to have some insight into the play called, "What is it like?" as of great use in common practice to quicken slow capacities, and improve the quickest; but the chief end of it is to supply the fancy with varieties of similies for all subjects. It will teach you to bring things to a likeness, which have not the least imaginable conformity in nature, which is properly creation, and the very business of a poet, as his name implies; and let me tell you, a good poet can no more be without a stock of similies by him than a shoemaker without his lasts. He should have them sized, and ranged, and hung up in order in his shop, ready for all customers, and shaped to the feet of all sorts of verse; and here I could more fully (and I long to do it) insist upon the wonderful harmony and resemblance between a poet and a shoemaker in many circumstances common to both; such as the binding of their temples, the stuff they work upon, and the paring-knife they use, &c., but that I would not digress, nor seem to trifle in so serious a matter.

Now, I say, if you apply yourself to these diminutive sports (not to mention others of equal ingenuity, such as draw gloves, cross purposes, questions and commands, and the rest), it is not to be conceived what benefit (of nature) you will find by them, and how they will open the body of your invention. To these devote your spare hours, or rather spare all your hours to them, and then you will act as becomes a wise man, and make even diversions an improvement; like the inimitable management of the bee, which does the whole business of life at once, and at the same time both feeds, and works, and diverts itself.

Your own prudence will, I doubt not, direct you to take a place every evening among the ingenious, in the corner of a certain coffeehouse in this town, where you will receive a turn equally right as to wit, religion, and politics; as likewise to be as frequent at the playhouse as you can afford without selling your books. For, in our chaste theatre, even Cato himself might sit to the falling of the curtain: besides, you will meet sometimes with tolerable conversation among the players: they are such a kind of men as may pass, upon the same sort of capacities, for wits off the stage, as they do for fine gentlemen upon it. Besides that, I have known a factor deal in as good ware, and sell as cheap, as the merchant himself that employs him.

Add to this the expediency of furnishing out your shelves with a choice collection of modern miscellanies, in the gayest edition; and of reading all sorts of plays, especially the new, and above all, those of our own growth, printed by subscription; in which article of Irish manufacture, I readily agree to the late proposal, and am altogether for "rejecting and renouncing everything that comes from England." To what purpose should we go thither for coals or poetry, when we have a vein within ourselves equally good and more convenient? Lastly,

A commonplace book is what a provident poet cannot subsist without, for this proverbial reason, that "great wits have short memories ;" and whereas, on the other hand, poets, being liars by profession, ought to have good memories; to reconcile these, a book of this sort is in the nature of a supplemental memory, or a record of what occurs remarkable in every day's reading or conversation. There you enter not only your own original thoughts (which, a hundred to one, are few and insignificant), but such of other men's as you think fit to make your own, by entering them there. For, take this for a rule, when an author is in your books, you have the same demand upon him for his wit as a merchant has for your money when you are in his.

time, arrive at the accomplishments of a poet, and shine in that character. As for your manner of composing, and choice of subjects, I cannot take upon me to be your director; but I will venture to give you some short hints, which you may enlarge upon at your leisure. Let me entreat you, then, by no means to lay aside that notion peculiar to our modern refiners in poetry, which is, that a poet must never write or discourse as the ordinary part of mankind do, but in number and verse, as an oracle; which I mention the rather, because, upon this principle, I have known heroes brought into the pulpit, and a whole sermon composed and delivered in blank verse, to the vast credit of the preacher, no less than the real entertainment and great edification of the audience; the secret of which I take to be this: when the matter of such discourses is but mere clay, or, as we usually call it, sad stuff, the preacher, who can afford no better, wisely moulds, and polishes, and dries, and washes this piece of earthenware, and then bakes it with poetic fire; after which it will ring like any pancrock, and is a good dish to set before common guests, as every congregation is that comes so often for entertainment to one place.

