of any other lady are so many stones thrown at her; she can by no means bear them, they make her so uneasy, that she cannot keep her seat, but up she riseth and goeth home half-burst with anger and strait-lacing." Now there are a few rare women who can bear to hear men praising the more homely virtues of another woman, but are there any who can suffer in silence while a friend's fine eyes or pearl-like teeth are mentioned in tones of genuine unstinted admiration? They do not necessarily rise and go home half-burst with anger, but even the very best of them will sniff ever so little, and remark that belladonna dilates the pupil in a wonderful way, or that Brown the dentist is such a clever man. Lord Halifax expects too much. Preciosity, a very different thing, is severely castigated. The précieuse would have it thought "that she is made of so much the finer clay . . . that she hath no common earth about her. To this end she must neither move nor speak like other women, because it would be vulgar; and therefore must have a language of her own, since ordinary English is too coarse for her. She cometh into a room as if her limbs were set on with ill-made screws, which maketh the company fear the pretty thing should leave some of its artificial person upon the floor." Lord Halifax evidently knows his Molière. He may have seen 'Les Précieuses Ridicules' during the play's original run of one hundred and twenty nights in Paris in 1659. Preciosity is common in all countries and in every age, but fortunately assumes epidemic form but rarely. There is many а mute inglorious Postlethwaite among us who is now doomed to waste his sweetness on the desert air. But his time will assuredly come again, and do not the pages of 'Punch' testify to his brief but dazzling outbreak in the middle of the nineteenth century? He concludes the chapter, "Let this picture supply the place of any other rules which might be given to prevent your resemblance to it; the deformity of it, well-considered, is instruction enough; from the same reason that the sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached upon that subject." Pride, he says, is a different thing to Vanity, and a word of various meanings. "A woman is not to be proud of her fine gown; nor when she hath less wit than her neighbours, to comfort herself that she hath more lace. Some ladies put so much weight upon their ornaments that even the thought of death is made less heavy to them by the contemplation of their being laid out in state, and honourably attended to the grave." most of us like the idea of having a fine Wake! Pride ought not to take the form of an excessive belief in Quality, or We sex, may both conspire to make you a great figure.... Let me conjure you, My Dearest, to comply with this kind ambition of 8 father, whose thoughts are so ingaged in your behalf, that he reckoneth your Happiness to be the greatest part of his own." that wit and vertue times it was well to walk warily, for politician or for grande dame, but one cannot help feeling that a leaning towards greater boldness on occasions would have been an improvement. To throw your friends overboard lest they compromise you, but not to do it too soon lest you may be called a false friend-this is craven counsel. It is a risky thing to defy the world, certainly; but at times the angry beast can be stilled by righteous anger or a brave demeanour, and loves to tear the hand that strokes it over gently. But with the largest part of the essay one cannot quarrel; it is freshly, vigorously written, and one can only hope that his daughter profited by it, and became all that his heart could have desired. The advice is obviously that of a man qui connait sa monde, -some of it suggests that he is a little afraid of it. He is not inspired by high principle or religious feeling; the world is master, and his daughter must make the best of it, and not provoke its censure, for it is 66 an angry beast" when roused, and will tear her in pieces. He was caution itself in his political career, and he wishes to make his daughter as careful in hers. No doubt in those |