ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HYMENEA IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND. (Continued from Page 65.) "WHAT, in the name of all the nine Muses, my dear Miss Wellwood," cried Lady Fanny Flimsey, as she ran into my dressing-room the morning after a grand review, to which we had accompanied her mother, the Countess of Gavuliet; "what in the name of the Muses do you think I have brought you?" "By your looks, Lady Fanny, which shine so bright to-day, I must expect a score of secrets at least; and that the vows of half the gay red-coats we saw yesterday are the subjects of them." "Secrets! I never make secrets of that sort," cried her Ladyship, laughing wide to display her pretty teeth; "the men are too vain not to tell whe.. one listens to them; and therefore I am determined to be the inst to spread the report. Else,' whispered she, though nobody was in the room to overh ar her, "they might be impertinent enough to insinuate more than h a passed. "But how came you by this caution?" inquired 1. “Surely no man would venture boang untruths of the Earl of Gavu ́et's daughter.” would have the impudence to presume to smell a rose in a lady's bosom if he did not intend that impudence to carry him farther. I really wonder, Lady Fanny, how you could allow him to approach you with even the intention of touching the dower." "Biess me, why not? Who could have expected he would have dreamt of such a liberty? Why, my mother allows this very Lord John Saunter, the Earl of Fiddiefaddle, and Colonel Gorget, to smell the amulets round her neck, the otto in her hair, and the Circassian essence on her hands; all these men doat on perfumes, and are such connoisseurs in their qualities that she would not use any a second time they had not approved." "Perhaps, Lady Fanny," replied I in one of her own whispers, "five-and-fifty winters having scored the leaf of Lady Gavullet's bloom, the connoisseurs you speak of may not see that temptation which they find in her dangl.ter, rather to steal a taste of her sweets, hin banquet with welcome on all the fragrance which bouquets and essences can yie.d!" Lady Fanny blushed, smiled, and seemed so pleased with my compliment, though at the expence of her mother, that I found courage to proceed with more gravity. "Don't be too sure of that, my pretty novice, Hymenaa,” replied her gay Ladyship, patting my cheek; “it was only a month ago Lord John Sauuter told the Marquis of Loy head, that at Lady Lin- "These liberties, then, may be anticicolnshire's fe e champetre, he met me dress-pated by every handsome young woman ed as a haymaker, with a rose in my breast, and that he kissed its snowy shine! Those were the coxcomb's very words. When Holyhead reproached me with suffering such insolence, I was quite in a rage; for, upon my honour, Miss Wellwood, the saucy puppy had only smelt the rose in my breast; and if he chanced to touch my neck while he put his impertinent nostrils to the flower, I was perfectly unconscious of the accident." "Of the insult, your Ladyship should have said," replied I. "You can have no doubt but that he did so; for no man who permits any one of our fashionable idlers to approach within half a foot of her person. I remember Lord Castledowne once speaking on this subject, and he said, that whatever men might flatteringly declare, women ought to disbelieve every word and action which on man's part would trespass on her delicacy; no man who really entertains a respect for the sex, will jostle or press against a woman in an assembly, however crowded. He will not, in affected familiarity, presume to touch her hand, or any part of her person, unless he is on the most domestic terms; it is only insensible insolent coxcombs who || yesterday, says on the fashionable taste for dare to inspect by their fingers the brace- displaying the form. Cau I sin in the face lets on a lady's arm, who handle her fra- of counsel, and walk about in the costume grant locks, and venture the rudeness of of a statue, when The Mirror of the Graces putting their noses to the bouquet in her reflects that figure, and would call it nakedbosom. Trust me, my dear Lady Fanny, || ness?" hoops and great crawing neck-handkerchiefs were no despicable fortifications against such impertinents." Lady Fanny snatched the volume out of my hand. She hastily read the titlepage, and flinging it down with an air of Her Ladyship laughed heartily at this contempt-" I never attend to any thing," idea." Well," cried she," since your cried she, "but what my maid or milliner wishes cannot bring back the farthingales says about fashion. I hate all grave prosand buge ruffs of our grandmothers, allowing on the subject; and I dare say that me