ed at something beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a Monk's shoulders, best knows; but it would have suited Bramin; and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.

The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes ; one might put it into the hands of any one to design; for . it was neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so. It was a thin spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure-but it was the attitude of entreaty; and as at it now stands present to my imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.

When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journeyed being in his right) when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order-and did it with so simple a grace, and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure-I was bewitched not to have been struck with it.

A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sous.

'Tis very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with which he had concluded his address-it is very true and heaven be their resources, who have no other but the charity of the world; the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claimswhich are hourly made upon it.

As I pronounced the words great claims, he gave a slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tu nic-I felt the full force of the appeal-I acknowledge it, said I a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, with a meagre diet-are no great matters; but the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund, which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm; the captive, who lies down counting over and over again, in the days of his affliction, languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the order of mercy, instead of

the order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate. The Monk made me a bow. But, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon the English shore. The Monk gave a cordial wave with his head-as much as to say, No doubt; there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. But we distinguish, said J, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal-we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour-and those who eat the bread of other peoples, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God.

The poor Franciscan made no reply; a hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry.Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him. He showed none-but letting his staff fall within his arms, he pressed both his hands with resignation on his breast, and retired.

My heart smote me the moment he shut the door.Pshaw! said I, with an air of carlessness, three several times. But it would not do; every ungracious syllable I had uttered, crowded back in my imagination. I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language1 considered his gray hairs, his courteous figure seemed to reenter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus ?-I would have given twenty livres for an advocate-1 have behaved very ill, said I, within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along.

XI.-On the Headdress of the Ladies.-SPECTATor. THERE is not so variable a thing in nature, as a lady's headdress; within my own memory, I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees. About ten years ago, it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the The women were of such an enormous stature,

men.

At

that "we appeared as grasshoppers before them." present, the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of beauties, that seem almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once very near seyen feet high, that at present want some inches of five: How they came to be thus curtailed, I cannot learn ; wheth er the whole sex be at present under any pennance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their headdresses, in order to surprize us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new; or whether some of the tallest of the sex, being too cunning for the rest, have contrived this method to make themselves appear sizeable, is still a secret; though I find most are of opinion, they are at present like trees new lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout out, and flourish with greater heads than before. For my own part, as I do not love to be insulted by women who are taller than myself, I admire the sex much more in their present humiliation, which has reduced them to their natural dimensions, than when they had extended their persons, and lengthened themselves out into formidable and gigantic figures. I am not for adding to the beautiful edifices of nature, nor for raising any whimsical superstructure upon her plans: I must therefore repeat it, that I am highly pleased with the coiffure now in fashion, and think it shows the good sense which at present very much reigns among the valuable part of the sex. One may observe that women in all ages have taken more pains than men to adorn the outside of their heads; and indeed I very much admire that those architects who raise such powerful structures out of ribands, lace and wire, have not been recorded for their respective inventions. It is certain there have been as many orders in these kind of buildings, as in those which have been made of marble; sometimes they rise in the shape of a pyramid, sometimes like a tower, and sometimes like a steeple. In Juvenal's time, the building grew by several orders and stories, as he has very humourously described it :

With curls on curls they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower;

A giantess she seerns; but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind,

But I do not remember, in any part of my reading, that the headdress aspired to so great an extravagancé, as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires, which stood so excessively high on each side of the head, that a woman who was but a pig. my without her headdress, appeared like a colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur Paradin says, "That these old fashioned fortages rose an ell above the head, that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of crape fastened to the tops of them, which were curiously fringed, and hung down their backs like streamers."

The women might possibly have carried this Gothic building much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Connecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and resolu tion. This holy man travelled from place to place, to preach down this monstrous commode; and succeeded so well in it, that, as the magicians sacrifice their books to the flames, upon the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their headdress in the middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned, as well for the sanctity of his life, as his manner of preaching, that he had often a congregation of twenty thousand people; the men placing themselves on the one side of his pulpit; and the women on the other-they appeared, to use the similitude of an ingenious writer, like a forest of cedars, with their heads reaching to the clouds. He so warmed and animated the people against this monstrous ornament, that it lay under a kind of persecution; and whenever it appeared in public, was pelted down by the rabble, who flung stones at the person who wore it. But, notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while the preacher was among them, it began to appear again some months after his departure, or to tell it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, "The women, that like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over." This extravagance of the women's headdresses in that age, is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre, in the history of Bretagne, and by other historians, as well as the person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for the making of laws against the exorbitance of

power; in the same manner an excessive headdress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers, by way of prevention.

I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental, to what is already the masterpiece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station in the human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face: She has touched it with vermillion; planted in it a double row of ivory; made it the seat of smiles and blushes; lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes; hung it on each side with curious organs of sense; given it airs and graces that cannot be described; and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair, as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light; in short she seemed to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribbands and bone lace.

XII-On the present and a future state.—IB. A LEWD young fellow seeing an aged hermit go by him barefoot," Father," says he, " you are in a very miserable condition, if there is not another world." "True, son," said the hermit; "but what is thy condition if there is ?"-Man is a creature designed for two different states of being, or rather for two different lives. His first life is short and transient; his second permanent and lasting. The question we are all concerned in, is this-In which of these two lives is it our chief interest to make ourselves happy? Or, in other words-Whether we should endeav⚫ our to secure to ourselves the pleasures and gratifications of a life which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmost length, of a very inconsiderable duration; or to se cure to ourselves the pleasures of a life which is fixed and settled, and will never end? Every man, upon the first hearing of this question, knows very well which side of it he ought to close with. But however right we are in theory, it is plain, that in practice we adhere to the wrong

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