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and their dreffes; to infinuate how great a fortune you brought, and how little you are allowed to fquander ; to appeal to herfrom your husband, and to be determined by her judgment, because you are fure it will be always for you; to receive and discard fervants by her approbation or diflike; to engage you, by her infinuations, in mifunderstandings with your best friends; to reprefent all things in falfe colours, and to be the common emiffary of fcandal.

BUT the grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preferve the friendship and efteem of your husband. You, are married to a man of good education and learning, of an excellent understanding, and an exact taste. It is true, and it is happy for you, that thefe qualities in him are adorned with great modefty, a moft amiable sweetness of temper, and an unusual difpofition to fobriety and virtue. But neither good-nature nor virtue will fuffer him to esteem you against his judgment; and although he is not capable of ufing you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing indifferent, and perhaps contemptible; unless you can fupply the lofs of youth and beauty with more durable qualities You have but a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months to be fo in the eyes of a husband who is not a fool; for I hope you do not ftill dream of charms and raptures, which marriage ever did, and ever will put a fudden end to. Befides, yours was a match of prudence and common good liking, without any mixture of that ridiculous paffion, which hath no being but in play-books and romances.

You must therefore ufe all endeavours to attain to fome degree of thofe accomplishments, which your hufband most values in other people, and for which he is moft valued himself. You mu't improve your mind by clofely purfuing fuch a method of ftudy as I fhall direct or approve of. You mult get a collection of hiftory and travels, which I will recommend to you, and fpend fome hours every day in reading them, and making extracts from them, if your memory be weak. You must invite perfons of knowledge and underflanding to an acquaintance with you, by whofe converfa

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tion you may learn to correct your tafte and judgment; and when you can bring yourself to comprehend and relifh the good fenfe of others, you will arrive in time to think rightly yourself, and to become a reasonable and agreeable companion. This muft produce in your hufband a true rational love and esteem for you, which old age will not diminish. He will have a regard for your judgment and opinion in matters of the greatest weight; you will be able to entertain each other without a third perfon to relieve you by finding difcourfe. The endowments of your mind will even make your perfon more agreeable to him; and when you are alone, your time will not lie heavy upon your hands for want of fome trifling amufement.

As little refpect as I have for the generality of your fex, it hath fometimes moved me with pity, to fee the lady of the house forced to withdraw immediately, after dinner; and this in families where there is not much drinking; as if it were an established maxim, That women are incapable of all converfation. In a room where both fexes meet, if the men are difcourfing upon any general fubject, the ladies never think it their business to partake in what paffeth ; but, in a separate club, entertain each other with the price and choice of lace, and filk, and what dreffes they liked or difapproved at the church or the play-houfe. And when you are among yourselves, how naturally, after the firft compliments, do you apply your hands to each others lappets, and ruffles, and mantuas; as if the whole bufinefs of your lives, and the public concern of the world, depended upon the cut or colour of your dreffes? As divines fay, that fome people take more pains to be damned, than it would coft them to be faved; so your fex employs more thought, memory, and application. to be fools, than would serve to make them wife and ufeful. When I reflect on this, I cannot conceive you to be human creatures, but a fort of fpecies hardly a degree above a monkey; who hath more diverting tricks than any of you, is an animal lefs mifchievous and expenfive, might in time be a tolerable critic in velvet and brocade, and, for aught I know, would equally become them.

I would have you look upon finery as a neceffary folly;

which all great ladies did, whom I have ever known. I do not defire you to be out of the fashion, but to be the last and least in it. I expect, that your dress fhall be one degree lower than your fortune can afford; and, in your own heart, I could wish you to be an utter contemner of all diftinctions which a finer petticoat can give you; because it will neither make you richer, handfomer, younger, better-natured, more virtuous or wife, than if it hung upon a peg.

IF you are in company with men of learning, tho' they happen to discourse of arts and fciences out of your compafs, yet you will gain more advantage by liftening to them, than from all the nonfenfe and frippery of your own fex ; but if they be men of breeding as well as learning, they will feldom engage in any converfation where you ought not to be a hearer, and in time have your part. If they talk of the manners and customs of the feveral kingdoms of Europe, of travels into remoter nations, of the ftate of their own country, or of the great men and actions of Greece and Rome; if they give their judgment upon English and French writers, either in verfe or profe, or of the nature and limits of virtue and vice; it is a fhame for an English lady not to relifh fuch difcourfes, not to improve by them, and endeavour, by reading and information, to have her share in thofe entertainments, rather than turn aside, as it is the ufual cuftom, and confult with the woman who fits next her, about a new cargo of fans.

