ples of very finical men who were very great heroes: yet as it might perhaps be better, even in time of peace, that men should not attend so entirely to their persons, I would endeavour to strike at the root of the evil. It is, I believe, admitted as a truth in inoculation, that the part where the incision is made, is usually the fullest of any part of the body. I would propose therefore, with regard to our male children, that we should follow the original Circassian manner, and "aim at their faces." A general practice of this kind might be extremely useful to the state: the literary world would I am sure be the better for it; for what mother could be averse to having her sons taught to read, when perhaps the eye-lashes were gone, and the eyes themselves no longer worth preserving? Considerations of this sort will I hope induce some projector by profession to undertake the affair, and draw up, what may properly enough be styled, "a scheme for raising men for the service of the public."

'I must however do justice to the fair youths of the present age, by confessing that many of them seem conscious of their imperfections; and, as far as their own judgments can direct them, take pains to appear manly. But, alas! the methods they pursue, like most mistaken applications, rather aggravate the calamity. Their drinking and raking only makes them look like old maids. Their swearing is almost as shocking as it would be in the other sex. Their chewing tobacco not only offends, but makes us apprehensive at the same time that the poor things will be sick. When they talk to common women as they pass them in the Mall, they seem as much out of character as Mrs. Woffington in Sir Harry Wildair, making love to Angelica. In short, every part of their conduct, though perhaps well intended, is extremely unnatural. Whereas if they would only spend half the

pains in acquiring a little knowledge, and practising a little decency, we might perhaps be brought to endure them; at least, we should be less shocked with their beauty.

'When I look back on what I have written, I am a little afraid that my zeal for the public may have hurried me too far; for as we are taught to pity natural defects, we ought to be tender of blaming the errors they occasion. But what shall we say, Mr. Fitz-Adam, to another set of animals, whom nature certainly designed for men, and made, as Mr. Pope says, "their souls bullet, and their bodies buff?" When these louts of six feet high, with the shoulders of porters, and the legs of chairmen, affect" to lisp and to amble, and to nick-name God's creatures," surely we may laugh at such incorrigible idiots. The fair youth of a less gentle deportment aim at least at what they imagine to be manly: but these dairymaids in breeches leave their sex behind them at their first setting out, and give up the only qualities which they could be possibly admired for.

Any one who is conversant in the world must have seen numbers of this latter sort; some of them tripping, others lolloping in their gait (if I may be allowed such expressions), and many of them so very affected, that they cannot even see with their eyes, but at most pinker through the lashes of them, when they would languish in public at some mistress of theirs and the whole town's affections. Their voices too have a peculiar softness, and are scarce ever raised, unless it be at the playhouse to make an appointment for the King's Arms, or to dispatch an orange wench on a message to a balcony.

of

In short, Mr. Fitz-Adam, what with natural and acquired effeminacy, the present age seems an age affectation. The whole head is weak, and the whole heart sick. And yet (that I may not leave your

readers with disagreeable ideas in their minds) notwithstanding these alarming appearances, the eye of a philosopher can still trace out something to counterbalance this amazing degeneracy. However desperate the vulgar may think our situation, we, who see the fervour of the torrid zone sweetly compensated by copious dews, and everlasting breezes, and the whole system of nature admirably adjusted; we, I say, see likewise that this human defect is not left without its remedy. However delicate our men are become, we may still hope that the rising generation will not be totally enervated. The assured look, the exalted voice, and theatrical step, of our modern females, pretty sufficiently convince us that there is something manly still left amongst us. So that we may reasonably conclude, though the male and female accomplishments may be strangely scattered and disposed of between the sexes, yet they will somehow or other be jumbled together in that complicated. animal, a man and his wife. I am, Sir, Your humble servant,

S. H.'

No 59. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1754..

'SIR,

"To MR. FITZ-ĀDAM.

and con

"I AM a constant reader of your papers, gratulate you upon the men of wit you have for your correspondents. I do not pretend to add to the number, and shall only attempt to furnish you with a few hints, which considered and formed into order by a writer of your ability, may possibly be produc tive of entertainment (at least) to the public.

"Your letters upon the modern taste in gardening are, in my judgment, excellent in their kind; and so indeed are those upon architecture, as far as they go: but methinks you have not carried your observations quite far enough; nor have you any where remarked the injustice and ingratitude with which those worthy patriots are treated, who ruin their estates, or lay out the fortunes of their younger children on their seats and villas, to the great embellishment of this kingdom, which (if it is not already one great and complete garden) contains at least more sumptuous country-houses, parks, gardens, temples, and buildings, than all the rest of Europe. If you are in danger of losing yourself on the vast and dreary wastes of some comfortless heath, and are directed on your course by a friendly beacon of prodigious height, you are told that this is such a gentleman's folly. The munificence of a man of taste raises at an immoderate expense a column or turret in his garden, for no other purpose than the generous one of giving delight and wonder to travellers; and the ungrateful public calls it his folly. Nay, were her late majesty Queen Anne, of pious memory, to reign again, and fifty new churches to be really built, I doubt if in this dissolute age, this also might not be called her majesty's folly.

'But notwithstanding these discouragements, I am daily entertained with new beauties; and it is with great impatience that I wait the completion of a Chinese temple, now rising on the top of a very elegant villa upon the road-side near Brompton. I have often too, with great satisfaction, beheld a structure of this kind, on the top of a very handsome greenhouse, now in the possession of a noble foreigner at Turnham-green; which, as I am informed, is a matter of great curiosity to his countrymen who frequent it; nothing of this sort being to be met with in the

environs of Paris, or indeed of Pekin itself, or in any country but this. A most majestic peacock, as big as the life, on the spindle of a weathercock, adds also to its merit; which with all the beauty of the bird itself, has not its disagreeable vociferous quality; and though it does not foretel by its noise a change in the weather, it informs you with more certainty of the variation of the wind.

'I am somewhat of an invalid, and being sensible how much exercise conduces to health, I seldom fail, when the weather does not allow me the use of my physician, a trotting horse, to take a flurry (as it is elegantly called) in a hackney-coach; which affords exercise to the imagination as well as the body, and creates thinking (if I may be allowed the expression) as much as it does an appetite. The air of business in the crowds that are constantly passing; the variety of the equipages, and the new and extraordinary sights, that still present themselves in this great metropolis, the centre of trade, industry and invention, fill my mind with ideas, which if they do not always instruct, at least amuse me.

"I take great pleasure in guessing at the ranks and professions of men by their appearance; and though I may now and then be mistaken, yet I am generally in the right. Once indeed I mistook a right reverend divine, on the other side Temple-bar, for a Jew, till the mitre on his coach convinced me of my error; as I also did a Jew, by the decorations on his chariot, for a peer of the realm. And indeed, Mr. FitzAdam, since the herald's-office has suspended its authority, it is surprising what liberties are taken with the arms of the first families in the kingdom; insomuch that a man must have a quick eye who can distinguish between the pillars, flower-pots, and other inventions of the curious painter, and the supporters of the nobility. But what most of all perplex