ing no great one? But none the less, easy Princes and weak husbands are kittle cattle to drive, and the Minister and the wife alike will know many an anxious moment in pursuit of their Sisyphæan task. The "shameless stone" will seem to be nigh the hill-top, when suddenly it will fall back and crush the struggling creature who has been striving so hard to heave it in the right direction.

Some think

to be proud of it. it hath a great air to be above troubling their thoughts with such ordinary things as their house and family." He sketches out the day of the idle woman of fashion. She "sails up and down the house to no kind of purpose, and looks as if she came thither only to make a visit. . . . After Her Emptiness hath been extreme busy about some very senseless thing, she eats her breakfast

λᾶας ἀναιδής.

"With all this, that which you are to pray for is a wise husband. . . . Such a husband is as much above all the other kinds of them, as a rational subjection to a Prince, great in himself, is to be preferred before the disquiet and uneasiness of Unlimited Liberty."

There was furious seeking after pleasure in those days, and probably a tendency on the part of many great ladies to neglect their homes and families. No doubt it was all very dazzling to a girl fresh from the schoolroom. Courts were gay and glittering then, most people pursued the happiness of the moment, romped and danced, flirted and intrigued, with the zest of a younger world; ate, drank, and were merry, while Kings were but Chief Revellers, and the sun of pleasure shone brighter than ever after its eclipse behind the clouds and smoke of the Puritan storm. "Take heed of carrying your good breeding to such a height as to be good for nothing and

be at greater liberty to afflict the company with her discourse; then calleth for her coach, that she may trouble her acquaintance, who are already cloyed with her, . . . she setteth out like a ship out of the harbour, laden with trifles, and cometh back with them; at her return she repeateth to her faithful waiting-woman the triumphs of that day's impertinence; then wrapped up in flattery and clean linen goeth to bed so satisfied that it throweth her into pleasant dreams of her own felicity."

The penalty, he says, that falls on such an one is loss of her servants' respect, of her husband's fealty, of her children's love. She becomes insignificant in her own house, and only discovers her miserable plight when it is too late to amend it. She is doomed to play second fiddle to the old housekeeper, and is brought under a censure which is a much heavier thing than the troubles she has sought to avoid.

There follow some sage re

A Court was a more noisy place then than now, and boisterous spirits counted for a virtue. The Courts of the Stewarts were perhaps not so tumultuous as those of the contemporary French monarchs -a Bourbon Court was always a regular bear - garden - but they were certainly not schools of grave demeanour and decorum. One is sometimes tempted to think that the arch-destroyer of morals and manners for the Seventeenth century was that great monarch but incorrigible dog Henri

IV. The rowdiness and immorality of himself and his courtiers must have affected, more or less, the Royal households of neighbouring countries; his influence upon this country, through his grandson, Charles II., may be pondered over by the reflective as an interesting study in heredity.

The only safe rule, Lord Halifax thinks, for a married lady, is not to allow any one to make love to her in any shape; and there is some description of the various snares

The next piece of advice is that the advance of Time must be acquiesced in, not fought against. "You will let every seven years make some alteration in you towards the graver side, and not be like the girls of fifty, who resolve to be always young, whatever Time with his iron teeth hath determined to the contrary. . . . There is a certain creature called a Grave Hobby-Horse, a kind of a she-numps, that pretendeth to be pulled to a play, and must needs go to Bartholomew Fair to look after the young folks, whom she only seemeth to make her care, (when) in reality she taketh them for her her excuse. Such an old butterfly is of all creatures the most ridiculous, and the soonest found out." What a "she-numps" is, research showeth not. Perhaps

it is an abbreviation of "numskull." Fairs were one of the great amusements of the Seventeenth century, and by the end of it were for the most part not fairs at all, in the original sense -i.e., serious markets. They consisted of all manner of play-booths and places of amusements, and St Bartholomew's Fair was one of the most popular.

She is to be careful not to make friends too violently. "The Leagues offensive and

defensive seldom hold in Politics, and much less in Friendships. The violent intimacies, when once broken, of which they scarce ever fail, make such a noise; the bag of secrets untied, they fly about like birds let loose from a cage, and become the entertainment of the town. Besides, these great dearnesses by degrees grow injurious to the rest of your acquaintance, and throw them off from you. There is such an offensive distinction when the Dear Friend cometh into the room, that it is flinging stones at the company, who are not apt to forgive it." We most of us know that Dear Friend, and have longed to put prussic acid into her soup, though she may, in herself, be harmless enough. These allenthralling and often quite one-sided friendships are among the most curious, and commonest, phenomena of feminine psychology.

