professions, be deaf to their delus:ons! hang, drown, rack, crucify, burn, and torture them in every possible form! you will thereby promote my cause, the cause of Heaven, and be reward d with an immortal crown of glory.' The illustrious and invincible champion of our power, our trusty and well beloved Cousin, Counsellor, and General, Persecution, shall lead you to the assault, and your victory will make a jubilee on earth and in heaven.-Go, my beloved children, fight the cause of HeaVeu! Go, and God bless you!"

The besotted, wretched rabble, accustomed to implicit obedience and idolatrous submission, instantly crowded around Persecution to lead them on; who saw with rapture their inpatience to set forward, and seizing the ensanguined banner, he waved the crowd to follow him. Numerous as a cloud of locusts, turbulent as the ocean waves, they followed, threatening, with horrible imprecations, to exterminate the enemies of Religion and of God! Superstition beheld with triumph this evidence of their credulity and her own power, and with well-feigned devotion blessed them as they passed; then withdrew to laugh in secret, and enjoy that voluptuousness in which the artful atheist believed lay mankind's real heaven.

missively to the yoke of Superstition, can be readily converted into dark and bloody instru ments of fell revenge and remorseless cruelty. While thus they paused, they were startled from their reverie by the tumultuous, stilly ̋ hum of an approaching multitude; auxiliary confused sounds of drums, trumpets, and other warlike instruments, augmented the unexpected interruption. Unmoved, serene, and collected, they turned their attention to discover the cause; a cloud of dust, sufficiently dense to obscure the light of a bright meridian sun, convinced them an army, or other large body of people, were advancing towards them. Religion, cheered with the prospect that many of the objects of her tender solicitude® were now ready to present themselves before her, with unaffected sweetness and diguity, desired her attendants to move forward and meet the coming multitude. Obedient to her will, they followed; while she, with accelerated pace, pressed on, eager to confer her blessings on all who might be willing to receive thein. In a little time, Persecution, with meagre, sinewy, and lengthened body, sallow and sunken cheek, wide-extended and distorted mouth, contracted forehead, squalid beard, and bloodshot eyes, mounted on a furious tiger, and bearing the hostile standard of Superstition, appeared in view. Blind Zeal, Bigotry, and Intolerance, mounted on leopards, were close at his back; a rude and motly mob, headed by Faith, at no great distance, followed. Fortitude instantly sounded the alarm of approaching enemies to her heavenly mistress, and with soul undaunted prepared to receive them. Religion saw her danger, and, bowing to the will of Omnipo. tence, stood firm and unmoved. Trath, Justice, Fortitude, ranged in her front; Charity, Pity, and Mercy fell in her rear-legitimate descendants of leaven, they knew themselves invincible as immortal. Persecution and his deluded followers, were now near enough to parley with their opponents; but anxious to destroy rather than convince, he gave the word for slaughter. The fierce and stupid multitude eagerly pressed forward to execute the dreadful mandate; but struck with in. effable awe and veueration for the sacred

Meantime Religion pursued her steady, humble course, accompanied by her celestial train, through regions where luxuriant nature poured forth her richest stores spontaneous; nor was there wanting, where her bounties were more frugally bestowed, proofs of men's persevering industry, to repair her neglect. The country through which they passed had all the appearance of cultivation, yet no inhabitants could be seen. Religion perceived and contemplated the scene with anxious solicitude; her attendant virtues s.rrounded her in sympathetic condolence; they marked, with pleasure, the works of laborious population; they beheld with painful regret, the total loss, as they imagined, of the people. Religion, confiding in the purity of ber mission and the fidelity of her attendants, never suffered a suspicious thought to wander on the machinations which may be put in practice by the demon they came to depose. She had yet to learn that men yielding sub-groupe, they stopped short, viewed them with

complacent admiration, and but for the terror of eternal punishment, would have turned their hatred into adoration.

mortal and immaterial; of course, invalnerable; and, at pleasure, would assume the most pleasing forms; he therefore thought it more advisable, for the present, to avoid an attack, in which it was possible he could not obtain a victory, and divert the rage of his

Persecution, enraged at their supineness, thundered Hell! in their ears.-The dreaded || sound roused them afresh; again they resolved to execute their leader's bloody pur-followers against those virtuous, honest, bap. pose; again were they rushing forward to sacrifice the innocent objects of their hatred, when Religion, assuming all her majesty and|| winning grace, stepped forward, and waving to be heard, involuntarily commanded their attention.

less men, who dared to dissent from his great mistress's dictates and his own proceedings, and freely censure both *

