“She's beautiful and therefore to be wooed; 1st Henry VI. act v. sc. 3. BEAUTIFUL woman," remarked Napo “A leon, "pleases the eye, a good woman pleases the heart; one is a jewel, the other a treasure." It is not surprising that the beauty of woman-in praise of which both literature and art have from the earliest period lavished some of their grandest works-should have given rise in most countries to a host of strange and romantic fancies. Many of these survive in our midst to-day, and, although experience has long proved how unreliable such beliefs are, they still retain their hold on the popular mind, often causing unnecessary prejudice and fear. It is a very old notion, for instance, that beauty is unfortunate; and, according to an old Italian proverb, "Over the greatest beauty hangs the greatest ruin." Allusions to this piece of folk lore are not only found in the poetry and romance of bygone centuries, but are of frequent occurrence in the literature of modern times. Thus Goëthe makes Helena affirm that "beauty and happiness remain not long united;" and Byron, in his "Childe Harold” (iv. 42), speaks of "the fatal gift of beauty." We may recall, too, Lord Tennyson's charming and pathetic language in "A Dream of Fair Women," where he relates how "In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Those far-renowned brides of ancient song And there is a well-known passage where Fielding, in his "Journey from this World to the Next, (chap. vi.), thus writes: "She Fortune - was one of the most deformed females I ever beheld, nor could I help observing the frowns she expressed when any beautiful spirit of her own sex passed her, nor the affability that smiled on her countenance on the approach of any handsome male spirits. Hence I accounted for the truth of an observation I had often made on earth, that nothing is more fortunate than handsome men, nor more unfortunate than handsome women;" such, too, was the opinion of the host of the "Canterbury Tales" who bewailed the sad fate of Virginia related by the Doctor of Physic: "Allas! too deare boughte sshe her beauté, I And there is the old mythical tale which tells how Medusa was a maiden of such beauty as to provoke the jealousy of Minerva, wherefore she was transformed into a frightful monster. Her muchadmired ringlets became hissing serpents, and no living thing could look upon her without being turned into stone. Legendary lore provides us with many stories of this kind, which illustrates Patterson's well-known lines: 66 "O fatal beauty! why art thou bestowed On hapless woman still to make her wretched? Chinese folk-lore maintains that beautiful women are unlucky, one of their many proverbs on the subject declaring that "fair maidens are very unlucky, and clever young men have little beauty. It was also supposed that feminine beauty of unusual merit was fatal to long life, and no subject has been more popular with the novelist, or poet, than the gradual fading away of some young girl gifted in a high degree with good looks. 1 L. 1378.-Ed. Wright. Lord Tennyson, in his "May Queen," has interwoven this idea, and it is found scattered here and there in the literature of most countries. Hence, another reason why beauty has been regarded as unfortunate is owing to its being thought prejudicial to health, a variation of which belief occurs in "Richard III." (act iii. sc. 1), where the Duke of Gloucester says: "So wise, so young, they say do never live long." Another misfortune connected with beauty is its evanescence, and, as the German proverbs run, "Woman's beauty, the forest echo and rainbows, soon pass away," and "Maidens and roses soon lose their bloom." And the same truth is conveyed in the Hindustani proverb, "The spring in which he saw the blossoms is gone, now, O bee, only the thorns remain on the rose; another version of which is, "My fair one don't be proud of your complexion, it is the guest of but a few days." Poets have largely dwelt on beauty's transient character, and Shakespeare, in "The Passionate Pilgrim," says: 66 Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud, A brittle glass that's broken presently, A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour." And the oft-quoted adage that "Beauty is like an almanac; if it last a year it is well," re minds us of Molière's lines in his "Les Femmes Savantes : “La beauté du visage est un frêle ornement, The snares of beauty have been made from early times the subject of much preverbial wisdom, a Servian adage affirming that, "Better sometimes a woman blind than one too beautiful;" for, as the Italian proverb adds, "Tell a woman that she is beautiful, and the devil will repeat it to her ten times;" with which may be compared an old Welsh proverb, which has been translated thus :— "Three things may make a woman nought, A giddy brain, A heart that's vain, A face in beauty's fashion wrought; and the German proverb adds, " An impudent face never marries." There is, too, the old English adage, "The fairest silk is soon stained;" for, as Ray has said, "The handsomest women are soonest corrupted, because they are most tempted." Although we cannot endorse the old German proverb which says that, "Every woman would be rather pretty than pious," yet most women are mightily proud of their beauty, for, as an early English maxim reminds us, "She that is born a beauty is born married; " another version of which we find in an old work entitled, " New Help to Discourse" (1721, p. 134), “ Beauty draws more than five yoke of oxen; with which we may |