Ir is a little hard, that not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand should be brought to read or understand her own natural tongue, or be judge of the easiest books that are written in it; as any one may find, who can have the patience to hear them, when they are difpofed to mangle a play or a novel; where the leaft word out of the common road, is fure to difconcert them; and it is no wonder, when they are not fo much as taught to fpell in their childhood, nor can ever attain to it in their whole lives. I advise you therefore to read aloud, more or lefs, every day to your husband, if he will permit you, or to any other friend (but not a female one) who is able to fet you right. And as for fpelling, you may com

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pafs it in time, by making collections from the books. you read.

I know very well, that those who are commonly called learned women, have lost all manner of credit, by their impertinent talkativeness, and conceit of themfelves. But there is an eafy remedy for this; if you once confider, that, after all the pains you may be at, you never can arrive, in point of learning, to the perfection of a schoolboy. The reading I would advise you to, is only for improvement of your own good fenfe, which will never fail of being mended by difcretion. It is a wrong method, and ill choice of books, that makes thofe learned ladies juft fo much the worse for what they have read. And therefore it fhall be my care to direct you better; a tafk for which I take myself to be not ill qualified; because I have spent more time, and have had more opportunities than many others, to obferve and difcover, from what fources the various follies of women are derived.

PRAY obferve, how infignificant things are the common race of ladies, when they have paffed their youth and beauty; how contemptible they appear to the men, and yet more contemptible to the younger part of their own fex; and have no relief, but in paffing their afternoons in vifits, where they are never acceptable; and their evenings at cards among each other; while the former part of the day is fpent in fpleen and envy, or in vain endeavours to repair, by art and dress, the ruins of time. Whereas I have known ladies at fixty, to whom all the polite part of the court and town paid their addreffes, without any farther view, than that of enjoying the pleasure of their converfation.

I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a man, which is not equally fo in a woman. I do not except even modefty and gentlenefs of nature. Nor do I know one vice or folly, which is not equally deteftable, in both. There is indeed one infirmity, which is generally allowed you; I mean that of cowardice. Yet there fhould feem to be fomething very capricious, that when women profefs their admiration for a colonel or a captain, on account of his valour, they fhould fancy it a very graceful becoming quality in themfelves, to be afraid

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of their own fhadows; to fcream in a barge, when the weather is calmeft, or in a coach at the ring; to run from a cow at a hundred yards distance; to fall into fits at the fight of a spider, an earwig, or a frog. At least, if cowardice be a fign of cruelty, (as it is generally granted), I can hardly think it an accomplishment fo defirable, as to be thought worth improving by affectation.

AND as the fame virtues equally become both fexes, fo there is no quality whereby women endeavour to dif tinguish themselves from men, for which they are not just fo much the worse, except that only of refervedness; which however, as you generally manage it, is nothing elfe but affectation or hypocrify. For as you cannot too much discountenance thofe of our fex who presume to take unbecoming liberty before you, fo you ought to be wholly unconftrained in the company of deferving men, when you have had fufficient experience of their discretion.

THERE is never wanting in this town a tribe of bold; fwaggering, rattling ladies, whofe talents pafs among coxcombs for wit and humour; their excellency lies in rude choking expreffions, and what they cail running a man down. If a gentleman in their company happens to have any blemish in his birth or perfon, if any misfortune hath befallen his family or himself, for which he is afhamed, they will be fure to give him broad hints of it without any provocation. I would recommend you to the acquaintance of a common prostitute, rather than to that of fuch termagants as thefe. I have often thought, that no man is obliged to fuppofe fuch creatures to be women, but to treat them like infolent rafcals difguised in female habits, who ought to be stripped, and kicked down ftairs.

I will add one thing, although it be a little out of place; which is, to defire that you will learn to value and efteem your husband for thofe good qualities which he really poffeffeth, and not to fancy others in him which he certainly hath not. For although this latter is generally understood to be a mark of love, yet it is indeed nothing but affectation or ill judgment. It is true, he wants fo very few accomplishments, that you

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