There was a good old custom in use, which our ancestors had, of invoking the muses at the entrance of their poems; I suppose, by way of craving a blessing: this the graceless moderns have in a great measure laid aside, but are not to be followed in that poetical impiety; for, although to nice ears such invocations may sound harsh and disagreeable (as tuning instruments is before a concert), they are equally necessary. Again, you must not fail to dress your muse in a forehead cloth of Greek or Latin; I mean, you are always to make use of a quaint motto to all your compositions; for, beside that this artifice bespeaks the reader's opinion of the writer's learning, it is otherwise useful and commendable. A bright passage in the front of a poem is a good mark, like a star in a horse's face; and the piece will certainly go off the better for it. The as magna sonaturum, which, if I remember right, Horace makes one qualification of a good poet, may teach you not to gag your muse, or stint yourself in words and epithets which cost you nothing, contrary to the practice of some few out-of-the-way writers, who use a natural and concise expression, and affect a style like unto a Shrewsbury cake, short and sweet upon the palate; they will not afford you a word more than is necessary to make them intelligible, which is as poor and niggardly as it would be to set down no more meat than your company will be sure to eat up. Words are but lackeys to sense, and will dance attendance without wages or compulsion; Verba non invita sequentur.

Furthermore, when you set about composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad. I have always a sacred veneration for any one I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are ever found under the most ragged and withered surface of the earth.

it for a particular encomium is ever attended with more ill-will than any general invective, for which I need give no reasons; wherefore my counsel is, that you use the point of your pen, not the feather: let your first attempt be a coup d'eclat in the way of a libel, lampoon, or satire. Knock down half a score reputations, and you will infallibly raise your own; and so it be with wit, no matter with how little justice; for fiction is your trade.

Every great genius seems to ride upon mankind, like Pyrrhus on his elephant; and the way to have the absolute ascendant of your resty nag, and to keep your seat is, at your first mounting, to afford him the whip and spurs plentifully; after which, you may travel the rest of the day with great alacrity. Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonable good understanding. You cannot but know that those of your profession have been called genus irritabile vatum; and you will find it necessary to qualify yourself for that waspish society, by exerting your talent of satire upon the first occasion, and to abandon good nature only to prove yourself a true poet, which you will allow to be a valuable consideration in a word, a young robber is usually entered by a murder; a young hound is blooded when he comes first into the field; a young bully begins with killing his man; and a young poet must show his wit, as the other his courage, by cutting, and slashing, and laying about him, and banging mankind.

Lastly, It will be your wisdom to look out betimes for a good service for your muse, according to her skill and qualifications, whether in the nature of a dairymaid, a cook, or charwoman: I mean, to hire out your pen to a party, which will afford you both pay and protection; and when you have to do with the press (as you will long to be there), take care to bespeak an importunate friend, to extort your productions with an agreeable violence; and which, according to the cue between you, you must surrender digito male pertinaci: there is a decency in this; for it no more becomes an author, in modesty, to have a hand in publishing his own works than a woman in labour to lay herself.

I would be very loath to give the least umbrage or offence by what I have here said, as I may do, if I should be thought to insinuate that these circumstances of good writing have been unknown to, or not observed by, the poets of this kingdom: I will do my countrymen the justice to say, they have written by the foregoing rules with great exactness, and so far as hardly to come behind those of their profession in England, in perfection of low writing. The sublime, indeed, is not so common with us; but ample amends is made for that want, in great abundance of the admirable and amazing, which appears in all our compositions. Our very good friend (the knight aforesaid), speaking of the force of poetry, mentions "rhyming to death, which (adds he) is said to be done in Ireland;" and, truly, to our honour be it spoken, that power, in a great measure, continues with us to this day.

I would now offer some poor thoughts of mine for the encouragement of poetry in this kingdom, if I could hope they would be agreeable. I have had many an aching heart for the ill plight of that noble profession here; and it has been my late and early study how to bring it into better circumstances. And, surely, considering what monstrous wits, in the poetic way, do almost daily start up and surprise us in this town; what prodigious geniuses we have here (of which I could give instances without number), and withal of what great benefit it may be to our trade to encourage that science here, for it is plain our linen manufacture is advanced by the great waste of paper made by our present set of poets; not to mention other necessary

uses of the same to shopkeepers, especially grocers, apothecaries, and pastry cooks, and I might add, but for our writers, the nation would in a little time be utterly destitute of bum-fodder, and must of necessity import the same from England and Holland, where they have it in great abundance, by the indefatigable labour of their own wits: I say, these things considered, I am humbly of opinion it would be worth the care of our governors to cherish gentlemen of the quill, and give them all proper encouragements here. And, since I am upon the subject, I shall speak my mind very freely, and if I add saucily, it is no more than my birthright as a Briton.

