is the only animal that, leaving his fellows, attempts to cultivate the friendship of man: to man he looks, in all his necessities, with speaking eye, for assistance; exerts for him all the little service in his power with cheerfulness and pleasure; for him bears famine and fatigue with patience and resignation; no injuries can abate his fidelity, no distress induce him to forsake his benefactor; studious to please, and fearing to offend, he is still an humble steadfast dependant; and in him alone fawning is not flattery. How unkind then to torture this faithful creature, who has left the forest to claim the protection of man! How ungrateful a return to the trusty animal for all its services!

ON THE LADIES' PASSION FOR LEVELLING ALL DISTINCTION OF DRESS.

FOREIGNERS observe, that there are no ladies in the world more beautiful, or more ill-dressed than those of England. Our country women have been com. pared to those pictures, where the face is the work of a Raphael, but the draperies thrown out by some empty pretender, destitute of taste, and entirely unacquainted with design.

If I were a poet, I might observe, on this occasion, that so much beauty, set off with all the advantages of dress, would be too powerful an antagonist for the opposite sex; and therefore it was wisely order

ed that our ladies should want taste, lest their admirers should entirely want réason.

But to confess a truth, I do not find they have a greater aversion to fine clothes than the women of any other country whatsoever. I cannot fancy that a shopkeeper's wife in Cheapside has a greater tenderness for the fortune of her husband, than a citizen's wife in Paris; or that miss in a boarding-school is more an economist in dress than mademoiselle in a nunnery.

Although Paris may be accounted the soil in which almost every fashion takes its rise, its influence is never so general there as with us. They study there the happy method of uniting grace and fashion, and never excuse a woman for being awkwardly dressed, by saying her clothes are in the mode. A French woman is a perfect architect in dress; she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a squabby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.

town.

The English ladies, on the contrary, seem to have no other standard of grace but the run of the If fashion gives the word, every distinction of beauty, complexion, or stature, ceases. Sweeping trains, Prussian bonnets, and trollopees, as like each other as if cut from the same piece, level all to one standard. The Mall, the gardens and playhouses, are filled with ladies in uniform; and their whole appearance shows as little variety of taste as

if their clothes were bespoke by the colonel of a marching regiment, or fancied by the artist who dresses the three battalions of guards.

But not only the ladies of every shape and complexion, but of every age too, are possessed of this unaccountable passion for levelling all distinction in dress. The lady of no quality travels first behind the lady of some quality; and a woman of sixty is as gaudy as her granddaughter. A friend of mine a good-natured old man, amused me the other day with an account of his journey to the Mall. It seems, in his walk thither, he, for some time, followed a lady, who, as he thought by her dress, was a girl of fifteen. It was airy, elegant, and youthful. My old friend had called up all his poetry on this occasion, and fancied twenty Cupids prepared for execution in every folding of her white negligee. He had prepared his imagination for an angel's face; but what was his mortification to find that the imaginary goddess was no other than his cousin Hannah, some years older than himself!

But to give it in his own words: 'After the transports of our first salute,' said he,' were over, I could not avoid running my eye over her whole appearance. Her gown was of cambric, cut short before, in order to discover a high-heeled shoe, which was buckled almost at the toe. Her cap consisted of a few bits of cambric, and flowers of painted paper stuck on one side of her head. Her bosom, that had felt no hand but the hand of time these twenty years, rose, suing to be pressed. I could, indeed,

have wished her more than a handkerchief of Paris net to shade her beauties; for, as Tasso says of the rose-bud, Quanto si mostra men, tanto e piu bella. A female breast is generally thought most beautiful as it is more sparingly discovered.

'As my cousin had not put on all this finery for nothing, she was at that time sallying out to the Park, where I had overtaken her. Perceiving however, that I had on my best wig, she offered, if I would squire her there, to send home the footman. Though I trembled for our reception in public, yet I could not, with any civility, refuse; so, to be as gallant as possible, I took her hand in my arm, and thus we marched on together.

'When we made our entry at the Park, two antiquated figures, so polite and so tender, soon attracted the eyes of the company. As we made our way among crowds who were out to show their finery as well as we, wherever we came, I perceived we brought good humour with us. The polite could not forbear smiling, and the vulgar burst out into a horse-laugh, at our grotesque figures. Cousin Hannah, who was perfectly conscious of the rectitude of her own appearance, attributed all this mirth to the oddity of mine; while I as cordially placed the whole to her account. Thus, from being two of the bestnatured creatures alive, before we got half way up the Mall, we both began to grow peevish, and, like two mice on a string, endeavoured to revenge the impertinence of others upon ourselves. 'I am amazed, cousin Jeffery,' says miss,' that I can never get

you to dress like a Christian. I knew we should have the eyes of the Park upon us, with your great wig, so frizled, and yet so beggarly, and your monstrous muff. I hate those odious muffs' I could have patiently borne a criticism on all the rest of my equippage; but as I had always a peculiar veneration for my muff, I could not forbear being piqued a little; and throwing my eyes with a spiteful air on her bo'I could heartily wish, madam,' replied I, 'that, for your sake, my muff was cut into a tippet.'

som,

'As my cousin, by this time, was grown heartily ashamed of her gentleman-usher, and as I was never very fond of any kind of exhibition myself, it was mutually agreed to retire for a while to one of the seats, and, from that retreat, remark on others as freely as they had remarked on us

For

'When seated, we continued silent for some time, employed in very different speculations. I regarded the whole company, now passing in review before me, as drawn out merely for my amusement. my entertainment the beauty had, all that morning, been improving her charms: the beau had put on lace, and the young doctor a big wig, merely to please me. But quite different were the sentiments of cousin Hannah : she regarded every well-dressed woman as a victorious rival; hated every face that seemed dressed in good humour, or wore the appearance of greater happiness than her own. I perceived her uneasiness, and attempted to lessen it, by observing that there was no company in the Park to day. To this she readily assented; ' And yet,' says