I must observe, that the word corcomb is of the common gender, both masculine and feminine, and that the male coxcombs are equalled in number by the female ones, who shall be the =subject of my next paper.

AFFECTATION IN THE FEMALE SEX.

Having, in my former paper, censured, with freedom, the affectations and follies of my own sex, I flatter myself, that I shall meet with the indulgence of the ladies, while I consider, with the same impartiality, those weaknesses and vanities, to which their sex is as liable as ours, and, if I dare say so, rather more, as their sphere of action is more bounded and circumscribed. Man's province is universal, and comprehends every thing, from the culture of the earth to the government of it; men only become coxcombs, by assuming particular characters, for which they are particularly unfit, though others may shine in those very characters. But the case of the fair sex is quite different; for there are many characters, which are not of the feminine gender, and, consequently, there may be two kinds of woman coxcombs; those who affect what does not fall within their department, and those who go out of their own natural characters, though they keep within the female province.

I should be very sorry to offend, where I only mean to advise and reform; I therefore

expressive gesticulations of the fan, modestly confessing, every now and then, by way of parenthesis, that possibly it may be thought presumption in a woman to talk at all upon these matters. In the mean time, her unhappy hearer stifles a thousand gapes, assents universally to whatever she says, in the hope of shortening the conversation, and carefully watches the first favourable opportunity, which any motion in the company gives him, of making his escape from this excellent solid understanding. Thus deserted, but not discouraged, she takes the whole company in their turns, and has, for every one, a whisper of equal importance. If Eudosia would content herself with her natural talents, play at cards, make tea and visits, talk to her dog often, and to her company but sometimes, she would not be ridiculous, but bear a very tolerable part in the polite world. Sydaria had beauty enough to have excused, while young, her want of common sense. she scorned the fortuitous and precarious triumphs of beauty. She would conquer only by the charms of her mind. A union of hearts, a delicacy of sentiments, a mental adoration, a sort of tender quietism, were what she long sought for, and never found. Thus nature struggled with sentiment till she was five-andforty, but then got the better of it in such a degree, that she made very advantageous proposals to an Irish ensign of one-and-twenty; equally ridiculous in her age and in her youth.

But

Canidia, withered by age, and shattered by nfirmities, totters under the load of her mislaced ornaments, and her dress varies accordng to the freshest advices from Paris, instead of conforming itself, as it ought, to the directions of her undertaker. Her mind, as weak as her body, is absurdly adorned: she talks politics and metaphysics, mangles the terms of each, and, if there be sense in either, most infallibly puzzles it; adding intricacy to politics, and darkness to mysteries; equally ridiculous in this world and the next.

I shall not now enter into an examination of the lesser affectations (most of them are pardonable, and many of them are pretty, if their owners are so); but confine my present animadversions to the affectations of ill-suited characters, for I would by no means deprive my fair countrywomen of their genteel little terrors, antipathies, and affections. The alternate panics of thieves, spiders, ghosts, and thunder, are allowable to youth and beauty, provided they do not survive them. But what I mean is, to prevail with them to act their own natural parts, and not other people's; and to convince them, that even their own imperfections will become them better than the borrowed perfections of others.

Should some lady of spirit, unjustly offended at these restrictions, ask what province I leave to their sex, I answer, that I leave them whatever has not been peculiarly assigned by nature

to ours. I leave them a mighty empire-Love. There they reign absolute, and by unquestioned right, while beauty supports their throne. They have all the talents requisite for that soft empire, and the ablest of our sex cannot contend with them in the profound knowledge and conduct of those arcana. But, then, those who are deposed by years or accidents, or those who by nature were never qualified to reign, should content themselves with the private care and economy of their families, and the diligent discharge of domestic duties.

I take the fabulous birth of Minerva, the goddess of arms, wisdom, arts, and sciences, to have been an allegory of the ancients, calculated to show, that women of natural and usual births must not aim at those accomplishments. She sprang armed out of Jupiter's head, without the co-operation of his consort Juno; and, as such only, had those great provinces assigned her.

I confess one has read of ladies, such as Semiramis, Thalestris, and others, who have made very considerable figures in the most heroic and manly parts of life; but, considering the great antiquity of those histories, and how much they are mixed up with fables, one is at liberty to question either the facts, or the sex. Besides that, the most ingenious and erudite Conrad Wolfgang Laboriosus Nugatorius, of Hall in Saxony, has proved to a demonstration, the fourteenth volume, page 2981, of his

learned treatise De Hermaphroditis, that all the reputed female heroines of antiquity were of this Epicene species, though, out of regard to the fair and modest part of my readers, I dare not quote the several facts and reasonings with which he supports this assertion; and as for the heroines of modern date, we have more than suspicions of their being at least of the Epicene gender. The greatest monarch that ever filled the British throne, till very lately, was queen Elizabeth, of whose sex we have abundant reason to doubt, history furnishing us with many instances of the manhood of that princess, without leaving us one single symptom or indication of the woman; and thus much is certain, that she thought it improper for her to marry a man. The great Christina, queen of Sweden, was allowed by every body to be above her sex, and the masculine was so predominant in her composition, that she even conformed, at last, to its dress, and ended her days in Italy. I therefore require that those women, who insist upon going beyond the bounds allotted to their sex, should previously declare themselves in form hermaphrodites, and be registered as such in their several parishes; till when I shall not suffer them to confound politics, perplex metaphysics, and darken mysteries.

How amiable may a woman be, what a comfort and delight to her acquaintance, her friends, her relations, her lover, or her husband,