you, and it will cost you some time and pains, before you can arrive at the knowledge of distinguishing such a one from a Man of Sense.

Never take a favourite Waiting-Maid into your cabinetcouncil, to entertain you with Histories of those ladies, whom she hath formerly served, of their Diversions and their Dresses; to insinuate how great a Fortune you brought, and how little you are allowed to squander; to appeal to her from your husband, and to be determined by her judgment, because you are sure it will be always for you; to receive and discard Servants by her approbation, or dislike; to engage you, by her Insinuations, into Misunderstandings with your best Friends; to represent all things in false colours, and to be the common Emissary of Scandal.

But the grand Affair of your Life will be to gain and preserve the Friendship and Esteem of your Husband. You are married to a man of good Education and Learning, of an excellent understanding, and an exact Taste. It is true, and it is happy for you, that these qualities in him are adorned with great Modesty, a most amiable Sweetness of Temper, and an unusual disposition to Sobriety and Virtue. But neither good-nature nor virtue will suffer him to esteem you against his Judgment; and although he is not capable of using you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing indifferent and perhaps contemptible; unless you can supply the loss of Youth and Beauty with more durable qualities. You have but a very few Years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the World; and as few Months to be so in the eyes of a Husband, who is not a Fool; for I hope you do not still dream of Charms and Raptures, which Marriage ever did, and ever will, put a sudden end to. Besides, yours was a match of Prudence and common good-liking, without any mixture of that ridiculous Passion, which has no Being but in Play-books and Romances...

As little Respect as I have for the generality of your Sex, it hath sometimes moved me with Pity, to see the Lady of the house forced to withdraw immediately after dinner, and this in Families where there is not much drinking; as if it were an established maxim, that Women are uncapable of all Conversation. In a room where both sexes meet, if the Men are discoursing upon any general subject, the Ladies never think it their business to partake in what passes, but in a separate club entertain each other with the Price and Choice of Lace, and Silk, and what Dresses they liked or disapproved at the Church or the Play-house. And when you are among yourselves, how naturally, after the first compliments, do you apply your hands to each others Lappets and Ruffles and Mantua's, as if the whole Business of your lives, and the publick Concern of the World, depended upon the Cut or Colour of your dresses. As Divines say, that some people take more pains to be damned, than it would cost them to be saved; so your Sex employs more Thought, Memory, and Application to be fools, than would serve to make them wise and useful. When I reflect on this, I cannot conceive you to be human Creatures, but a sort of Species hardly a degree above a Monkey; who has more diverting Tricks than any of you, is an animal less mischievous and expensive, might in time be a tolerable critick in Velvet and Brocade, and, for ought I know, would equally become them.

I would have you look upon Finery as a necessary Folly, as all great Ladies did, whom I have ever known. I do not desire you to be out of the Fashion, but to be the last and least in it. I expect that your Dress shall be one degree lower than your fortune can afford; and in your own heart I would wish you to be an utter Contemner of all Distinctions which a finer Petticoat can give you; because it will neither make you richer, handsomer, younger, better

natured, more virtuous, or wise, than if it hung upon a Peg.

If you are in company with men of learning, though they happen to discourse of Arts and Sciences out of your compass, yet you will gather more Advantage by listening to them, than from all the Nonsense and Frippery of your own Sex; but if they be Men of Breeding as well as Learning, they will seldom engage in any conversation where you ought not to be a Hearer, and in time have your part. If they talk of the Manners and Customs of the several Kingdoms of Europe, of Travels into remoter Nations, of the State of their own Country, or of the great men and actions of Greece and Rome; if they give their judgment upon English and French Writers, either in Verse or Prose, or of the nature and limits of Virtue and Vice, it is a shame for an English Lady not to relish such discourses, not to improve by them, and endeavour, by reading and information, to have her Share in those entertainments, rather than turn aside, as is the usual custom, and consult with the Woman, who sits next her, about a new cargo of Fans.

It is a little hard, that not one Gentleman's Daughter in a thousand should be brought to read or understand her own natural Tongue, or be judge of the easiest Books that are written in it, as any one may find, who can have the Patience to hear them, when they are disposed to mangle a Play or a Novel, where the least Word out of the common road is sure to disconcert them. It is no wonder, when they are not so much as taught to spell in their childhood, nor can ever attain to it in their whole lives. I advise you therefore to read aloud, more or less, every day to your Husband, if he will permit you, or to any other Friend (but not a female one), who is able to set you right; and as for spelling, you may compass it in time, by making collections from the books you read.

I know very well, that those who are commonly called Learned Women, have lost all manner of credit by their impertinent Talkativeness and Conceit of themselves: but there is an easy Remedy for this, if you once consider, that after all the pains you may be at, you never can arrive in point of learning to the perfection of a School-boy. The Reading I would advise you to, is only for improvement of your own good Sense, which will never fail of being mended by Discretion. It is a wrong method, and ill Choice of Books, that makes those learned ladies just so much worse for what they have read. And therefore it shall be my Care to direct you better, a Task for which I take myself to be not ill qualified; because I have spent more time, and have had more opportunities than many others, to observe and discover from what Sources the various Follies of Women are derived. . .

There is never wanting in this Town a Tribe of bold, swaggering, rattling Ladies, whose Talents pass among Coxcombs for Wit and Humour; their Excellency lies in rude choquing Expressions, and what they call running a Man down. If a Gentleman in their company happens to have any Blemish in his birth or person, if any Misfortune hath befallen his Family or himself for which he is ashamed, they will be sure to give him broad Hints of it without any provocation. I would recommend you to the acquaintance of a common Prostitute, rather than to that of such Termagants as these. I have often thought that no man is obliged to suppose such Creatures to be Women; but to treat them like insolent Rascals disguised in female habits, who ought to be stript and kickt down stairs. . . .

I desire you will keep this Letter in your cabinet, and often examine impartially your whole Conduct by it. And so God bless you and make you a fair Example to your Sex,

and a perpetual Comfort to your Husband, and your Parents. I am with great Truth and Affection

MADAM

Your most faithful Friend, and humble Servant.

REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

Edmund Burke

(A LETTER INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS.)

But among the revolutions in France must be reckoned a considerable revolution in their ideas of politeness. In England we are said to learn manners at second-hand from your side of the water, and that we dress our behaviour in the frippery of France. If so, we are still in the old cut; and have not so far conformed to the new Parisian mode of good breeding, as to think it quite in the most refined strain of delicate compliment (whether in condolence or congratulation) to say, to the most humiliated creature that crawls upon the earth, that great public benefits are derived from the murder of his servants, the attempted assassination of himself and of his wife, and the mortification, disgrace, and degradation that he has personally suffered. It is a topic of consolation which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I should have thought that the hangman of Paris, now that he is liberalised by the vote of the National Assembly, and is allowed his rank and arms in the heralds' college of the rights of men, would be too generous, too gallant a man, too full of the sense of his new dignity, to employ that cutting consolation to any of the persons whom the leze nation might bring under the administration of his executive power.