Humanity will spare here a recital of those horrible and heart-rending scenes, which Persecution; under the influence of Superstition, was the sanguinary and inexorable author of. Religion and her train beheld them with agonized resignation. With indignant horror; they saw too, that love, admiration, and zeal for Religion and Truth, were made the pre text. Too well, alas! they knew the real motives. Superstition, luxurious in living, avaricious of wealth, proud of distinction, and ambitious of power, can plead no palliatives of ignorance and imbecility. No! her propensities, her appetites proclaim her origin, her ultimate hope; these are too gross to have their origin in heaven; to reflect on the alter

"Victims of delusion and headstrong pas sion,” she cried, "have you maturely weighed the motives, means, and end of your present furious opposition and unprovoked malice? Why would you imbrue your hands in the innocent blood of those who never wronged you; of those who come your friends, your guardians, and your guides? Beings who have exchanged the unfading joys of heaven, to diffuse peace and happiness on earth, and give you, O men! a just and lawful claim to those immortal blessings, which, till time is lust in eternity, they, to promote, have freely relinquished! What may be our crimes, in what have we of fended?" A barbarous and confused murmur of mingled sensations ran through the crowd, and many were not wanting to approve, nay, adopt the sentiments and espouse the cause of Religion. Some converts, bolder and more zealous than the rest, remonstrated in strong and warm terms against the councils of Superstition and the violence of Persecution. On these the vengeance meditated against Religion and her attendants, was immediately turned. Persecution, awed by the unaffected and benign dignity, which in Religion soothed to momentary veneration an infuriate and bigoted mob, for the first time, doubted his power to execute the commands of Supersti-blish their dominion over mankind. tion, the destruction of Religion and her followers. He trembled at the consequences which might result from a failure in the attempt. The early disciple, it is true, of Superstition, he implicitly bowed assent to her opinions, had full confidence in her power, and felt, like her, the necessity of their extinction; but she had taught, and her precepts with him were infallible-that devils are im

native would be intolerablc-would embitter the present enjoyments; she is therefore of earth. Sensual Superstition is rank Atheism. For ages had she, by the aid of Persecution and the gross ignorance of the milliou, retained her power over Europe, in defiance of Religion and her attendants. The wise and good, it is true, at all times revered and loved them; their temples were erected in their hearts; they wept in secret those miseries they could not redress, and hoped the all-perfect and radiant, but modest and unobtrusive charms of Religion and her divine followers, would, one day, have their proper influence in vanquishing those préjudices, and finally esta

At length true Science and Reason rose refulgent over the night of Ignorance and Sophistry, they prevailed on Superstition to admit Tolerance as a mediator in their differences, and then openly espoused the cause of Religion, drawing auxiliaries after them from au admiring and enlightened world. Toleration added daily strength to the empire of Re"ligion, by softening down and polishing inté

arbanity the gloomy, harsh, and rankling prejudices of Superstition. Persecution saw, with Legret, her power decline, curtailed, and confined to the dregs of mankind; deserted even by those whose interest it was to promote her rule; abashed, dismayed, and terrified, he fled her service, and vulture-like, flips his beavy blood-stained wings in regions of dreary waste and darkness. In the se enlightened and happy Countries, all vestiges of Persecution must shortly be removed, all obnoxious impressions of Superstition be obliterated. Mutual concession in all parties, it is devoutly to be wished, will bauish from the minds of men prejudices which originated in a es of darkness and barbarism. At this epoch, whenever it may arrive, Great Britain will have to celebrate her greatest, best, and most joyful victory!

POSTSCRIPT.-The writer of the preceding allegory cannot be an advocate for intolerance ; those who favour the universal right of man to follow his own opinions in religion, and be the sovereign arbiter in the empire of his own conscience, would have his unqualified approbation, if they did not, at the same time, seek, to give those whose opinions and tenets have been proved hostile to the state in which they

are professed and tolerated, that species of power which many well disposed persons ap prehend might prove dangerous to the very existence of that state by which they are piotected. He must confess that ferro:s of this nature appear to his mind as preposterous and futile, as the exploded and despised appre hensions arisug from necromancy and wichcraft. Superstition herself is no longer clothed in terrors or attended by persecution. But his opinions, on many subjects, might have too great a latitude to be taken by others as a guide.

Every allowance should be made to those who oppose giving a full participation of power to Roman Catholics and Dissenters, on a candid and fair retrospection of what all know has occurred since the Reformation. The experiment, no doubt, would be philanthropic and generous, it is merely possible it may prove a dangerous one. Something still is wanting to make this measure palatable to the majority of Protestants. This writer, however, has so full a conviction of its absolute necessity at this eventful period, that he would wish to see it adopted as suddenly as practicable, on the broad basis of mutual confidence and esteem.

FAIR LADIES!

ON THE FRENCH FASHIONS..