Seriously, then, I have many years lamented the want of a Grub-street in this our large and polite city, unless the whole may be called one. And this I have accounted an unpardonable defect in our constitution, ever since I had any opinions I could call my own. Every one knows Grub-street is a market for small ware in wit, and as necessary, considering the usual purgings of the human brain, as the nose is upon a man's face and for the same reason, we have here a court, a college, a playhouse, and beautiful ladies, and fine gentlemen, and good claret, and abundance of pens, ink, and paper, clear of taxes, and every other circumstance to provoke wit; and yet those whose province it is have not thought fit to appoint a place for evacuations of it, which is a very hard case, as may be judged by comparisons.

And truly this defect has been attended with unspeakable inconveniences; for, not to mention the prejudice done to the commonwealth of letters, I am of opinion we suffer in our health by it: I believe our corrupted air and frequent thick fogs are in a great measure owing to the common exposal of our wit; and that, with good management, our poetical vapours might be carried off in a common drain, and fall into one quarter of the town without infecting the whole, as the case is at present, to the great offence of our nobility and gentry, and others of nice noses. When writers of all sizes, like freemen of the city, are at liberty to throw out their filth and excrementitious productions in every street as they please, what can the consequence be, but that the town must be poisoned, and become such another jakes, as, by report of great travellers, Edinburgh is at night; a thing well to be considered in these pestilential times.

I am not of the society for reformation of manners, but, without that pragmatical title, I should be glad to see some amendment in the matter before us; wherefore, I humbly bespeak the favour of the lord mayor, the court of aldermen, and common council, together with the whole circle of arts in this town, and do recommend this affair to their most political consideration; and I persuade myself they will not be wanting in their best endeavours, when they can serve two such good ends at once, as both to keep the town sweet and encourage poetry in it. Neither do I make any exceptions as to satirical poets and lampoon writers in consideration of their office; for though, indeed, their business is to rake into kennels, and gather up the filth of streets and families (in which respect they may be, for aught I know, as necessary to the town as scavengers or chimney-sweeps), yet I have observed, they too have themselves, at the same time, very foul clothes, and, like dirty persons, leave more filth and nastiness than they sweep away.

In a word, what I would be at (for I love to be plain in matters of importance to my country) is, that some private street, or blind alley, of this town, may be fitted up, at the charge of the public, as an apartment for the muses, (like those at Rome and Amsterdam, for their female relations,) and be wholly consigned to the uses of our wits, furnished completely with all appurtenances,

such as authors, supervisors, presses, printers, hawkers, shops, and warehouses, abundance of garrets, and every other implement and circumstance of wit; the benefit of which would obviously be this, viz., that we should then have a safe repository for our best productions, which at present are handed about in single sheets or mauuscripts, and may be altogether lost, (which were a pity,) or, at the best, are subject, in that loose dress, like handsome women, to great abuse.

Another point that has cost me some melancholy reflections, is the present state of the playhouse; the encouragement of which has an immediate influence upon the poetry of the kingdom; as a good market improves the tillage of the neighbouring country, and enriches the ploughman; neither do we of this town seem enough to know or consider the vast benefit of a playhouse to our city and nation: that single house is the fountain of all our love, wit, dress, and gallantry. It is the school of wisdom; for there we learn to know what's what; which, however, I cannot say is always in that place sound knowledge. There our young folks drop their childish mistakes, and come first to perceive their mothers' cheat of the parsley-bed; there, too, they get rid of natural prejudices, especially those of religion and modesty, which are great restraints to a free people. The same is a remedy for the spleen, and blushing, and several distempers occasioned by the stagnation of the blood. It is likewise a school of common swearing; my young master, who at first but minced au oath, is taught there to mouth it gracefully, and to swear, as he reads French, ore rotundo. Profaneness was before to him in the nature of his best suit, or holiday-clothes; but upon frequenting the playhouse, swearing, cursing, and lying, become like his everyday coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Now, I say, common swearing, a produce of this country as plentiful as our corn, thus cultivated by the playhouse, might, with management, be of wonderful advantage to the nation, as a projector of the swearer's bank has proved at large. Lastly, the stage, in great measure, supports the pulpit; for I know not what our divines could have to say there against the corruptions of the age, but for the playhouse, which is the seminary of them. From which it is plain the public is a gainer by the playhouse, and consequently ought to countenance it; and, were I worthy to put in my word, or prescribe to my betters, I could say in what manner.

