my actions; for, obey you I will in every minutiæ, even to the sticking on of a piu, or the tyeing of a top-knot. I suppose your Ladyship's blushes will not allow me to dwell with much particularity on the appearance of our primæval parents, when clad with the light of beauty alone! neither would it much gratify your taste, to know whether their garments of leaves (the winding-sheet in which they did penance for their transgres sand bodies, inhabit, with the votaries of fashion, the nations of ancient lore, as little can your Ladyship expect to find him tireman to the more modern, but to him no less obsolete Gauls, ancient Britons, Anglo-Saxons,|| &c. &c. And blessed be my fate, my sweet Countess, that I was not contemporary with the be-leafed or be-ruffed daughters of antitiquity should not have breathed the same air with you; I should not have lived in the beams of thine eyes, have drank the soul'ssion) was merely a thick-woven garland twistdear inspiration from thy lips.-No; daughter of Pharoah, Tyrian Dido, Grecian Helen, Roman Cornelia; I'll none of you!-My happy fate bath matched my natal star with a brighter Juminary than that which shines in your whole constellation!-Move on then, fair planet of my destiny; exert thy influence over my thoughts, my words, and actions; command, and I obey; for 1, thy Æneas, my Dido, will never leave thy shores; thy Paris, my Helen, may bow before thy shrine, for no Menelaus hovers near to brand my proud devotions with the name of crime. And thy lover, thy adorer, bright Cornelia of the British Isle, sees in the youthful widow's virtues, jewels more precious than even those which decked the Roman dame!-Ah, then! my Venus, sweet star, that silvers the shades of — Park, as I stroll beneath them, musing on love and thee; whether thou sheddest thy rays upon my solitary rural walk; or smiles upon me, when springing from my chariot into the crowded doors of the Opera-house in town; still do thy gentle beams warm and eheer my heart; still does my soul feel the same power in the queen of my ascendant! ed round their waists, or literally an apron of fig-leaves sewed together, as translators chose to render it. Our botanists seem to do their best to sanction this interpretation, for they shew us a plant with long wiry points, to which they give the name of Adam's Needle; most boldly insinuating, that with these same prickles, our illustrious forefather turned tailor. For my part, though no very profound Hebrew scholar, I cannot exactly apprehend the text as meant to imply that the leaves were sewed together; and did I translate it, it would certainly sanction the commentary of the painter, who usually paints this earliest garment of our first parents, as a branch of the fig-tree twisted round their waists. Their next apparel, that which was to suit them for the changeful seasons of the world at large, was the skin of beasts. Poor Eve did not even carry a withered bough of Paradise out with her, to remind her of the bower of bliss she had left behind, of the flowers she had scented, the fruit she had gathered, the Elysium of sweets which she had once enjoyed with her beloved, her seduced, her ruined husband! Then, brightest goddess of my wishes, thus I have often heard your gentle sex comdoes thy ardent votary obey thy call; and in plain of their present lot in this wilderness of spite of intervening ages, in spite of unmea- care. Let them henceforth cease reproaching Bured distances; neither time nor space us for our exemption from some of their inshall be obstacles in my path.-I dive intoherent evils.-Let them recollect that from the depths of the one; 1 traverse, with unwearied wing, the far-stretching extremities of the other; seas, mountains, luxuriant vallies, plains, deserts, steppes, savannahs, all are re duced to a span of earth before me, for you command me to bring from amongst their various nations spoils for the temple of fashion! Your fair hand is to consecrate the offering; I present the tribute, and Beauty's self hangs the trophies on her shrine. But still am I to obey from the very letter? Is it a history of the male and female attire, from the first of time, that I am to collect and arrange? Be it so; should it be uninteresting, should it be dull, should it be pedantic, you must blame yourself, dear arbitress of No. XVI. Vel, III.—N. S. the first woman sprang "loss of Paradise, and all our woe!" and, humbled by the con viction, may they indeed strive to smooth the rugged path to man, into which, had it not been for syren woman, he had never entered! Fair daughter of Eve,dear mistress of my fate! thy conscience will whisper how thy charming. toils drew me to thy feet; how thy net ensnared me; plucked me from the field of warlike fame, and now bind me, as the spell of the sweet daughters of the deep, ever thy willing captive. Your enchanting sex are the dictators of ours; and struggle, frown, contend as you will, you connot escape the fate of all despots.; for it has long been proved by experience, and L pbilosophers have passed it into an axiom, "that while the tyrant fastens one end of the chain round the hands of his slave, he rivets the other end to his own neck."