effects, and Lætitia is as insipid a companion as Daphne is an agreeable one. Lætitia, confident of favour, has studied no arts to please; Daphne, despairing of any inclination towards her person, has depended only on her merit. Lætitia has always something in her air that is sullen, grave, and disconsolate. Daphne has a countenance that appears cheerful, open, and unconcerned. A young gentleman saw Lætitia this winter at a play, and became her captive. His fortune was such that he wanted very little introduction to speak his sentiments to her father. The lover was admitted with the utmost freedom into the family, where a constrained behaviour, severe looks, and distant civilities were the highest favours he could obtain of Lætitia; while Daphne used him with the good humour, familiarity, and innocence of a sister: insomuch that he would often say to her, 'Dear Daphne, wert thou but as handsome as Lætitia!' She received such language with that ingenuous and pleasing mirth which is natural to a woman without design. He still sighed in vain for Lætitia, but found certain relief in the agreeable conversation of Daphne. At length, heartily tired with the haughty impertinence of Lætitia and charmed with repeated instances of good humour he had observed in Daphne, he one day told the latter that he had something to say to her he hoped she would be pleased with. Faith, Daphne,' continued he, I am in love with thee, and despise thy sister sincerely.' The manner of his declaring himself gave his mistress occasion for a very hearty laughter. Nay,' says he, I knew you would laugh at me; but I'll ask your father.' He did so; the father received his intelligence with no less joy than surprise, and was very glad he had now no care left but for his beauty, which he thought he could carry to market at his leisure. I do not know anything that has pleased me so much a great while as this conquest of my friend Daphne's. All her acquaintance congratulate her upon her chance-medley, and laugh at that premeditating murderer her sister. As it is an argument of a light mind to think the worse of ourselves for the imperfections of our persons, it is equally below us to value ourselves upon the advantages of them. The female world seem to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in this particular, for which reason I shall recommend the following extract out of a friend's letter to the professed beauties, who are a people almost as insufferable as the professed wits: 2 'MONSIEUR St. Evremont has concluded one of his essays with affirming that the last sighs of a handsome woman are not so much for the loss of her life, as of her beauty. Perhaps chis raillery is pursued too far, yet it is turned upon a very obvious remark, that woman's strongest passion is for her own beauty, and that she values it as her favourite distinction. From hence it is that all arts which pretend to improve or preserve it meet with so general a reception among the sex. To say 1 The writer of this letter is said to be John Hughes. See No. 53. 2 Miscellaneous Essays, by Mons. de St. Evremont,' translated by Tom Brown, 1694, ii. 135, Of the Pleasure that Women take in their Beauty.' Charles de St. Denis, Sieur de St. Evremond, died in 1703, aged about ninety. After his attack on Mazarin, St. Evremond took refuge in England, where he was granted a pension by Charles II. The pension lapsed at Charles's death, but St. Evremond remained in this country, and was befriended by William III. nothing of false helps and contraband wares of beauty which are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a maiden gentlewoman of a good family in any county of South Britain who has not heard of the virtues of May-dew,' or is unfurnished with some receipt or other in favour of her complexion; and I have known a physician of learning and sense, after eight years' study in the university and a course of travels into most countries of Europe, owe the first raising of his fortunes to a cosmetic wash. 'This has given me occasion to consider how so universal a disposition in womankind, which springs from a laudable motive-the desire of pleasing, and proceeds upon an opinion, not altogether groundless, that nature may be helped by art, may be turned to their advantage. And, methinks, it would be an acceptable service to take them out of the hands of quacks and pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon themselves, by discovering to them the true secret and art of improving beauty. In order to this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be necessary to lay down a few preliminary maxims, viz. : 'That no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more than she can be witty only by the help of speech. That pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the smallpox. 'That no woman is capable of being beautiful who is not incapable of being false. 1 The morning dew of the first day of May was supposed to have magical properties. 'And, That what would be odious in a friend, is deformity in a mistress. 'From these few principles thus laid down it will be easy to prove that the true art of assisting beauty consists in embellishing the whole person by the proper ornaments of virtuous and commendable qualities. By this help alone it is that those who are the favourite work of nature, or, as Mr. Dryden expresses it," the porcelain clay of human kind,' become animated, and are in a capacity of exerting their charms; and those who seem to have been neglected by her, like models wrought in haste, are capable in a great measure of finishing what she has left imperfect. 'It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that sex which was created to refine the joys and soften the cares of humanity by the most agreeable participation, to consider them merely as objects of sight. This is abridging them of their natural extent of power, to put them upon a level with their pictures at Kneller's.2 How much nobler is the contemplation of beauty heightened by virtue, and commanding our esteem and love while it draws our observation? How faint and spiritless are the charms of a coquet when compared with the real 1 In Don Sebastian,' Act i., when Sebastian, Almayda, &c., are brought before Muley Moluch, Emperor of Barbary, the Em peror says: Ay; these look like the workmanship of Heaven; This is the porcelain clay of human kind, And therefore cast into these noble moulds.' 2 Sir Geoffrey Kneller (1646-1723), the favourite portraitpainter of his time, is perhaps best known by his portraits of the members of the Kit-Cat Club, which were engraved by Faber in 1735. loveliness of Sophronia's innocence, piety, good humour, and truth, virtues which add a new softness to her sex, and even beautify her beauty! That agreeableness, which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest virgin, is now preserved in the tender mother, the prudent friend, and the faithful wife. Colours artfully spread upon canvas may entertain the eye, but not affect the heart; and she who takes no care to add to the natural graces of her person any excelling qualities, may be allowed still to amuse as a picture, but not to triumph as a beauty. 'When Adam is introduced by Milton describing Eve in paradise, and relating to the angel the impressions he felt upon seeing her at her first creation, he does not represent her like a Grecian Venus, by her shape or features, but by the lustre of her mind. which shone in them and gave them their power of charming. "Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, In all her gestures dignity and love." 1 "Without this irradiating power the proudest fair one ought to know, whatever her glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect features are uninformed and dead. 'I cannot better close this moral than by a short epitaph, written by Ben Jonson with a spirit 1 Paradise Lost,' viii. 488. 2 < Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H.' Jonson's words are as follows: • Underneath this stone doth lie |