of the northern nations, the French ladies, the education of the Eastern women, of the African women, the American women, the effects of chivalry, &c.-All this, gentle Reader, in one chapter.

Where fuch a variety of difhes are ferved up at once, the temperate guest will probably be fatisfied with one or two; we wish they were better dressed, but we are not anfwerable for the cookery.

• After the discovery and conqueft of America, fays our Hiftorian, immenfe treasures had been conftantly imported from thence into Europe. From the trade carried on to the East and West Indies, to Africa, and other parts of the globe, perhaps till greater wealth had been accumulated; thefe at last beginning to operate, turned the minds of the greatest part of Europe from that fober and œconomical plan of life, to which their poverty and imperfect knowledge of trade and agriculture had fubjected them; and fubftituted in its place, gaiety, expence, and parade. Numbers of people, who perhaps, not in the most rigid paths of juftice, had acquired immenfe fortunes in the Eaft, tranfported themselves back to Europe, bringing along with them all the arrogance of wealth, effeminacy of manners, and love of pageantry and fhow, for which the eastern nations have ever been remarkable. These, and several other causes combining together, totally changed the manners of Europe; and inftead of fober frugality, and other domestic virtues of the women, introduced luxury and diffipation; with a tafte for all the tinfel glare of unsubstantial trifles.

The French, who have always been remarkably diftinguished for vivacity and show, took the lead in this new mode of life, and foon diffeminated it all over Europe; which, for at least these two centuturies paft, has aukwardly imitated every light fashion and frippery of that volatile people, with little better fuccefs than a Bear dançes a hornpipe, or a Monkey puts on the gravity of an alderman.

In France, were women firft introduced to court; their education, which before that introduction confifted in reading their own language, in learning needle-work, and the offices of domestic life, was then by degrees changed to vocal and inftrumental mufic, drawing, dancing, and dreffing in the most fashionable manner; to which we may add, the art of captivating and governing their men. This Aimfy pattern was copied by every other nation: fome ftrokes of improvement were from time to time added by the French; till at laft almost every thing ufeful was boldly ftruck out from the plan of female education; and the women of the prefent age thereby robbed of more than half their native excellence, and rendered objects more fought after to divert a melancholy hour, or fatisfy a lawless paffion, than to become the focial partners of a life directed by reafon and religion. We muft, however, allow, that the French ladies are not all fo much devoted to fashion and pleasure, as to neglect every thing else. France has produced feveral women diftinguished for their judgment and learning; and even in the prefent diffipated age, while female coteries commonly meet for diverfion, or for gaming, there are in Paris focieties of women, which meet at flated times to determine

determine the merit of every new work; and happy is the author who meets their approbation; the French being too polite to fet themselves in open oppofition to the judgment of their ladies, whether they may think it right or wrong.

Should this imperfect attempt, to write the Hiftory of the Fair, furvive the prefent, and be read in any future generation, when this frivolous mode of female education fhall have given place to a better, that our Readers may then have fome idea of what it was towards the close of the eighteenth century, we shall just sketch the outlines of it as now practifed in the politeft countries of Europe. Among the firft leffons, which a mother teaches her daughter, is that important article, according to the modern phrafe, of holding up her head, and learning a proper carriage: this begins to be inculcated at the age of three or four at latest; and is ftrenuously infifted on for many years afterward. When the young lady has learned imperfealy to read her own language, and fometimes even fooner, the is fent to a boarding-fchool, where he is inftructed in the most flimfy and useless parts of needle-work; while of those, which the must need, if ever the enters into domeftic life, the is left entirely ignorant. While he is here, fome part of her time is also allotted to learning to read either her own language, or the languages of fome of the neighbouring kingdoms; all of which are too frequently taught without a proper attention to Grammar or Orthography. Writing, and Arithmetic, likewife employ a part of her time; but these, particularly the last, are only confidered as auxiliary accomplishments, which are not to be carried into life, and confequently deserve but little attention; the grand effort is generally made to teach the girl what the woman will relinquith; fuch as drawing, mufic, and dancing; thefe, as they are arts agreeable to youthful sprightliness, often engage the young lady fo much, as to make her neglect, or forget every thing elfe. To thefe are added, the modes of dreffing in fashion, the punctilios of behaving in company; and we are forry to say, that into fome schools have been introduced mafters to teach the fashionable games at cards; a diffipation, if not a vice, which already prevails too much among both fexes, and may perhaps ftill gain ground by this early initiation.