ALLOW me so to address my country-women, whom I cannot but consider as possessing la belle assemblée of all the female graces? A gentle friend of mine, a lady of observation and taste, has just returned from France, and brings such intelligence from that emporium of fashion, that I cannot, without injury to the sex, withhold its publication.

of which it is the type. The latter I must leave the moralist to correct, and his lessons will best be found in the precepts of our grandsices, drawn from the sacred book of truth. The former, as fashion introduced it, fashion must remove. Fashion brought the gay Cytherean mode of dress from France ; and fashion, from the same country, would now. offer its antidote.

From age to age, since the descent of William the Norman, we have received our modes from the opposite coast. times the importation has been good, oftener bad; at least, of late years, we have reason to regret the example of its manners, and the dereliction from principle they would in- || culcate. With the unloosened zone of France, shape, and have assumed flowing drapery. our ladies have adopted a freedom of conduct, Prodigious fullness of neck, so much the No. XXII. Vol. IV.-N. S.

To this end, I shall repeat to my fair readers the accounts which my friend has Some-brought of the present costume of the Thuilleries.

In the place of the buckram stay, and scanty garment, which is now the mode in England, the French ladies preserve an easy

M

Vogue with us, is there deemed coarseness and vulgarity.

To make my meaning be more clearly understood, allow me to draw a picture of a British beauty of twenty-five, and a French belle at the same age.

able to move, fancy that the grace of their proportions is displayed by such a dress. But, were they shaped like Venus herself, not one graceful line could be discovered under the cut of their petticoats. All is close, square, disgusting. It is the flowing drapery alone, which displays all the fine proportions of figure, all the grace of movement, all the elegance of air.

This idea, taken from the true Grecian school, is the presiding principle of the present mode of female dress in France. The form of youthful beauty is expected to have slight and delicate contours; neither redundant nor spare, all is to be round, soft, gliding, and harmonious. A short corset, fitted exactly to the natural shape, without permitting any attempt to push the form out of its place, displays the whole of its elegance with ease and modesty. The shape, and not the surface of the bosom is seen. A slight veil of lawn, lace, or muslin, bides it from the eye of man. Not more of the back is seen than what maidenly reserve and taste requires. The are covered to half way down the elbow; and the whole figure being left free from excessive

The Englishwoman must be em-bon-point at leo; an excess of plumpness has been admired in our fair, ever since a passion for feeding cattle has become the vogue with our Jords and gentry. Not satisfied with this redundance of bulk in her figure, she must increase it in certain parts by compressions and bolstering. Her bosom, which nature planted at the bottom of her chest, must be pushed up by means of waddings and whalebone, to a station so wear her chin, that in very full subjects that feature is sometimes lost between the invading monads. The stays (or coat of mail) must then be laced tight as strength can draw the cord, to the waist and over the hips. The whole person, excepting the bosom, arms, and legs, is thus put in a vice; and the consequence is, not only the shape is thrust out of its proper place, but the blood is thrown forcibly (and kept there) into the neck, face, and arms. By this means alligatures and compressions, preserves its nadelicacy of form and colour is destroyed; and were it not for the fine apparel of our ladies, we should be at a loss, on the first glance to decide, by their redundancy and universal redness, whether they were nurses or cooks.

Over this strangely manuf.ctured figure, a scanty petticoat, and as scanty a gown is put. The latter resembles a bolster slip more than a garment; and not content with the closeness of its adherence round the body, it is cut away at the breast and back, to shew the bosom and shoulders naked; and the sleeves are snipped off, to make a similar exhibition of the red bursting arms. Could our graceful mothers of the last century behold their female descendants, they would suppose them ready prepared for washing, or being washed.

arms.

arms are

tural soft and tender hue-You behold the lily and the rose blending in the face, the snowy bosom, and the white and polished The gown is fitted gracefully to the shape, and flowing from "the slender waist” in elegant folds, by an easy adaption of itself to the free limbs as the wearer walks or moves, shews the form in a thousand lovely turns and attitudes.

Such was the real Grecian mode; so was Aspasia and Sappho habited; and in like mauMer the beautiful women in France now adorn their persons. If they look like nymphs in such apparel, would our more lovely countrywomen adopt it, they might be mistaken for angels.

Besides the arguments I have used to per

In short, they look more like great hoydening || suade them to lay aside the buckram boddice,

school girls, in their frocks and blowsed looks, than elegant women, accomplished to charm the hearts of taste and delicacy.

and the scanty petticoat, for the sake of taste, they must allow me to add a few words in behalf of their health, and of their mater

And what is very preposterous, these figares,nal hopes, if ever they enter into the nuptial

sewed up in their garments, like Egyptian mummies, or swaddled like babes un

state.

The excessive compression of those close