that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on those pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads. I am informed that this fashion fpreads daily, infomuch that the whig and tory ladies begin already to hang out different colours, and to fhew their principles in their head-drefs. Nay, if I may believe my friend Will Honeycomb, there is a certain old coquette of his acquaintance who intends to appear very fuddenly in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not queftioning but that among fuch variety of colours fhe fhall have a charm for every heart. My friend Will, who very much values himself upon his great infight into gallantry, tells me, that he can already guess at the humour a lady is in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco know the difpofition of their prefent emperor by the colour of the drefs which he puts on. When Melefinda wraps her head in flame colour, her heart is fet upon execution. When the covers it with purple, I would not, fays he, advise her lover to approach her; but if fhe appears in white, it is peace, and he may hand her out of the box with fafety. Will informs me likewife, that thefe hoods may be ufed as fignals. Why elfe, fays he, does Cornelia always put on a black hood when her husband is gone into the country? Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of gallantry. For my own part, I impute this diverfity of colours in the hoods to the diverfity of complexion in the faces of my pretty countrywomen. Ovid in his Art of Love has given fome precepts as to this particular, though I find they are different from thofe which prevail among the moderns. He recommends a red ftriped filk to the pale complexion; white to the brown, and dark to the fair. On the contrary, my friend Will, who pretends to be a greater master in this art than Ovid, tells me, that the paleft features look the moft agreeable in white farfanet; that a face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest scarlet, and that the darkest complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood. In fhort, he is for lofing the colour of the face in that of the hood, as a fire burns dimly, and a candle goes half out, in the light of the fun. This, This, fays he, your Ovid himself has hinted, where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the blue water nymphs are dreffed in fky-coloured garments; and that Aurora, who always appears in the light of the rifing fun, is robed in faffron. Whether these his obfervations are juftly grounded I cannot tell but I have often known him, as we have stood together behind the ladies, praise or difpraise the complexion of a face which he never faw, from obferving the colour of her hood, and has been very feldom out in these his gueffes. As I have nothing more at heart than the honour and improvement of the fair fex, I cannot conclude this paper without an exhortation to the British ladies, that they would excel the women of all other nations as much in virtue and good fenfe, as they do in beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as industrious to cultivate their minds, as they are to adorn their bodies in the mean while I fhall recommend to their most ferious confideration the faying of an old Greek poet, Γυναικὶ κόσμος ὁ τρόπος, κ' ἐ χρυσία. N° 266 Friday, January 4. Id verò eft, quod ego mihi puto palmarium, C Ter. Eun. A&t. 5. Sc. 4. I look upon it as my mafter-piece, that I have found out how a young fellow may know the difpofition and behaviour of harlots, and by early knowing come to deteft them. No O vice or wicked nefs which people fall into from indulgence to defires which are natural to all, ought to place them below the compaflion of the vir tuous part of the world; which indeed often makes me a little apt to fufpect the fincerity of their virtue, who N° 266 who are too warmly provoked at other people's perfonal fins. The unlawful commerce of the fexes is of all other the hardest to avoid; and yet there is no one which you fhall hear the rigider part of womankind fpeak of with fo little mercy. It is very certain that a modest woman cannot abhor the breach of chastity too much; but pray let her hate it for. herself, and only pity it in others. Will Honeycomb calls thefe over-offended ladies, the outrageously virtuous. I do not defign to fall upon failures in general, with relation to the gift of chastity, but at prefent only en-. ter upon that large field, and begin with the confideration of poor and public whores. The other evening paffing along near Covent Garden, I was jogged on the elbow as I turned into the piazza, on the right hand coming out of James-Street, by a young flim girl of. about feventeen, who with a pert air afked me if I was for a pint of wine. I do now know but I fhould have: indulged my curiofity in having fome chat with her, but that I am informed the man of the Bumper knows. me; and it would have made a ftory. for him not very agreeable to fome part of my writings, though I have in others fo frequently faid that I am wholly unconcerned: in any fcene I am in, but merely as a fpectator. This impediment being in my way, we ftood under one of the arches by twilight; and there I could obferve as