I have heard that a certain gentleman has great design to serve the public, in the way of their diversion, with due encouragement; that is, if he can obtain some concordatum-money, or yearly salary, and handsome contribution; and well he deserves the favours of the nation for to do him justice, he has an uncommon skill in pastimes, having altogether applied his studies that way, and travelled full many a league, by sea and land, for this his profound knowledge. With that view alone he has visited all the courts and cities in Europe, and has been at more pains than I shall speak of, to take an exact draught of the playhouse at the Hague, as a model for a new one here. But what can a private man do by himself in so public an undertaking? It is not to be doubted but, by his care and industry, vast improvements may be made, not only in our playhouse, (which is his immediate province,) but in our gaming ordinaries, groom-porters, lotteries, bowling-greens, ninepin-alleys, bear-gardens, cockpits, prizes, puppets, and rareeshows, and whatever else concerns the elegant divertisements of this town. He is truly an original genius; and I felicitate this our capital city on his residence here, where I wish him long to live and flourish, for the good of the commonwealth.

Once more if any further application shall be made on the other side, to obtain a charter for a bank here, I presume to make a request, that poetry may be a sharer

in that privilege, being a fund as real, and to the full as well grounded, as our stocks; but I fear our neighbours, who envy our wit as much as they do our wealth or trade, will give no encouragement to either. I believe, also, it might be proper to erect a corporation of poets in this city. I have been idle enough in my time to make a computation of wits here, and do find we have three hundred performing poets, and upward, in and about this town, reckoning six score to the hundred, and allowing for demies, like pint bottles; including also the several denominations of imitators, translators, and familiar letter-writers, &c. One of these last has lately entertained the town with an original piece, and such a one as, I dare say, the late British Spectator, in his decline, would have called, "an excellent specimen of the true sublime;" or a noble poem;" or a fine copy of verses on a subject perfectly new," the author himself; and had given it a place among his latest lucubrations.

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But, as I was saying, so many poets, I am confident, are sufficient to furnish out a corporation, in point of number. Then, for the several degrees of subordinate members requisite to such a body, there can be no want; for, although we have not one masterly poet, yet we abound with wardens and beadles; having a multitude of poetasters, poetitoes, parcel-poets, poet-apes, and philo-poets, and many of inferior attainments in wit, but strong inclinations to it, which are, by odds, more than all the rest. Nor shall I ever be at ease till this project of mine (for which I am heartily thankful to myself) shall be reduced to practice. I long to see the day when our poets will be a regular and distinct body, and wait upon the lord mayor on public days, like other good citizens, in gowns turned up with green, instead of laurel; and when I myself, who make the proposal, shall be free of their company.

To conclude: what if our government had a poetlaureat here, as in England? what if our university had a professor of poetry here, as in England? what if our lord mayor had a city bard here, as in England? and, to refine upon England, what if every corporation, parish, and ward in this town, had a poet in fee, as they have not in England? Lastly, what if every one, so qualified, were obliged to add one more than usual to the number of his domestics, and, beside a fool and a chaplain, (which are often united in one person,) would retain a poet in his family? for, perhaps, a rhymer is as necessary among servants of a house, as a dobbin with his bells at the head of a team. But these things I leave to the wisdom of my superiors.