to make you the present I brought you; || buckram author in his Muror of the a garment the very reverse of those iron Graces would have dressed them like the petticoats; it is a Grecian robe, brought witches in Macbeth." from Cypress itself by my cousin, the young sailor of the Nile. Behold it," added she, unfolding its gossamer texture; “here is woven air, glittering in dew! Did you ever see any thing so beautiful? You will look like Venus rising from the drip- | ping and sparkling waves, when dressed in its vapoury tissue. Ned brought us three of them; my mother has one, I another, and this I have brought for you." "No," replied I; "I should rather suppose the candid authoress, whoever she be, has been handmaid to the models of beauty, taste, and elegance; and I really would recommend your reading the work." Again Lady Fanny opened the book."Bless me!" cried she, "here are some charming receipts for beautifying pastes and washes; delightful, I will have them directly!" "And they are the only parts of the volume," interrupted I," which I would not reduce to practice; I presume to think such nonsense a disgrace to so rational, | elegant, and useful a work. The good old Vicar of Wakefield and I are quite of one opinion with regard to cosmetics, they are || only fit to be s'irred over into the fire." “As indelicate, I suppose you would have added," said Lady Fanny with a gay theatrical air, “had not pity for my vanity | interfered, and stopped the noun. But do not imagine, sweet apprehensive Hymenæa, that I propose your sporting this transparent envelopement without another garment; you may wear it over a quilted coat if you like, but wear it you must, for I have promised mamma that we shall all three appear in our Grecian dresses at the ball she intends giving to the Spanish Deputies this day week; and besides, no shape can be better adapted than yours is for a display of form." "Look what this little monitor to our sex, which Lady Castledowue gave me || || ne "You are a shocking cynic, my pretty Hymenæa!" cried my fair auditor; vertheless, as I permit you to wear either silk, satin, buckram, or coat of mail under this robe, you must positively put it on. Mine shall display its filmy drapery over no more obtuse foundation than a snowwhite taffeta; you and I will, thus arrayed, walk into the ball-room on each side my cousin Ned; and the audience can do no less than exclaim-Here comes young Neptune between the Goddesses of Virtue and Pleasure! I know," added she, with a blushing laugh, "to whom he will give his hand." "I am not quite so sure of it," said I; "I am told Captain Euward Hawser is rather an admirer of female decorum; and I fear Pleasure's taffeta garment would rather give the hero a slight opinion of his 120 mistress's delicacy; and therefore I advise our both sustaining the part of virtue, and theu I doubt not he will fix his choice on the blue-eyed Goddess of Hercules, and you will be secure of your swain." on it, your eyes will shine the brighter by the noble duty to which you have devoted them." "My eyes!" cried Lady Fanny, "does reading make one handsomer? If Ithought so I would study from morning to night." After a little more rhetoric of this sort, "I am sure it would improve your face, I at last made a compromise with Lady Fanny, that I should accept and wear her by giving it a thousand graces it now wants; it would fill the pure azure of your Cyprus dress provided she would put on the same number and texture of petticoats eye with expressions of loveliness which that I should. This momentous affair can only flow from a feeling and reflecting settled, she turned to my dressing-table, soul; it would illuminate your complexion with an eloquent blood, which only the and began turning over my books. "Heavens! what a reader you are," glowing cultivation of mind can pour find time to pore through the veins; and it would deck your How can you through all these musty volumes? Do you lips with smiles of intelligence and sensireally peruse them, or keep them for shew?"bility. In short, a passion for elegant study "I abhor hypocrisy," replied I. "I sincerely love reading, and by rising at six o'clock almost every morning, usually read a part of three or four volumes before I join the breakfast table." cried she. 66 My old aunt Hawser," said Lady Fanny," often talked to me about rising with the lark, and husbanding my hours as the famous beauty Lady Lyttleton did, by having a book, or a piece of work, in every room in the house ready for her entrance. I suppose that made her so wise, and you so witty. I should like vastly to know all the good things these books contain, without the bore of reading them. I never read any thing but novels; and