exact features as I had ever feen, the moft agreeable shape, the finest neck and bofom, in a word, the whole perfon of a woman exquifitely beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced wantonnefs in her look and air; but I faw it checked with hunger and cold: her eyes were wan and eager, her drefs thin and tawdry, her mien genteel and childish. This ftrange figure gave me much anguish of heart, and to avoid being feen with her I went away, but could not forbear giving her a crown. The poor thing fighed, curtfied, and with a bleffing expreffed with the utmost vehemence, turned from me. This creature is what they call " newly come upon the "town," but who, I fuppofe, falling into cruel hands, was left in the first month from her difhonour, and expofed to pass through the hands and difcipline of one of thofe hags of hell whom we call bawds. But left I fhould grow too too fuddenly grave on this fubject, and be myself outrageoufly good, I shall turn to a fcene in one of Fletcher's plays, where this character is drawn, and the œconomy of whoredom moft admirably defcribed. The paffage I would point to is in the third scene of the fecond act of the Humorous Lieutenant. Leucippe, who is agent for the king's luft, and bawds at the fame time for the whole court, is very pleasantly introduced, reading her minutes as a perfon of bufinefs, with two maids, her under-fecretaries, taking inftructions at a table before her. Her women, both thofe under her prefent tutelage, and thofe which he is laying wait for, are alphabetically fet down in her book; and fhe is looking over the letter C, in a muttering voice, as if between foliloquy and fpeaking out, the fays, "Her maidenhead will yield me; let me fee now; She is not fifteen they fay: for her complexionCloe, Cloe, Cloe, here I have her, Cloe, the daughter of a country gentleman; "Her age upon fifteen. Now her complexion.. "A lovely brown; here 'tis ; eyes black and rolling, The body neatly built; fhe ftrikes a lute well, "Sings moft enticingly: thefe helps confider'd, "Her maidenhead will amount to fome three hundred, "Or three hundred and fifty crowns, 'twill bear it handHer father's poor, fome little fhare deducted, [fomely, "To buy him a hunting nag" These creatures are very well inftructed in the cir cumftances and manners of all who are any way related to the fair one whom they have a defign upon. As Cloe is to be purchased with 350 crowns, and the father taken off with a pad; the merchant's wife next to her, who abounds in plenty, is not to have downright money, but the mercenary part of her mind is engaged with a prefent of plate and a little ambition. She is made to un derftand that it is a man of quality who dies for her. The examination of a young girl for bufinefs, and the crying down her value for being a flight thing, together with every other circumstance in the fcene, are inimi tably excellent, and have the true fpirit of comedy i though though it were to be wifhed the author had added a circumstance which should make Leucippe's bafeness more odious. It must not be thought a digreffion from my intended fpeculation, to talk of bawds in a difcourse upon wenches; for a woman of the town is not thoroughly and properly fuch, without having gone through the education of one of these houses. But the compaffionate case of very many is, that they are taken into fuch hands without any the leaft fufpicion, previous temptation, or admonition to what place they are going. The last week I went to an inn in the city to inquire for fome provifions which were fent by a waggon out of the country; and as I waited in one of the boxes till the chamberlain had looked over his parcel, I heard an old and a young voice repeating the queftions and refponfes of the church-catechifm. I thought it no breach of good-manners to peep at a crevife, and look in at people fo well employed; but who fhould I see there but the most artful procurefs in the town, examining a moft beautiful country-girl, who had come up in the fame waggon with my things, "Whether fhe was well educated, "could forbear playing the wanton with fervants and idle "fellows, of which this town," fays fhe," is too full:" at the fame time," whether the knew enough of breed"ing, as that if a 'fquire or gentleman, or one that 66 was her betters, fhould give her a civil falute, fhe "fhould curtefy and be humble nevertheless." Her innocent forfooth's, yes's, and't pleafe you's, and the would do her endeavour, moved the good old lady to take her out of the hands of a country bumkin her brother, and hire her for her own maid. I ftaid till I faw them all marched out to take coach; the brother loaded with a great cheefe, he prevailed upon her to take for her civilities to his fifter. This poor creature's fate is not far off that of her's whom I spoke of above, and it is not to be doubted, but after she has been long enough a prey to luft, fhe will be delivered over to famine. The ironical commendation of the industry and charity of these antiquated ladies, thefe directors of fin,. after they can no longer commit it, makes up the beauty of the inimitable dedication to the Plain-Dealer, and is a master-piece of raillery on this vice. But to under ftand |