offer a few hints for the completion of the bracelet, without any dread of the fate of Orpheus.

To the ladies who wear the pictures of their hufbands or children, or any other near relations, I can offer nothing more decent or more proper. It is reasonable to believe that the intends at least to perform her duty, who carries a perpetual excitement to recollection and caution, whofe own ornaments must upbraid her with every failure, and who, by any open violation of her engagements, muft for ever forfeit her bracelet.

Yet I know not whether it is the intereft of the hufband to folicit very earnestly a place on the bracelet. If his image be not in the heart, it is of fmall avail to hang it on the hand. A hufband encircled with diamonds and rubies may gain fome efteem, but will never excite love. He that thinks himself moft fecure of his wife, should be fearful of perfecuting her continually with his prefence. The joy of life is variety; the tendereft love requires to be rekindled by intervals of abfence; and fidelity herself will be wearied with transferring her eye only from the fame man to the fame picture.

In many countries the condition of every woman is known by her drefs. Marriage is rewarded with fome honourable diftinction which celibacy is forbidden to ufurp. Some fuch information a bracelet might afford. The ladies might enroll themfelves in diftinct claffes, and carry in open view the emblems of their order. The bracelet of the authorefs may exhibit the Mufes in a grove of laurel; the housewife may fhew Penelope with her web; the votrefs of a fingle life may carry Ursula with her troop

of

of virgins; the gamefter may have Fortune with her wheel; and thofe women that have no character at all may display a field of white enamel, as imploring help to fill up the vacuity.

There is a fet of ladies who have outlived most animal pleasures, and having nothing rational to put in their place, folace with cards the lofs of what time has taken away, and the want of what wifdom, having never been courted, has never given. For these I know not how to provide a proper decoration. They cannot be numbered among the gamefters, for though they are always at play they play for nothing, and never rife to the dignity of hazard or the reputation of fkill. They neither love nor are loved, and cannot be fuppofed to contemplate any human image with delight. Yet though they defpair to pleafe, they always wifh to be fine, and therefore cannot be without a bracelet. To this fifterhood I can recommend nothing more likely to pleafe them than the king of clubs, a perfonage very comely and majestick, who will never meet their eyes without reviving the thought of fome past or future party, and who may be displayed in the act of dealing with grace and propriety.

But the bracelet which might be moft eafily introduced into general ufe is a small convex mirror, in which the lady may fee herself whenever fhe fhall lift her hand. This will be a perpetual fource of delight. Other ornaments are of use only in publick, but this will furnish gratifications to folitude, This will fhew a face that muft always pleafe; fhe who is followed by admirers will carry about her a perpetual juftification of the publick voice; and fhe

who

who paffes without notice may appeal from preju dice to her own eyes.

But I know not why the privilege of the bracelet should be confined to women; it was in former ages worn by heroes in battle; and as modern foldiers are always diftinguished by fplendour of drefs, I should rejoice to fee the bracelet added to the cockade.

In hope of this ornamental innovation, I have spent fome thoughts upon military bracelets. There is no paffion more heroick than love; and therefore I fhould be glad to fee the fons of England marching in the field, every man with the picture of a woman of honour bound upon his hand. But fince in the army, as every where elfe, there will always be men who love nobody but themselves, or whom no woman of honour will permit to love her, there is a neceffity of fome other diftinctions and devices.

I have read of a prince who, having loft a town, ordered the name of it to be every morning fhouted in his ear till it fhould be recovered. For the fame purpose I think the profpect of Minorca might be properly worn on the hands of fome of our generals: others might delight their countrymen, and dignify themselves with a view of Rochfort as it appeared to them at sea: and those that fhall return from the conqueft of America, may exhibit the warehouse of Frontenac, with an inscription denoting, that it was taken in less than three years by lefs than twenty thousand men.

I am, SIR, &c.

TOM TOY.

NUMB. 40. SATURDAY, January 20, 1759.

TH

HE practice of appending to the narratives of publick tranfactions more minute and domestick intelligence, and filling the newspapers with advertisements, has grown up by flow degrees to its present state.

Genius is fhewn only by invention. The man who first took advantage of the general curiofity that was excited by a fiege or battle, to betray the readers of news into the knowledge of the shop where the best puffs and powder were to be fold, was undoubtedly a man of great fagacity, and profound skill in the nature of man. But when he had once fhewn the way, it was eafy to follow him; and every man now knows a ready method of informing the publick of all that he defires to buy or fell, whether his wares be material or intellectual; whether he makes clothes, or teaches the mathematicks; whether he be a tutor that wants a pupil, or a pupil that wants a tutor.

Whatever is common is despised. Advertisements are now fo numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become neceffary to gain attention by magnificence of promifes, and by eloquence fometimes fublime and fometimes pathetick. Promife, large promife, is the foul of an advertise

ment.

I remember a wash-ball that had a quality truly wonderful-it gave an exquifite edge to the razor. And there are now to be fold, for ready money only, fome duvets for bed-coverings, of down, beyond conparifon

parison fuperior to what is called otter-down, and indeed fuch, that its many excellencies cannot be here set forth. With one excellence we are made acquainted-— it is warmer than four or five blankets, and lighter than

one.

There are fome, however, that know the prejudice of mankind in favour of modeft fincerity. The vender of the beautifying fluid fells a lotion that repels pimples, washes away freckles, fmooths the fkin, and plumps the flesh; and yet, with a generous abhorrence of oftentation, confeffes, that it will not reftore the bloom of fifteen to a lady of fifty.

The true pathos of advertisements must have funk deep into the heart of every man that remembers the zeal fhewn by the feller of the anodyne necklace, for the ease and fafety of poor toothing infants, and the affection with which he warned every mother, that She would never forgive herself if her infant fhould perish without a necklace.

I cannot but remark to the celebrated author who gave, in his notifications of the camel and dromedary, fo many fpecimens of the genuine fublime, that there is now arrived another fubject yet more worthy of his pen. A famous Mohawk Indian warrior, who took Diefkaw the French general prisoner, dressed in the fame manner with the native Indians when they go to war, with his face and body painted, with his fcalpingknife, tom-ax, and all other implements of war: a fight worthy the curiofity of every true Briton! This is a very powerful defcription; but a critick of great refinement would fay, that it conveys rather horror and terror. An Indian, dreffed as he goes to war, may bring company together; but if he carries the fcalp