then I always skip the sentiment and moralizing. Come, tell me all that is in these books; let us begin with this," said she, opening Mrs. Moore's Strictures; "is there any thing worth knowing here? is there any thing good and funny?" I could not forbear smiling at the simplicity of the question; I also pitied the ignorance of the little belle of fashion who knew every accomplishment but that of the mind. "That work is richly worth your notice," said I; “it is abundant in good matter, but should you be inclined to reap its harvest, I must be sincere in saying that you would not find one joke, one funny passage throughout. Try to read it with- || out looking for merriment; peruse its pages as you would do your looking-glass; by the one adorn your mind, as by the other you would your body; and depend would give your fine features what the French call countenance; and you would become exquisitely beautiful." "Charming, charming!" cried the enraptured Lady Fanny, dancing about the room; "I will begin immediately, and you shall be my instructress. I will not say a word of it to any body, not even to Ned Hawser, till he finds it out himself by my improving beauty. How much can you teach me, how much more handsome can you make me before the Spanish ball? I should like to be particularly lovely that || night. Pray give me home the wisest of your books, and that in which I can learn the most in the shortest time." I put Dr. Gregory's Legacy to his Daughters, into her Ladyship's hand. "La!" cried she, "a Legacy! why this will talk about death, and wills, and money! I don't want to know any thing about money. I hate all financing; I always abominated the sight of my father's steward, and his account books; so give me another subject; I am sure this will make me look cross and ugly, rather than smiling and lovely." In a few words I explained to my pretty disciple that Dr. Gregory's Legacy left a far different treasure to his daughters than gold and lands; and enforcing on her the necessity there was to be sensible, discreet, and amiable, as well as to be handsome and sprightly, I prevailed on her to take home the valuable little volume, and promise faithfully to read it through, and try to act by its precepts. She rang the bell.-"God bless you, my dear!" cried she as the servant announced her carriage; and without saying another word, but hugging and kissing the little book, she ran down stairs. "Be not alarmed," replied I, smiling at her blending such different classes of pro- At that moment a superb equipage drovė verb-quoters; "Dr. Gregory was a man to the door; it was a barouche with six of elegant taste, as well as a profound mo- milk-white horses, caparisoned in blue and ralist and sincere Christian. He neither silver harness, with a postillion in a livery sought to fill the beads of his daughters of the same colour and lace, and four serwith the fanatic methodism of your poor vants on horseback behind; Within sat a superannuated grandınanıma, nor did he lady in a light summer pelisse of white wish to accomplish them in the style of Don || satin trimmed with Brussels lace, and a Quixote's Squire, with more words on their plume of ostrich feathers streaming from a lips than ideas in their brains; he wished little elegant hat of the same materials. to make his daughters charming women, Beside her sat a groupe of children to the candidates for the happiness of this world, number of six or seven, blooming like and the felicity of a better. This was his cherubs, and dressed in the most graceful design, and Heaven blessed it with accom- style of infantine costume. Curious to plishment, for no young women were ever know who this transcendantly superb'permore admired for the beauty and graces of || sonage could be, I hastened down stairs to their persons, for the exquisite polish of join my aunt in the drawing-room, and be their manners, and irresistible fascination, ready to receive the elegant guest. than the Misses Gregory; they had only to (To be continued.) LETTER XVI. (Continued from Page 69.) It was in the first days of spring, wheu all nature smiled, and Zephyr crowned the woods with verdant wreaths, that suddenly the earth trembled with pleasure, the air kindled into a a livelier warmth, the sea heaved with white foam, and Venus received birth from its waves. A tender and modest virgin; how beautiful was she then! How softly did the ductile Ocean fold his soft arms around her softer form! Zephyr wafted her in a car of shells, and conducted her to the island of Cyprus. It was there that the Hours became her instructors. of Themis; but in spite of this relationship, there was as little resemblance in their character as in their figures. To be sure they all had