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lows down both the dice, and at the fame time throws his wine into the tables. He writes a letter, and flings the fand into the ink-bottle. He writes a fecond, and mistakes the fuperfcription. A nobleman receives one of them, and, upon opening it, reads as follows: "I would have you, honeft Jack, immediately upon the receipt of this, take in hay enough to ferve the winter." His farmer receives the other, and is amazed to fee in it, "My Lord, I received your Grace's commands."

If he is at an entertainment, you may fee the pieces of bread continually multiplying round his plate: 'tis true the company want it, as well as their knives and forks, which Menalcas does not let them keep long. Sometimes in a morning he puts his whole family in a hurry, and at laft goes out without being able to stay for his coach or breakfait; and, for that day, you may fee him in every part of the town, except the very place where he had appointed to be upon bufinefs of impor

tance.

You would often take him for every thing that he is not-For a fellow quite ftupid, for he bears nothings for a fool, for he talks to himself, and has a hundred grimaces and motions with his head which are altoge ther involuntary; for a proud man, for he looks full upon you, and takes no notice of your faluting him. The truth of it is, his eyes are open, but he makes no use of them, and neither fees you, nor any man, nor any thing elfe. He came once from his country-house, and his own footmen undertook to rob him, and fucceeded. "They held a flambeau to his throat, and bid him deliver his purfe. He did fo; and coming home, told his friends he had been robbed. They defire to know the particulars" Aik my fervants," faid Menalcas; "for they were with me."

X. The Monk.

The

APOOR monk of the order of St Francis eame into the room to beg fomething for his convent. moment 1 caft my eyes upon him, I was determined not to give him a fingle fous; and accordingly I put my purfe into my pocket-buttoned it up--fet myfelf a little more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to

him: there was fomething, I fear, forbidding in my look I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which deferved better.

The mouk, as I judged from the break in his tonfure, a few feattered white hairs upon his temples being all that remained of it, might be about feventy-but from his eyes, and that fort of fire which was in them, which feemed more tempered by courtefy than years, could be no more than fixty-Truth might lie between-He was certainly fixty-five; and the general air of his coun-tenance, notwithstanding fomething feemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.

It was one of thofe heads which Guido has often painted-mild, pale-penetrating; free from all common-place ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth-It looked forwards; but looked as if it looked at fomething beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, Heaven above, who let it fall upon a mouk's fhoulders, beft knows: but it would have fuited a Bramin; and had I met it upon the plains of Indoftan, I had reverenced it.

The reft of his outline may be given in a few ftrokes: one might put it into the hands of any one to defign; for it was neither elegant nor otherwife, but as character and expreffion made it fo. It was a thin, fpare form, fomething above the common fize, if it loft not the diftinction by a bend forwards in the figure-but it was the attitude of intreaty; and, as it now ftands prefent to my imagination, it gained more than it loft by

it,

When he had entered the room three paces, he flood ftill; and, laying his left hand upon his breaft (a flender white ftaff with which he journeyed being in his right) -when I had got clofe up to him, he introduced himfelf with the little ftory of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order-and did it with fo fimple a grace and fuch an air of deprecation was there in the whole caft of his look and figure-I was bewitched not to have been ftruck with it

-A better reafon was, I had pre-determined not to give him a fingle fous.

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"Tis very true, faid I, replying to a caft upwards with his eyes, with which he had concluded his addrefs -'tis very true-and Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world; the stock of which, I fear, is no way fufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.

As I pronounced the words great claims, he gave a flight glance with his eye downwards upon the fleeve of his tunic-I felt the full force of the appeal-I acknowledge it, faid I-a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, with meagre diet-are no great matters: but the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with fo little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by preffing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm: the captive who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes alfo for his fhare of it; and had you been of the order of mercy inftead of the order of St Francis, poor as I am, continued I, pointing at my portmantean, full cheerfully fhould it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate. The monk made me a bow.-But, refumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, furely, have the first rights; and I have left thoufands in diftrefs upon the Englifh fhore-The monk gave a cordial wave with his head-as much as to fay, No doubt, there is mifery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. -But we diftinguish, faid I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal-we diftinguish, my good father, betwixt thofe who wifh only to eat the bread of their own labour --and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in floth and ignorance, for the love of God.