-Thus, mutual slaves, mutual sovereigns, let us reign and serve alike! But grant me pardon, my gentle Countess, for this digression, and I shall immediately return within the pale of fashion again. We have no accounts, either from truth or fancy, respecting the change of modes from the time that Adam and Eve left their summer residence in Eden, and walked out, in good warm pelisses, stripped from the backs of sheep or bears, to take possession of their winter abode in the stormy world-until the awful season of the deluge. I have no doubt that I cannot trace either umbrilas, or waterproof coats so far back; but, as we are told of the sons of Noah casting a hyke, or mantle over him, when (a short time after the flood) he lay exposed in his tent, we must be allowed to suppose, that in the latter ages of the antideluvian world, its inhabitants had made much progress in inventions, or to have in stituted and perfected the manufacture of other raiment besides skins of beasts. I shall not enter into the disquisition, whether the family of Noab, and consequently the first settlers in the new world, arising, like your sister Venus, from the "boundless ocean tumbling round the globe!" pitched their tents, on their egress from the ark, in Mesapotamia, in China, or amidst the hyperborean snows. I shall merely follow the steps of fashion where she precedes me; and after leaving the hike of the patriarch of the deluge, I see no trace of any peculiar raiment till I alight on the banks of the Nile. Linen and woollen garments were in use among them at a very remote period. "Vestures of fine linen" were worn by the nobles of the Court of Egypt, as early as the time of Joseph the son of Jacob. And prior to that period the art of weaving must have arrived at considerable excellence, for we are informed of the coat of many colours, which was given by the patriarch Israel to his favourite son. The skins of animals, for winter garments, with woollen cloth for the more temperate seasons, and linen or cotton for the summer months, were all the variety afforded for the wardrobes of prince or peasant in those golden ages. Silk was then totally unknown, and the dye of the garment, rather than the material, was held in estimation. The Egyptians clain the invention of weaving as having been the growth of their nation, and in memory of the pretension, put a shuttle into the hand of their goddess Isis, to. signify that she was the inventress of that art. I am inclined, with the deep-searching Sir William Jones, rather to give a more Eastern origin to all the arts; and, therefore, I do not. doubt but that the accomplished lady to whom they attribute this talent, was, indeed, the first plyer of the weaving art among them; and I as little doubt that she was no Egyptian herself, but rather some benevolent emigrant from climes nearer the primeval seats of man; and that she rather brought than invented the shuttle amongst them. However, we cannot deny that the subjects of Pharoah profited by her lessons, for we read of a certain Phoenician Thais, who, in the days of Solomon, "decked her bed with carpets, and the carved work with fine linen of Egypt." Herodotus dwells on the "fine embroidered linew of Egypt, adorned with figures of animals. woven in the work, and enriched with gold and variety of colours." I will not pretend to say that this ancient produce of the loom was to be compared with the lions and tigers grinning horribly in the speaking (or, perhaps, more properly endited, roaring) worstedwork of the present day; but it was costly and splendid, and that at any time is sufficient credentials into a royal or fashionable wardrobe. The manufactures of those primæval ages, you must hold in your mind, my fair auditor, possessed none of the varieties of Manchester, Norwich, Spitalfields, Paisley, &c. &c.. When we read the word silk in the Old Testament of our Bibles, the learned, and among the rest, the erudite author of our excellent Greek and Hebrew Lexicons (the Rev. Mr. Parkhurst), is of opinion that we ought to translate it cotton. Silk was not adapted to the tse of clothing till towards the conclusion of the Roman Republic, and is particularly noted as an extraordinary, strange, and costly vestment worn by Vespasian and his son Titus, in their triumphal shews. Linen and cotton must then be understood as the most splendid materials with which the belles and beaux of the civilized world, in those early days, could decorate their fine persons. Besides these, we have some accounts from Herodotus and others, of inferior stuffs, made from the hair of animals; and, indeed, the sackcloth of the