Such, in general, is the education of female boarding-schools; in fome, indeed, there may be a few other things taught befides those we have mentioned; but whatever be taught, or however they be conducted, it is too true, that the girl, after having been there fome years, comes home to her parents quite a modern fine lady; with her head full of fcraps of French, names of great people, and quotations from romances and plays; and quite difgufted at the antiquated virtues of fober frugality, order, or œconomy. We cannot caft our eyes on the picture we have now drawn, without a fecret wifh, that it were lefs juft; nor fhall we drop the curtain before it, without mentioning with pleasure, that fome parents adopt a better plan; and that fome young ladies, even thus educated, have had understanding enough to lay afide the greatest part of the abovementioned frippery, and cultivate fuch knowledge, and fuch virtues, as are ornamental to society, and useful to themselves.' E e

REV. Dec. 1779.

Such,

Such, with a few trifling variations, our Author fays, is the common course of European education. We fhall not anticipate the obfervations which every well-informed reader muft neceffarily make upon what the Doctor advances, but proceed to fhew in what a philofophical and ingenious manner he treats the following very curious fubject:

From the earliest ages, fays he, dancing appears to have been either a religious or an imitative exercife; David danced before the ark of the Lord, the Philistines danced before Dagon, many of the contemporary, nations frequently danced at their folemn meetings, in their groves, and on their high places; the Greeks did the fame at fome of the fellivals celebrated in honour of their gods; and the travellers of our own times give us numberless accounts of the dancings of the favages before their idols. So different, however, are the ideas we have formed of religion, that we are apt to confider dancing as altogether inconfiftent with its folemnity; but, perhaps, those who thought otherwife, introduced it as a fign of gratitude and thankfulness, for health, vigour, and agility; and, to thew the gods, that they were cheerful and happy in the enjoyment of their bleffings, and under the adminiftration of their government; and proceeding from fuch fentiments in the worshippers, it could not be to the gods an unacceptable fervice. It has likewife been much used in an imitative or fymbolical manner. The Indians dance their wardance, to fhew the strength, the agility, and ferocity they can exert in battle; and the women we have mentioned indecently dance, what may be called their love-dance, to fhew how well they are qualified for the rapturous enjoyments of that paffion; and it is only in the polite countries of Europe that we dance purely for the fake of dancing. If rude and barbarous nations make their dances expreffive of their employments and their feelings; it is worth confidering, whether we might not improve on the plan, and add fentiment and expreffion to what we at present only look upon as frolic and amufement.'

In fpeaking of the Grecian women, he makes the following fage obfervation,- that though the Greeks were eminent in arts, though they were illuftrious in arms, in politeness, and elegance of manners, the highest pitch to which they ever arrived, was only a few degrees above favage barbarity.-Now, how a people could be eminent in arts, illuftrious in arms, in politenefs, and elegance of manners, and yet be only a few degrees above favage barbarity, we own, far exceeds our comprehenfion.-His general idea of the Greeks, in another part of his work, is as follows:

Of this fo much diftinguifhed, fo much admired people, who, for many ages, fhone fo illuftrious in arts and arms, and whofe pa negyric has been founded fo loud in ancient and in modern history; we fincerely with that a regard for truth did not oblige us to give fo indifferent a character. But when we have faid that they fhone in arts and arms, we have completed their eulogium. When we con

fider them as patriots, they appear diftinguifhable; when we confider them as men, and as citizens of the world, they almoft excite our horror. Other nations made laws to make nature better, and to enforce humanity. Thofe of fome of the Grecian flates were calculated to eradicate nature and humanity from the human heart. In fhort, in whatever view we contemplate this people, we find them remarkable only for an unnatural aufterity of manners, for the most inflexible feverity, and a life hardly foftened by one agreeable fhade, in the whole picture.'

Dr. Alexander introduces what he fays upon the fubjects of delicacy and chastity, in the following manner:

Of all the virtues which adorn the female character, and enable the fex to fteal imperceptibly into the heart, none are more confpicuous than that unaffected fimplicity and fhynefs of manners which we diftinguifh by the name of delicacy. In the most rude and savage ftates of mankind, however, delicacy has no existence; in thofe. where politenefs and the various refinements connected with it are carried to excefs, delicacy is difcarded, as a vulgar and unfashionable restraint on the freedom of good breeding.