While I have been directing your pen, I should not forget to govern my own, which has already exceeded the bounds of a letter: I must therefore take my leave abruptly, and desire you, without further ceremony, to believe that I am, Sir, your most humble servant, JONATHAN SWIFT.

A LETTER

TO A VERY YOUNG LADY ON HER
MARRIAGE.

"THIS letter ought to be read by all new-married women, and
will be read with pleasure and advantage by the most distin-
guished and accomplished ladies."-ORRERY. Mrs. Pil-
kington says that this letter was written on lady Betty Moore's
marriage with Mr. George Rochfort. Mr. Faulkner, the more
daughter of Dr.Staunton.
sound authority, supposes it addressed to Mrs. John Rochford,

MADAM, The hurry and impertinence of receiving and paying visits on account of your marriage being now over, you are beginning to enter into a course of life, where you will want much advice to divert you from falling into many errors, fopperies, and follies, to which your sex is subject. I have always borne an

entire friendship to your father and mother; and the person they have chosen for your husband has been, for some years past, my particular favourite. I have long wished you might come together, because I hoped that, from the goodness of your disposition, and by following the counsel of wise friends, you might in time make yourself worthy of him. Your parents were so far in the right that they did not produce you much into the world, whereby you avoided many wrong steps which others have taken, and have fewer ill impressions to be removed; but they failed, as it is generally the case, in too much neglecting to cultivate your mind; without which it is impossible to acquire or preserve the friendship and esteem of a wise man, who soon grows weary of acting the lover, and treating his wife like a mistress, but wants a reasonable companion, and a true friend through every stage of his life. It must be therefore your business to qualify yourself for those offices; wherein I will not fail to be your director, as long as I shall think you deserve it, by letting you know how you are to act, and what you ought to avoid.

And beware of despising or neglecting my instructions, whereon will depend not only your making a good figure in the world, but your own real happiness, as well as that of the person who ought to be the dearest to you.

I must therefore desire you, in the first place, to be very slow in changing the modest behaviour of a virgin: it is usual in young wives, before they have been many weeks married, to assume a bold forward look and manner of talking, as if they intended to signify in all companies that they were no longer girls, and consequently that their whole demeanour, before they got a husband, was all but a countenance and constraint upon their nature: whereas, I suppose, if the votes of wise men were gathered, a very great majority would be in favour of those ladies who, after they were entered into that state, rather chose to double their portion of modesty and reservedness.

I must likewise warn you strictly against the least degree of fondness to your husband before any witness whatsoever, even before your nearest relations, or the very maids of your chamber. This proceeding is so exceeding odious and disgustful to all who have either good breeding or good sense, that they assign two very unamiable reasons for it; the one is gross hypocrisy, and the other has too bad a name to mention. If there is any difference to be made, your husband is the lowest person in company either at home or abroad, and every gentleman present has a better claim to all marks of civility and distinction from you. Conceal your esteem and love in your own breast, and reserve your kind looks and language for private hours, which are so many in the four and twenty, that they will afford time to employ a passion as exalted as any that was ever described in a French romance.

Upon this head I should likewise advise you to differ in practice from those ladies who affect abundance of uneasiness while their husbands are abroad; start with every knock at the door, and ring the bell incessantly for the servants to let in their master; will not eat a bit at dinner or supper if the husband happens to stay out; and receive him at his return with such a medley of chiding and kindness, and catechizing him where he has been, that a shrew from Bilingsgate would be a more easy and eligible companion.

Of the same leaven are those wives who, when their husbands are gone a journey, must have a letter every post, upon pain of fits and hysterics: and a day must be fixed for their return home, without the least allowance for business or sickness, or accidents, or weather; upon which I can only say, that in my observation, those ladies, who are apt to make the greatest clutter on such occasions, would liberally have paid a

messenger for bringing them news, that their husbands had broken their necks on the road.