Jews, which they usually wore in penances and mourning, was composed entirely of a rough, bristly, black hair. This rugged manufactory was seldom put in contact with the human flesh; though, indeed, Diodorus Siculus does relate, whether in a merry mood I will not pretend to decide, of a certain nation of Ethiopian Sans Culottes, who, being in utter despair at their indelicate appearance (perhaps it happened at the time of a certain number of goddesses eloping to those parts!) laid violent hands on the hair of their head, and made themselves each a suit of small cloaths, out of their locks, which fitted them to admiration. We find in the Melpomene of Herodotus a most tragical manufactory for the Sythian wardrobe; those gallant gentlemen, when in want of raiment, did not "rob Peter to pay Paul," or strip the head to clothe the limbs ; but very civilly took the first man they met, plucking his skin over his ears, tanned it, and wore it, as their descendants, the modern Russians, do that of beasts, for warmth and ornament! I cannot doubt that this savage custom had its origin in the glory of arms; therefore, sweet Lady of the myrtle and the olive-branch, I cannot do otherwise than congratulate myself on the mandate that drew your Paris from the field; lest, in the fervour of military ardour, in the triumph of couquest, he had seized some fierce follower of the Corsican, and, flaying him alive, leaped into his skin, and appeared before you, not to be known again!-How would the freshness of a British complexion been recognized through a Frenchman's visage !-Would even my goddess's penetrating glance been able to have discovered the beams of her Paris's lovedeclaring looks, through the little ferrety eyes of my discomfited foe. What would she ́have thought of the approach of such lips to her soft hand, of the whiskerd chin, brushing the pearls of her bracelet? I fear, that had your Paris been Hercules himself, the hero would have been banished your presence, to herd with cannibals and swine, and other anthropophagi. Shudder not then, may fair Urania, at this picture which your Paris has drawn of what might have been; it never now will exist; and instead of a wardrobe selected from the garments which his enemies brought into the world with them, like his predecessor and namesake, the son of Priam, he will never appear before the lady of his heart, but in vestments of finely-wrought linen, garments of woollen, and garments of silk; and whatever etceteras your Ladyship may chuse to command. After most devoutly entreating pardon of your delicacy for so horrid an image as those hideous Scythians have compelled me to place before your eyes, I will do all in my power to obliterate the frightful impression, by leading you to the bowers of the graceful female arts in the task of arraying themselves, and those who deserve their smiles. I can promise your Ladyship not to bring you into company beneath your rank.-Here are not poor mechanics and manufacturers hired at sixpence a day; but ladies, princesses, and queens? I present to your notice the dames of Sidon, whom Homer celebrates, when describing the wardrobe of Hecuba:"There vestures lay, in various colours wrought, [brought "The works of Sidon's dames, from Sidon "By godlike Paris" By the way, if your Ladyship would admit of the epithet, as one that might properly belong to your humble servant, what an apt motto the above quotation would have made to this epistle! If not the real' vestures, the ghosts of them, are brought in those descriptions to your eyes, and by-will you add, the godlike Paris? Tarn not up thy pretty lip, fair dame, at this assumption.-The epithet belongs to me, I deserve it! I will prove it to thee! sweet infidel!-Thou art my goddess Venus Urania!-The gods loved Venus from Vulcan to Jupiter; and I love Venus; hence, like a god I love ;-ergo, I am godlike! Shall I leave you to ponder upon this weighty argument; to dream of the gardens of Antinous, and his fair daughters washing their veils in the stream; or of Minerva presiding at the Grecian beard; or of Andromache making a procession with the produce of her loom to the shrines of Troy; or, will you condescend to leave these visions of old, and dream of Bond-street, Grosvenor-square, and-I dare not say who? Shall I leave you to this fanciful repose, this agreeable travelling on your own couch, this way of living centuries without growing old? Or, am I to go on as before, dragging you after me, over all the habitable globe, ancient and modern, like Don Quixote, with Sancho seated behind him, on the enchanted horseseeing, hearing all things; traversing earth, sea, and skies, without stirring one step from the terra firma of his native land?, I hear you mandate breathed from you fleecy cloud;" Oh, it comes o'er my ear like the sweet south over a bank of violets, stealing and giving odours!" That fleecy cloud floats along in the direction from your native woods, and surely it brings a sigh from my Urania's breast, a mandate to her lover!