air, whether they are joyful or sad; the same fixed insensibility appears upon all occasions. A Pict, though she takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain distance: a sigh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would dissolve a feature; and a kiss snatched by a forward one, might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer. It is hard to speak of these false fair ones, without saying something uncomplaisant, but I would only recommend to them to consider how they like coming into a room new painted: they may assure themselves, the near approach of a lady who uses this practice, is much more offensive.

WILL HONEYCOMB told us one day an adventure he once had with a Pict. This lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and made her business to gain hearts for no other reason but to rally the torments of her lovers. She would make great advances to insnare men, but without any manner of scruple break off when there was no provocation. Her ill-nature and vanity made my friend very easily proof against the charms of her wit and conversation; but her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falsehood and inconstancy, every day increased upon him, and she had new attractions every time he saw her. When she observed WILL irrevocably her slave, she began to use him as such, and after many steps towards such a cruelty, she at last utterly banished him. The unhappy lover strove in vain, by servile epistles, to revoke his doom; till at length he was forced to the last refuge, a round sum of money to her maid. This corrupt attendant placed him early in the morning behind the hangings in her mistres's dressing-room. He stood very conveniently to cbserve, without being seen. The Pict begins the face she designed to wear that day, and I have heard him protest she had worked a full half hour before he knew her to be the same woman. As soon as he saw the dawn of that complexion, for which he had so long

languished, he thought fit to break from his concealment, repeating that of CowLEY:

"Th` adorning thee with so much art,

Is but a barbarous skill;

'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,

Too apt before to kill."

The Pict stood before him in the utmost confusion, with the prettiest smirk imaginable on the finished side of her face, pale as ashes on the other. HONEYCOMB seized all her gally-pots and washes, and carried off his handkerchief full of brushes, scraps of Spanish wool, and phials of unguents. The lady went into the country, the lover was cured.

It is certain no faith ought to be kept with cheats, and an oath made to a Pict is of itself void. I would therefore exhort all the British ladies to single them out, nor do I know any but LINDAMIRA who should be exempt from discovery; for her own complexion is so delicate, that she ought to be allowed the covering it with paint, as a punishment for choosing to be the worst piece of art extant, instead of the master-piece of nature. As for my part, who have no expectations from women, and consider them only as they are part of the species, I do not half so much fear offending a beauty as a woman of sense; I shall therefore produce several faces which have been in public these many years, and never appeared. It will be a very pretty entertainment in the play-huse, (when I have abolished this custom) to see so many ladies, when they first lay it down, incog. in their own faces.

In the mean time, as a pattern for improving their charms, let the sex study the agreeable STATIRA. Her features are enlivened with the chearfulness of her mind, and good-humour gives an alacrity to her eyes. She is graceful without affecting an air, and unconcerned without appearing careless. Her having no manner of art in her mind, makes her want none in her person.

How

How like is this lady, and how unlike is a Pict, to that description Dr. DONNE gives of his mistress?

-Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought."

ADVERTISEMENT.

A young gentlewoman of about nineteen years of age, (bred in the family of a person of quality, lately deceased) who paints the finest flesh-colour, wants a place, and is to be heard of at the house of Mynheer GROTESQUE, a Dutch painter in Barbican.

N. B. She is also well-skilled in the drapery-part, and puts on hoods, and mixes ribbons so as to suit the colours of the face with great art and success.

R.

ΝΟ.

No. 42.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1711.

Garganum mugire putes nemus aut mare Thuscum;
Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur, et artes,
Divitiæque peregrina; quibus oblitus actor

Cum stetit in scena, concurrit dextera levæ.

Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sanè. Quid placet ergo?
Lana Tarentino violas imitato veneno.

HOR. 2 IP. i. 2oz.

IMITATED.

"Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep,
"Howl to the roarings of the northern deep:
"Such is the shout, the long applauding note,
"At QUIN's high plume, or OLDFIELD's petticoat:
"Or when from court a birth-day suit bestow'd,

"Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.

"BOOTH entershark! the universal peal!

"But has he spoken ?-Not a syllable

"What shook the stage, and made the people stare?

"CATO's long wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacquer'd chair."

POPE.

STAGE TRICK.

ARISTOTLE has observed, that ordinary writers in tragedy endeavour to raise terror and pity in their audience, not by proper sentiments aud expressions, but by the dresses and decorations of the stage. There is something of this kind very ridiculous in the English theatre. When the author has a mind to terrify us, it thunders; when he would make us melancholy, the stage is darkened. But among all our tragic artifices, I am the most offended at those which are made use of to inspire us

with magnificent ideas of the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head, which rises so very high, that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his head, than to the sole of his foot. One would believe, that we thought a great man and a tall man the same thing. This very much embarrasses the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see a man uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt to look upon him rather as an unfortunate lunatic, than a distressed hero. As these superfluous ornaments npon the head make a great man, a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional incumbrances that fall into her tail: I mean the broad sweeping train that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess, my eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and, as for the queen, I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle, to see a queen venting her passion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lose the hero her lover, whilst her attendant is only concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat.

We are told, that an ancient tragic poet, to move he

pity