Choose your friends carefully. "Chusing implieth approving; and if you fix upon a lady for your friend against whom the world shall have given judgment, 'tis not so well-natured as to believe you are altogether averse to her way of living." If your friend makes a faux pas you must break with her so as to avoid contagion, though you are not to be over-hasty about doing so, "the matter is so nice." To be in the power of an objectionable friend is "like our houses being in the power of a drunken or a careless neighbour; only so much worse, as that there will be no Insurance here to make

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MÇXXX.

you amends, as there is in the case of fire."

The mention of Fire Insurance is interesting, as it was a practice which only grew up during Lord Halifax's lifetime. Before the Great Fire of 1666 there was no such thing as Insurance against loss by fire, though the theory of it was well known, and had often been discussed. Sometimes a wealthy Corporation would reimburse a private individual who met with heavy misfortune from the flames; but every one suffered so heavily in the Fire of London that Charity, public or private, was quite ineffectual. As men began to recover from the blow, there was a natural desire to avert the possibility of the recurrence of such dire loss of wealth, and first individuals, and then bodies of business men, began to underwrite the hazard of Fire. Of the great Insurance Companies which now exist, one only, The Handin-Hand, was formed in the Seventeenth century-in 1696, the year after Lord Halifax's death. There were earlier ones, but they either came to an untimely end or were absorbed by some other Company.

The daughter is next to consider "how she is to manage her Censure, in which both care and skill will be a good deal required." The main thing to remember is that

"What can't be cured Must be endured," and Knight-errantry in attacking existing abuses is especially 3 G

to be avoided. The World "is an angry Beast when so provoked," and "will tear you in pieces, with this justification, that it is done in its own defence. . . . It is throwing snowballs against bullets," to censure it. She must suffer fools gladly, who "besides that they are too strong a party to be unnecessarily provoked, are of all others the most dangerous in this case." Listen to the old Trimmer. "Avoid being the first in fixing a hard censure; let it be confirmed by the general voice before you give in to it." If she must bestow her censure, "A virtue stuck with bristles is too rough for this age; .. where it may be fit to strike, do it like a lady, gently; and assure yourself that you will wound others more, and hurt yourself less, by soft strokes, than by being harsh or violent." Do ut des. If you are slow to speak ill of others, they will not speak evil of you. "And though nothing is so vain as the eager pursuit of empty applause, yet to be well thought of... is like a glory about a woman's head; 'tis a perfume she carrieth about with her, and leaveth wherever she goeth; 'tis a charm against ill - will. Malice may empty her quiver but cannot wound; the dirt will not stick, the jests will not take."

Let her beware of Vanity and Affectation, two faults "to which your sex seemeth to be the most inclined." A little hard, one would think. It is a commonplace that men are

at least as vain as women, and even more affected. Perhaps, but it is hardly possible, women were vainer then than they are now. Anyhow, let us thank Heaven for the vanity of women, women, as being a prettier thing than the vanity of men, and see what our stern critic has to say about it.

a

"Vanity is the Sin, and Affectation is the punishment; the first may be called the root of Self-love, the other the fruit. Vanity is never at its full growth till it spreadeth into Affectation, and then it is compleat." A severe but rather incomprehensible statement. "Vanity maketh woman tainted with it, so top full of herself, that she spilleth it upon the company. And because her own thoughts are intirely imployed in self-contemplation, ..she forgets that she is not of half that importance to the world that she is to herself." You may find amusement in the discomfiture of a vain lady. "To observe her throwing her eyes about to fetch in prisoners, and go about cruizing like a privateer, and so out of countenance if she return without booty, is no ill piece of Comedy." Hard-hearted old cynic! If the privateer is a pretty craft, wellrigged and trim in the waist, let her make all the prizes she can, and compel the prisoners to walk the plank too, while we sit safely on the shore and admire the skilful way in which she handles her guns.

Then there is the jealously vain creature. "Good words