You will perhaps be offended, when I advise you to abate a little of that violent passion for fine clothes so predominant in your sex. It is a little hard that ours, for whose sake you wear them, are not admitted to be of your council. I may venture to assure you, that we will make an abatement at any time of four pounds a yard in a brocade, if the ladies will but allow a suitable addition of care in the cleanliness and sweetness of their persons. For the satirical part of mankind will needs believe, that it is not impossible to be very fine and very filthy; and that the capacities of a lady are sometimes apt to fall short, in cultivating cleanliness and finery together. I shall only add, upon so tender a subject, what a pleasant gentleman said concerning a silly woman of quality; that nothing could make her supportable but cutting off her head; for his ears were offended by her tongue, and his nose by her hair and teeth.

I am wholly at a loss how to advise you in the choice of company, which, however, is a point of as great importance as any in your life. If your general acquaintance be among the ladies, who are your equals or superiors, provided they have nothing of what is commonly called an ill reputation, you think you are safe; and this, in the style of the world, will pass for good company. Whereas, I am afraid it will be hard for you to pick out one female acquaintance in this town from whom you will not be in manifest danger of contracting some foppery, affectation, vanity, folly, or vice. Your only safe way of conversing with them is, by a firm resolution to proceed in your practice and behaviour directly contrary to whatever they shall say or do, and this I take to be a good general rule, with very few exceptions. For instance, in the doctrines they usually deliver to young married women for managing their husbands, their several accounts of their own conduct in that particular, to recommend it to your imitation, the reflections they make upon others of their sex for acting differently, their directions how to come off with victory upon any dispute or quarrel you may have with your husband, the arts by which you may discover and practise upon his weak side: when to work by flattery and insinuation, when to melt him with tears, and when to engage him with a high hand: in these and a thousand other cases it will be prudent to retain as many of their lectures in your memory as you can, and then determine to act in full opposition to them all.

I hope your husband will interpose his authority to limit you in the trade of visiting half a dozen fools are, in all conscience, as many as you should require ; and it will be sufficient for you to see them twice a-year, for I think the fashion does not exact that visits should be paid to friends.

I advise that your company at home should consist of men rather than women. To say the truth, I'never yet knew a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex. I confess, when both are mixed and well chosen, and put their best qualities forward, there may be an intercourse of civility and good will, which, with the addition of some degree of sense, can make conversation or any amusement agreeable. But a knot of ladies, got together by themselves, is a very school of impertinence and detraction, and it is well if those be the worst.

Let your men acquaintance be of your husband's choice, and not recommended to you by any she companions, because they will certainly fix a coxcomb upon 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 cabinet council, to entertain you with histories of

1

those ladies whom she has 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 in 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 playbooks and romances.

You must therefore use all endeavours to attain to some degree of those accomplishments which your husband most values in other people, and for which he is most valued himself. You must improve your mind by closely pursuing such a method of study as I shall direct or approve of. You must get a collection of history and travels, which I will recommend to you, and spend some hours every day in reading them, and making extracts from them if your memory be weak. You must invite persons of knowledge and understanding to an acquaintance with you, by whose conversation you may learn to correct your taste and judgment; and when you can bring yourself to comprehend and relish the good sense of others, you will arrive in time to think rightly yourself, and to become a reasonable and agreeable companion. This must produce in your husband a true rational love and esteem for you, which old age will not diminish. He will have a regard for your judgment and opinion in matters of the greatest weight; you will be able to entertain each other without a third person to relieve you by finding discourse. The endowments of your mind will even make your person more agreeable to him; and when you are alone, your time will not lie heavy upon your hands for want of some trifling amusement. As little respect as I have for the generality of your it has 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 muca drinking; as if it were an established maxim, that women are incapable 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 playhouse. And when you are among yourselves, how naturally after the first compliments do you apply your hands to each other's lappets, and ruffles, and mantuas; as if the whole business of your lives and the public concern of the world depended upon the cut or colour of your dress.

sex,

As divines say, that some people take more pains to be damned than it would cost them to be saved; so your sex employ 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 certain 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 critic in velvet and brocade, and for aught I know, would equally become them.

I would have you look upon finery as a necessary folly, which 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 your 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 it 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 to 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 novel, where the least word out of the common road is sure to disconcert them; and 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 schoolboy. 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 the 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 source the various follies of women are derived.

Pray, observe how insignificant things are the common race of ladies when they have passed their youth