffions, we should meet with infuperable difficulties. ancient and eastern way of thinking and writing, cannot in all things be accommodated to the western and modern. Our duty then is to keep as close to the fense as we can, and not always to be confined to the letter. The Quakers interpret thefe paffages of fcripture, as a prohibition to women to wear gold, either in ear-tings, or about their clothes; either in lace, or interwoven, or embroidered, and all plaiting of hair it is true, they have lately enlarged their borders, and taken or rejected what part of the prohibition fuited. their fancies best. Coftly apparel is as much forbidden as lace; yet what people are at greater coft in their filks and linnen? But habits of price, and all pearls and jewels, necklaces or bracelets, and clothes of expence, are not to be understood in the ftrict and literal fenfe; the nature of the thing requires it D 3 The not, not any more than the way and manner of expreffion. No body can difcern any greater danger and mafignity in gold or rich habits, than in any other metal, other ftones, or coarfer garments. Whether it be the wisdom, or folly, or the fancy of people, that has fet a greater value upon these things than on others, is no matter, there is certainly no greater evil in one than another; they are all in their own natures alike innocent; and though they prove fometimes the occafions of great mischiefs, yet they are never properly the causes of them, but the paffions and defires of people towards them; who, to compafs them, will take courfes which must confequently produce mifchievous effects. They are in this cafe, not unlike to good countries, that border on the kingdoms of two mighty princes; who, finding their convenience, fall to wars about them, though the countries gave no provocation or encouragement to either. If the weight, luftre, or rarity give these things any extraordinary excellence above others, the delight and pleafure people take therein is but reafonable; and whatever evils follow thence, are by no means chargeable upon thofe inanimate things, but on the men that caufe them. These things naturally are no worse than light and luftre in the fun, fhape and comelinefs in a tree, or beauty, fragrance, and variety of form and colour in the flowers and herbs. They are all of them God's creatures, and confequently good. The Creator has made nothing in vain; and of what other ufe are these glorious parts of his creation than that to which man puts them? When by great induftry and toil he has dug the ore out of the mine, and the diamond out of the rock; when he has refined, with a great toil, the one, and polifhed the other; fhall he not have the pleasure of ufing them? Were thofe riches intended to be hid for ever in the bowels of the earth? Has he erred in tearing them up to take them them out of them? Or were they concealed there by Providence to give a price to them, by the difficulty and labour of their difcovery? Can they be better employed, if they must be employed at all, than in ornaments to the most beautiful part of mankind, for whom the world, and all that is in it, was created? Suppofing pearls, diamonds, and other fuch treafure, acquire their value and esteem from the opinion of the world, and peoples fancies, and that this be ill grounded, and run out into a blameable excefs, yet it is not reasonable to think that they are all of them abfolutely prohibited, because men entertain false notions of, and are deceived in them. Men have as much true reason to value thefe as any other material things whatfoever. If we can judge of beauty or of ufefulness, what is there more ufeful and beautiful? Whether their worth lies in opinion or judgment; yet as the world was formerly, is now, and always will be ordered, it is abfolutely neceffary, that fome things fhould be accounted of greater value and excellence than others; there could be otherwise no living in the world : no trade or commerce could be carried on without fuch change and bargain. And if the wisdom of all the world, in all ages, has centered in this, that fuch and fuch things fhould be accounted beft and valued higheft, it is great prefumption that they are truly the most excellent and valuable things. It is downright demonftration that it is neceffary to account them fo, and that fuch opinion is well enough grounded; becaufe it is of abfolute neceffity, that fomething fhould be reckoned beft, and better than another and nothing has at any time prevailed above these things in civilized countries. If then any thing is better than another, what muft it be that gives it a price? Its beauty, its brightnefs, its folidity. Are there more valuable qualities in other things, or are diamonds and gold defervedly reckoned the riches of this world? Are not riches bleffings, the reward of industry, D 4' |