To illuftrate thefe obfervations, we fhall adduce a few facts from the hiftory of mankind. Where the human race have little other culture than what they receive from nature, and hardly any other ideas but fuch as fhe dictates; the two fexes live together, unconfcious of almost any reftraint on their words or on their actions: Diodorus Siculus mentions feveral nations among the ancients, as the Hylophagi, and Icthiophagi, who had fcarcely any cloathing, whofe language was exceedingly imperfect, and whofe manners were hardly diftinguishable from thofe of the brutes which furrounded. them. The Greeks, in the heroic ages, as appears from the whole hiftory of their conduct, delineated by Homer and their other poets and hiftorians, were totally unacquainted with delicacy. The Ro mans, in the infancy of their empire, were the fame. Tacitus informs us, that the ancient Germans had not separate beds for the two fexes, but that they lay promifcuously on reeds, or on heath. along the walls of their houses; a custom ftill prevailing in Lapland, among the peasants of Norway, Poland, and Ruffia; and not altogether obliterated in fome parts of the Highlands of Scotland and of Wales. In Terra del Fuego, on feveral places of the Gold Coast, in the Brazils, and a variety of other parts, the inhabitants have hardly any thing to cover their bodies, and scarcely the leaft inclination to conceal any natural action from the eyes of the public. In Otaheite, to appear naked, or in cloaths, are circumstances equally indifferent to both fexes: nor does any word in their language, nor any action to which they have an inclination, feem more indelicate or reprehenfible than another. Such are the effects of a total want of culture; and effects not very diffimilar are in France and Italy produced from a redundance of it; delicacy is laughed out of exiftence as a filly and unfashionable weakness.

Among people holding a middling degree, or rather perhaps fomething below a middle degree, between the moft uncultivated rufticity and the most refined politenefs, we find female delicacy in its highest perfection. The Japanese are but juft emerged fome E e 2

degrees

degrees above favage barbarity, and in their history we are prefented by Kempfer, with an inftance of the effect of delicacy, which perhaps has not a parallel in any other country. A lady being at table in a promiscuous company, in reaching for fomething that the wanted, accidentally broke wind backwards, by which her delicacy was fo much wounded, that she immediately arose, laid hold on her breafts with her teeth, and tore them till the expired on the spot. In Scotland, and a few other parts of the north of Europe, where the inhabitants are fome degrees farther advanced in politeness than the Japanese; a woman would be almost as much afhamed to be detected going to the temple of Cloacina, as to that of Venus. In England, to go in the moft open manner to that of the former, hardly occafions a blush on the most delicate cheek. At Paris, we are told that a gallant frequently accompanies his mistress to the fhrine of the goddess, flands centinel at the door, and entertains her with bon mots, and proteftations of love, all the time she is worship ping there; and that a lady when in a carriage, whatever company be along with her, if called upon to exonerate nature, pulls the cord, orders the driver to ftop, fteps out, and having performed what nature required, refumes her feat without the leaft ceremony or difcompofure. The Parisian women, as well as thofe in many of the other large towns of France, even in the most public companies, make no fcruple of talking concerning thofe fecrets of their sex, which almoft in every other country are reckoned indelicate in the ears of the men; nay, fo little is their reserve on this head, that a young lady on being asked by her lover to dance, will, without blush or hefitation, excufe herself on account of the impropriety of doing fo in her prefent circumftances. The Italians, it is faid, carry their indelicacy still farther: women even of character and fashion, when afked a favour of another kind, will with the utmost composure decline the proposal, on account of being at prefent under a courfe of medicine for the cure of a certain diforder. When a people have arrived at that point in the fcale of politenefs, which entirely dif cards delicacy, the chastity of their women must be at a low ebb; for delicacy is the centinel that is placed over female virtue, and that centinel once overcome, chastity is more than half conquered.'

One extract more, and we have done; it shall be taken from the twenty-third chapter of this work, wherein our Author treats of Courtship..

Of all that variety of paffions which fo differently agitate the human breast, none work a greater change on the fentiments, none more dulcify and expand the feelings, than love; while anger transforms us into furies, and revenge metamorphofes us into fiends, love awakes the most oppofite fenfations. While benevolence warms our hearts, and charity stretches out our hands, love, being compounded of all the tender, of all the humane and difinterested virtues, calls forth at once all their foft ideas, and exerts all their good offices".

The

The reverend Mr. Sterne, author of Triftram Shandy, used to fay, That he never felt the vibrations of his heart fo much in unifon with virtue, as when he was in love; and that whenever he did a

mean