-It breathes her commands-" Proceed, Paris, or tremble at my displeasure!" I obey, divine arbitress of my time and fate, and my next letter shall contain the fashions, as this has done the materials, of the garments of antiquity. L & PARIS. MR. EDITOR, LAUNCELOT LASTHOPE, THE BACHELOR. As your Magazine is particularly dedi. cated to the use of the lovely and the good part of the creation, you may, perhaps, by the insertion of this letter, prevail on some one of your fair readers to take my disastrous case into consideration. I am, you must know, Sir, an old bachelor; and though I may safely venture to say, in the words of Mrs. Jordan's Mrs. song, "I am sure it is not my own fault," I am yet as much exposed to the derisions and avoidance of the lovely sex, as if my state of celibacy proceeded from choice; and so strong is the general dislike to me, that every thing I do, and every thing I wear, has (in the opinion of the pretty creatures) old bachelor in it. This is hard, for how the deuce is a man to get married if he cannot find a woman who will have him? And this has been literally my case; I might, to be sure, have made love to my cook-maid or laundress, and through the charity of one or the other have got rid of the reproach of "single blessedness;" but this was an expedient that I could not think of having recourse to, for I always had a taste for the society of women of elegant manners and polite acquirements; and by every one of that description, to whom I have applied, I have been refused. Lest your fair readers should conceive that there is something particularly disagreeable in my person or manners, must, in justice to myself assure them, that in my juvenile days I was reckoned handsome; and nobody ever denied me the character of an easy good-tempered fellow; so that I really am at a loss to account for my ill sucess, and can only suppose that it has proceeded from a wrong method of paying my devoirs; but of this you will be better able to judge when I relate to you a few of the circumstances of my life. was the loveliest creature I ever in my life beheld; though twenty-seven years are past since that period, her charming figure (shaped by the hand of symmetry itself) her animated and ingenuous countenance, and the thousand witcheries that sparkled in her eyes and played This in her smiles, are yet present to me. charming girl was the daughter of a country clergyman; who, not having any fortune to bestow upon her, sent her up to London to an aunt who was very fond of her, and who undertook to get her well married. My first sight of Lucinda (for that was her name) was at a ball, where I had the pleasure of dancing with her. I was equally fascinated by the loveliness of her person and the simplicity of her manners. I took care to pay my respects to her the next morning; and as I had some slight acquaintance with her aunt I found no difficulty in obtaining permission to visit her; and in a very short time I became as sighing an enamorato as ever «Penn'd a sonnet to his mistress's eye-brow.” My proposals for Lucinda were readily accepted both by herself and her friends; and our marriage was only deferred for a couple of months until her father could arrive from the country to give us the nuptial benediction. I now thought myself within a single step of the summit of human felicity; but alas! I was doomed to be shipwrecked in sight of port. From the dear and indissoluble tie that was about to be formed between Lucinda and me, I fancied myself privileged to use the freedom of a husband in pointing out to her (though with great gentleness) some little things in her conduct that I disapproved. She had been so accustomed to flattery since her arrival in town, that she resented my conduct as an unpardonable affront; and a young Baronet just then happening to be struck with her, the aunt, who thought it would be a better match than I, chose to be of her niece's opinion. My fair faithless Lucinda sent me my dismission; and in a few weeks after gave her hand to my rival. When I was about twenty-three, my father died; and left me an estate that was sufficient for all the purposes of rational enjoyment. My mother had died while I was yet in my infancy, so that I have no recollection of her; As I had truly loved Lucinda, the loss of her but my father always mentioned her in terms gave me no small uneasiness. My reason, inof tenderness and regret; and from his account deed, pointed out to me how little chance of of the happiness he had enjoyed in wedlock, ! || happiness I could have with such a woman; had a most pious veneration for the holy state, || but my heart refused to acknowledge its cool and formed a resolution to enter into it as unimpassioned dictates, and I sought to find speedily as possible. in dissipation a cure for a