when so many of the young are familiar with vice so early, and the basest means are used to corrupt the rising generation.

I shall conclude with quoting the lines of a poet who knew the human character-the springs of action-and the best interests of mankind in a very eminent degree. May they be indelibly fixed in every female breast.

And man, whom least she fears-her worst of foes!
When kind-most cruel; when oblig'd the most,

The least obliging; and by favours lost.
Cruel by Nature, they for kindness hate;
And scorn you, for those ills themselves create.
If, on your fame, our sex a blot has thrown,
"Twill ever stick, through malice of your own.
Most hard-In pleasing your chief glory lies;
And yet from pleasing your chief dangers rise:
Then please the best; and know, for men of sense,
Your strongest charms are native innocence.

In simple manners, all the secret lies

Be kind and virtuous-you'll be blest and wise.

I am, Sir, your's, &c.

Sept. 25. 1784.

E. C.

HENRY.

A Public Masquerade was first attempted in Edinburgh in March 1786, by the following advertisement:

A MASQUERADE.

J. DUNN begs to inform the Nobility and Gentry, that there is to be a Masquerade in his rooms on Thursday the 2d of March next. The price of tickets one guinea to gentlemen, and half-a-guinea to ladies.

N. B. The rooms in the Hotel will be set apart for the different accommodation of the ladies and gentlemen, with proper persons for the purpose of dressing.-Refreshments and wines, sweet-meats, &c. &c. in the tea-room. A band of music will attend, and the whole will be conducted with the strictest regularity and decorum. -No admittance on any account into the gal lery, nor servants into the lower part of the house. The doors to be opened at six o'clock.

The Masquerade was to be held on Thursday the 2d of March. On the Saturday immediately preceding, the following advertisement

appeared, and, on the Monday morning, intimation was given, that there would be no Masquerade, and the money taken for tickets would be returned, on sending to the Hotel.

ADVERTISEMENT EXTRAORDINARY.

M. SLACKJAW begs leave to inform the public, That she is to open a grand Masquerade warehouse, next door to the New Chapel, in Register Street, and a few doors from Dunn's Rooms. She every hour expects a very fine assortment of mask dresses, from Tavistock-street and the Hay-market, London. Among others, a great variety of fancy dresses for ladies-such as, queens of various countries and sizes, sultanas, gypsies, vestal virgins, Columbines, Dutch milk-⚫ maids, hay-makers, fortune-tellers, ballad-singers, black and white nuns, nobodies, &c. &c. Also a very becoming dress for a mad maid of Bedlam, with sparkling chains to sit easy and genteel -An elegant mourning habit for Jephtha's daughter-A Calista, with a fan, which may be easily seen through-A fine flesh coloured suit for Eve, as close as life-Also emblematical dresses for Fashion, Folly, Night, and Aurora.

N. B. She had commissioned a Lucretia, but her correspondent says, no such character could be found at present in London.

For such ladies as choose more simple disguises, she has provided dominos, jalousies and also the smaller articles of dress, such as prominent bosoms and behinds, from the most enormous to the most moderate; and cool and airy masks of all kinds.

Convenient rooms will be ready, adjoining to the shop, for adjusting ceremonies, and settling plans, in case the apartments in the Hotel allotted for accommodation should be too much crowded. As the sole relish of this rational and elegant entertainment depends upon secrecy, customers may be assured that effectual means will be taken that no person in one chamber shall know what is going on in the next.

She has also been solicited by several of her friends to commission gentlemen's masks; but as fashionable gentlemen at present require little additional disguise in comparison with the ladies, she will not boast of the same variety in this department. Those who have no characters to support (by much the greatest number, no doubt, upon such occasions,) may be supplied with various coloured dominos.-She has ordered a few excellent devils' masks, with gilded horns-a very good Don Quixote, with a shining Mambrinoa young Bacchus, but as the character is so common, particular decorations will be given

Several running-footmen, jockies, harlequins, chimney-sweeps-Many good dresses for Sir Johns and Jackie Brutes-men-midwives, with circumstantial printed advertisements-Calibans, Cupids, and Adonises in abundance-A very elegant dress for mad Tom, the blanket being worked like a modern shawl, and the crown filled with goose feathers in place of straw, the pole a Lochaber-axe-A very good knave of clubs, and a ninth of diamonds-A very fine dancing bear, and orang outang, fitted to represent human nature, either in its improved upright state, or in its primitive, upon all fours-N. B. with or without tails. With many other original characters too tedious to mention-Inquire at the warehouse. A fine group, meant to represent an exciseman tormenting a landholder, a distiller, and a farmer, accompanied with a John Bull laughing.

It is rumoured, that the Manager has been applied to for dresses; but ladies and gentlemen are requested to take notice, that they can only be served, in this way, with frippery that has been exposed to public view these twenty years.

For particular friends, who may happen not to be prepared, she has provided some excellent bon mots and repartees, warranted not to be found in the jest-books. She makes a special bargain, however, that (after being spoken) they