The poor Francifcan made no reply: a hectie of a moment paffed acrofs his cheek, but could not tarryNature feemed to have done with her refentments in him; he fhowed none but letting his staff fall within his arm, he preffed both his hands with refignation upon his breaft, and retired.

My heart fmote me the moment he fhut the doorPhaw! faid I with an air of carele ffnefs, three feveral

times-But it would not do: every ungracious fyllable I had uttered, crowded back into my imagination. I reflected I had no right over the poor Francifcan, but to -deny him; and that the punishment of that was enoughto the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language—I confidered his gray hairs-his courteous figure feemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me? and why I could ufe him thus-I would have given twenty livres for an advocate-I have behaved very ill, faid I within myfelf; but I have only just fet out upon my travels, and fhall learn better man-ners as I get along.

XI. On the Head-dress of the Ladies.

THERE is not fo variable a thing in nature as a lady's

head-drefs: within my own memory, I have known: it rife and fall above thirty degrees. About ten years. ago it flot up to a very great height, infomuch that the female part of our fpecies were much taller than the men. The women were of fuch an enormous ftature, that we appeared as grafshoppers before them. At prefent the whole fex is in a manner dwarfed and fhrunk into a race of beauties that feem almost another fpecies. I remember several ladies who were once very near feven feet high, that at prefent want fome inches of five: how they came to be thus curtailed, I cannot learn; whether the whole fex be at prefent under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have caft their head-dreffes in order tof urprife us with fomething.. in that kind which fhall be entirely new; or whether fome of the talleft of the fex, being too cunning for the reft, have contrived this method to make themselves appear fizeable, is ftill a fecret; though I find moft are of opinion, they are at prefent like trees new lopped and pruned, that will certainly fprout up and flourish with greater heads than before. For my own part, as I do not love to be infulted by women who are taller than myfelf, I admire the fex much more in their prefent humiliation, which has reduced them to their natural dimenfions, than when they had extended their perfons, and lengthened themselves out into formidable and gigantic figures. I am not for adding to the beautiful

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edifices of nature, nor for raifing any whimsical fuperftructure upon her plans: I muft therefore repeat it, that I am highly pleafed with the coiffure. now in fafhion, and think it fhows the good fenfe which at prefent very much reigns among the valuable part of the fex. One may obferve that women in all ages have taken more pains than men to adorn the outfide of their heads; and indeed I very much admire, that those architects, who raise fuch wonderful structures out of ribbands, lace, and wire, have not been recorded for their respective inventions. It is certain there have been as many orders in these kinds of buildings, as in those which have been made of marble; fometimes they rife in the fhape of a pyramid, fometimes like a tower, and fometimes like a fteeple. In Juvenal's time, the building grew by feveral orders and stories, as he has very humourously defcribed it.

With curls on curls they build her head before,

And mount it with a formidable tow'r:

A giantess fhe feems; but look behind, e
And then fhe dwindles to the pigmy kind.

But I do not remember, in any part of my reading, that the head-drefs afpired to fo great an extravagance as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or fpires, which stood fo exceffively high on each fide of the head, that a woman, who was but a pigmy without her head-drefs, appeared like a Coloffus upon putting it on. Monfieur Paradin fays, "That these old-fashioned fontanges rofe an ell above the head; that they were pointed like fteeples, and had long loofe pieces of crape faftened to the tops of them, "which were curiously fringed, and hung down their backs like ftreamers."

The women might poffibly have carried this Gothic building much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Connecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and refolution. This holy man travelled from place to place to preach down this monftrous commode; and fucceeded fo well in it, that, as the magicians facrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an apoftle, many of the women threw down their head-dreffes in the middle of his fermon, and made a bonfire of them within fight

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