Like airy spirits round my temples free,

Fly and tell him this from me.

"Tell him, sweet winds, that in my woman's bosom, My young love still retains its perfect power,

Or, like the summer's blossom,

Still changing from the bud to the full grown flower, Grows with every passing hour.

"Say, and say gently, that since we two parted,
How little joy, much sorrow I have known,
Only not broken-hearted,

Because I muse upon bright moments gone,
And think and dream of him alone."

This is the tender, warm, earnest (but not violent), expression of deep, enduring, fondness, which, when the heart is young, makes it swell until it overflows in tears. Here is nothing about "loving again," as if it were possible for a woman's heart in the full tide of honest affection towards one object to speculate upon a complete turning of that tide towards another. Away with such philosophy. Human nature is much to be suspected, but there is a virtuous constancy as enduring as life itself, and (it may be hoped) far more so-a well-spring of affection coming up from the very depths of the heart, which gushes out as pure as innocence itself-which even the storms of calamity cannot disturb, and which the heats of passion never will dry up.

5

FEMALE ATTIRE.

SOME Frenchman has remarked that no woman is ugly when she is dressed. This is a clever remark, intended to convey, after the French manner, that a skilful attention to the setting off what is best, and the suppression of what is worst in any lady's appearance, will at least take away from her the reproach of ugliness. I do not consider this beneath the attention of the wise. I am well convinced that to direct my fair friends in general to pay more attention to dress would be a very superfluous piece of advice. I have reason to believe that, so far as exertion and devotedness go, they are quite unimpeachable on this head. There may possibly be some matters to which they give less earnest attention than they ought, but he must be little better than a calumniator who ventures to hint a doubt that, in respect to the affairs of useful or ornamental clothing, they are as earnest or as attentive as it is desirable they should be.

It is, however, one thing to be industriously attentive to any matter, and quite another to direct industry by the rules of science, and to govern attention by the suggestions of taste. I have no desire to enjoin my fair friends to pay more attention to dress, but I may venture to think it within the limits of credibility that they

might make that attention more valuable. As to the Frenchman's suggestion for the avoidance of ugliness, that is a point in which, upon their own account, I know they can have no concern, for let them apply or misapply art as they will, nature will not permit them to look ugly. But then as nobody, but such as are quite shocking, agrees with the poet that beauty is when unadorned adorned the most, even beauty may have some interest in considering dress as an important article of the fine arts. And again, even the beautiful may have friends who are not so, and to whom a little judicious advice now and then would be of no inconsiderable service. In short, whichever way we look at the case— either as they themselves are concerned, or as their friends may be, through their assistanceI would suggest that the artistical attention I refer to is founded in benevolence. Whether it be directed to the proper framing and ajustement of their own beauty, which is so delightful to behold, or to the mitigation and veiling of certain defects in their friends, which are not delightful to behold, the end is the same, namely, the increase of the sum of the happiness of society. If any one doubts that this is virtue, let the heretical person read the philosophical works of Jeremy Bentham, in nine volumes, large octavo.

Now for a little practical application of the philosophy upon which I have had the rashness

to touch I would in the first place-because I know my fair friends are persons of high spirit -advise them to dispute the absolute rule of fashion. The same thing-the same mode of putting it on-will not suit everybody. Yet it is to be feared that for the most part there is a rage for having the thing which is the fashion, without taking into account whether it be really suitable or be not. But deviation from the fashion, or rebellion against it, must be managed with discretion. It is not pleasant to be singular, but skill will show how much of the fashion may be adopted, so as to pay it a certain amount of deferential homage, without going so far as to detract from those gifts of nature which it should be the object of dress to improve.

For example, it may be laid down as a positive fact at least I suppose it may-that it is not allotted to every beauty in the world to look best with her head dressed à la Grisi, without a single curl. There is a certain grandeur, and a certain simplicity of expression, to which it is well suited; but there are several varieties of beauty which I humbly opine it has a tendency to spoil. Nay, I have doubts whether all the studious and meditative, are quite right in adopting this severity of head-dress to its full extent. I think I remember some such lines as these, which I always thought made rather a pretty picture:

"As o'er that lake, in evening's glow,
The temple threw its length'ning shade,
Upon the marble steps below

There sat a fair Corinthian maid,
Gracefully o'er some volume bending;
While by her side a youthful sage
Held back her ringlets, lest descending
They should o'ershadow all the page."

Now, though a mere utilitarian might deduce from this, that curls are apt to be in the way, yet as I am not of those who pretend that the essential idea of beauty is derived from a sense of utility, I deny the force of such pleading, and contend that the Corinthian maid in question would not have been so happily dressed if she had not had descending curls, or curls liable to descend. I am sure, at all events, that the "youthful sage" was of that opinion, and I very deferentially suggest that he was likely to know best.

Well, then, I would have persons to consider how much of the ajustement à la Grisi becomes them. If altogether-very well-so let it be. But, if not, why do not allow the mere novelty of the mode, or what is called the fashion of it, to induce you to discard the finest ringlets in the world, or to bring too much out, features which nature formed with a far more lovely expression than that of boldness.

By the way,

whatever the Frenchman may say of the impossibility of his country women looking