passion which I The first lady to whom I paid my addresses could not conquer. My recipe indeed succeeded; but in losing || don out of humour with the ugly as well as the pretty part of the sex. my passion I had nearly lost my life also; for I was for a long time confined with a nervous fever, and on my recovery was ordered into the country by my physicians. I received a most cordial invitation from Mr. Stanhope (a friend of my father's) to make his house my home till I was perfectly convalescent. This invitation I gladly accepted, and in a few weeks I was restored to my usual state of robust bealth. I was in no hurry, however, to conclude my visit. Mr. Stanhope had a daughter, whose person struck me at first sight as being remarkably plain; but a single conversation convinced me, that if nature had been a niggard to the person of Miss Stanhope, she had made more than amends by bestowing upon her an excellent understanding and a lively wit. As I was then an invalid, her good nature led her to devote much of her time to my amusement; we read, walked, and conversed together; and I soon found that Maria Stanhope was become necessary to my happiness. I explained my sentiments to her father, and he referred me to his daughter, who desired time to consider of my proposal. During the time which Miss Stanhope took to deliberate, we were one day conversing upon the passion of love; we differed in opinion upon the subject. She took the side of romantic passion, and I contended for the superiority of rational prepossession; and as a proof that I was right, I instanced my own case. "How much more happiness," cried 1, “my dear Maria, do I hope for from you, whose mental qualities first attracted my regard, than the beautiful, but thoughtless Lucinda could ever have bestowed upon me?" While I was speaking I observed that she changed colour" So," said she after a pause, "I find I am only honoured with your esteem, a very lover-like declaration upon my word; but I can assure you, Sir, that I will never marry any man who is capable of insulting me by an avowal that he once felt the most violent passion for another, and that bis sentiments for me are merely those of cold esteem." I was thunderstruck at her declaration; for, from the excellence of her understanding, I had supposed that she would have been offended had I complimented her person; all I could say in my own vindication was, however, of no avail; I stood convicted of tacitly acknowledging that it was not her person which had attracted me, and that was a crime never to be forgiven. You may be sure that I shortened say stay at her father's, and I returned to Lon. The next lady to whom I made a tender of my hand, was what is termed a good sort of woman. I never should have been particularly struck with her had I not heard that she did me the favour to speak in very flattering terms of me. I obtained permission to visit her, and our affair was going on in all due form, when one evening in company, the conversation happening to turn upon cards, I observed that I never played. "Bless me!" cried she, "I think I heard you say that you meant to spend half the year in the country whenever you commence Benedict." "So I do," replied I. "And how can you possibly contrive to kill time without you play?" said she. "Oh, there are many ways to do it beside cards," cried I; "reading, rational conversation, and sometimes the society of one's neighbours. Of all modes of wasting time," continued I, "cards appear to me the most dangerous; for the habit of gaming is of all others the soonest acquired." "And I have not the least idea," said she pointedly," how any person can exist in the country without cards." No more was said on the subject; but at my next visit, she told me with much formality, that as we differed in opinion upon so essential a point, she could never think of suffering matters to proceed any further between us. I was beginning to assure her that I did not think it a point of the smallest consequence, but she stopped me short, with an assurance that she was convinced we never could be happy together. After such a declaration there was no more to be said. I made the lady a cool bow, and wished her a good morning. The disappointments I had met with in my matrimonial speculations had a little sickened me of the pursuit, and for some time I roved at large; but I was soon tired of venal beauty, and my predilection for the conjugal state returned in its full force. I became acquainted with a very pretty French woman, Mademoiselle Darlemont, whose manners were even more captivating than her person; there was indeed one objection to my addressing her,she was a Roman Catholic; but as I am by no means a bigot, I thought that might be easily waved, if her temper and disposition were as amiable as I conceived them to be. I was, however, determined to be satisfied oa these points before I offered her my hand. |