ente er warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle of their own hadale acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not feen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.

f Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such 5 principle influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.

Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be anything more than a conventional fiction; a 10 pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which both find their account equally.

I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to 15 handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting, and intending 20 to excite, a sneer: when the phrases" antiquated virginity," and such a one has "overstood her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.

Joseph Paice, of Bread Street Hill, merchant, and one of 25 the Directors of the South-Sea Company the same to whom Edwards, the Shakespeare commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet was the only pattern of consistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts and 30 example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room,

He

and another in the shop, or at the stall. I do not he made no distinction. But he never lost sight of sex, or u. looked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed — smile if you please — to a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to 5 some street in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women: but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen 10 himnay, smile not tenderly escorting a market-woman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall 15 (though it were to an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in 20 those withered and yellow cheeks.

He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley - old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton who, dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It 25 was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches the common gallantries to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance - but in this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent acknowledg- 30 ment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humoured, to

expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her situation 5 had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young women: but that a little before he had commenced his compliments she had overheard him by accident, in rather Io rough language, rating a young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to the appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady

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And my

a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, — I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine gentleman who is courting me- but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one (naming the milliner), and had failed of bringing home the cravats to the appointed hour - though perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them what sort of compliments should I have received then? 20 woman's pride came to my assistance; and I thought, that if it were only to do me honour, a female, like myself, might have received handsomer usage and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and 25 title to them."

I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my 30 friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress.

I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then

we should see something of the spirit of consistent gall and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man a pattern of true politeness to a wife of cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister the idolater of his female mistress

the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or 5 unfortunate- - still female- - maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed her handmaid, or dependent - she deserves to have diminished from herself on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and beauty, and advan- 10 tages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after it, is first- respect for her as she is a woman; — and next to that - to be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon her female character as upon a foundation; 15 and let the attentions, incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and ornaments as many, and as fanciful, as you please to that main structure. Let her first lesson be-with sweet Susan Winstanley-to reverence her sex.

XXVII. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS

In a Letter to B. F., Esq., at Sydney, New South Wales

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My dear F. When I think how welcome the sight of a letter from the world where you were born must be to you in that strange one to which you have been transplanted, I feel some compunctious visitings at my long silence. But, indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a correspondence at our dis- 25 tance. The weary world of waters between us oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption to expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing

for posterity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's superscriptions, "Alcander to Strephon, in the Shades." Cowley's Post-Angel is no more than would be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet at Lombard-street, and in 5 twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end, and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue 10 exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea - Plato's man than we in England here have the honour to reckon ourselves.

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Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics; news, sentiment, and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or subjects serious in themselves, but treated after my fashion, non-seriously. And first, for news. In them the most desirable circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be 20 true. But what security can I have that what I now send you for truth shall not before you get it unaccountably turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at this present writing my Now - in good health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is natural 25 and friendly. But at this present reading-your Now - he may possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in reason ought to abate something of your transport (ie., at hearing he was well, &c.), or at least considerably to modify it. I am going to the play this evening, to have a laugh with 30 Munden. You have no theatre, I think you told me, in your land of dd realities. You naturally lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you will correct the hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning with you, and 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of two