wings, and sucessively ran over the same space, but their paces were very different. The painful Hour of expectation seemed to require a whole age for circuit; while the Hour of pleasure fled like a flash of lightening. The Hour of repentance, with her brows covered with cypress, uttered bitter cries, and vainly ran over imaginary spaces; to calm her sorrow, the Hour of memory retraced to her the charms of their amiable evanescent sister, and while she spoke, the mourner's tears The Hours were the daughters of Jupiter and flowed very gently. Thus, when I am far from you, Emilia, a tender transport yet moves my soul, when I recal the hour in which I have seen you; aud that remembrance consoles me for the hour in which I see you no more. The Hurs presided then, as they do now, over pleasures, pains, hope, obligations, studies, elegant arts, and the four seasons of the year. You see nothing could be undertaken without them. But as soon as Venus was born, they let the world go on as it could, flew to the island of Cyprus, received Beauty, and stationed themselves in that charming isle as her friends and preceptors. It appears, therefore, that those light Deities were capable of constancy; now, how changed is their character! Those times are past in which the Hours adhered to the retreat of Beauty! Near you Love seems to multiply their wings? You will doubtless, imagine, my sweet friend, that the education of Venus did not in the least resemble that of our Parisian women. To be beautiful without insolence, engaging without coquetry, enlightened without pretension, a discreet friend, a faithful mistress, a virtuous wife, and fond mother, was all they exacted of her. Upon such principles, worth a thousand of ours, her preceptresses founded their plan of instruction, and executed it in the following manner : The first Hour called her as Phoebus began his daily career, and the eye of Beauty opened with that of the God of light. The fifth Hour formed her heart, and disposed it to tenderness; banishing stratagem and address, caused candour alone to dwell there." Love," said she to her fair pupil, "love! but beware of abusing your power. Chuse discreetly, and know when to fix; animated and tender as you are, never prefer the dangerous pleasure of multiplying your conquests to the delight of making one person happy." The sixth Hour added-" Prefer the attachment of a true friend to the worship of a thousand lovers. Love is made for youth, friendship for eternity." The three following Hours taught her the dutics of humanity, of conjugal faith, and of maternity; thus these sage instructors forn ed the heart aud mind of their young pupil, even to the moment in which the Hour of sacrifice conducted her to the temple. Then, with downcast eyes, and her fore. head bound by a garland of cypress, carried to the feet of the Gods her innocent offerings; and while incense fumed upon their altars, presented her young heart to the King of the Immortals. The Hour after brought her back to a bower of myrtles. There, prepared by the hand of nature, under that rural shade, a repast presented itself on the borderof a pure stream. The meadow offered seats of turf, and the flowers formed brilliant canopies over her head. At these happy feasts, innocence presided, with sportive gaiety, strict temperance, amiable frankness, and integrity, sister of reason and mother of health. Next came the Hour of walking, and the Hour of elegant industry; to those, in amus The second Hour intermixed a few flowers with her hair, repeating-" Despise the art of dress; it is made but for ugliness. Be modest; blushes are better than cosmetics at your age. Let the treasure of your charms being the young Goddess, the succeeding Hours always covered with a becoming and thick gave the signal for balls and concerts. It is veil; the sanctuary of the loves is never reprobable that the art of singing was yet in its spected but when inaccessible.” infancy, for Venus contented herself with ex The third Hour presented to her milk and pressing love, pleasure, or saduess, with soul fresh fruit. and simplicity; she never joined to this expression any rolling of the eyes, contortions, shrugs, nor tricks of art; and what may ap The fourth taught her the art of speaking without affectation:-" Never pretend to wit," || she said; “ and above all things guard your-pear incredible, she pronounced every word self from displaying it; speak little, but well; || carefully, and deigned to sing for people to whatever you say should always please; it can never fail to do so when reason, gaiety, sentiment, or benevolence season simplicity." bear her. The concert being followed by a frugal repast, the last Hour of Day conducted Venus |