10. The first interview of Isaac and Rebecca. 11. The Judgment of Paris. 12. Vauxhall Gardens, with the decorations and company. The writer is ‘well aware that the authors of the free and candid disquisitions will be humbly suggesting, in their canting way, whether some of these figures may be altogether suitable to the original design of that sacred rite, at which they assist on these occasions; and whether, if our British ladies are too nicely modest to worship God with naked faces, they should not return to the ancient simplicity of a plain linnen or Sarcenet veil, after the manner of the Jewish females. But, besides that all impropriety is absolutely removed from these representations by the mixture of so much Scripture history, these Cavillers must be told that this is an old objection answered and baffled long ago by the pious and conscientious Dr. Swift (whose tender concern for the honour of the Church of England is well known) in a religious sonnet which closes with an elevated sentiment couched in the following couplet: “How beauteous is the Church, which makes clean linnen As decent to repent in, as to sin in.”’ This bone of contention, apparently, lasted during a considerable period. In the _Lady’s Magazine_ for March 1776, a ‘Female Reformer’ addresses to the fair sex some ‘moral reflections’ on ladies’ fans, and draws attention to the loose, almost indecent, mounts ladies have to their fans at the present day, giving too much reason to suppose that a coarse, indelicate, and immodest picture is not so offensive to the view of the fair as prudence, virtue, and chastity could wish. ‘Not many Sundays ago, I was seated in a dissenting place of worship in the next pew to two young ladies, who appeared suitably attentive and devout; but, happening to cast my eyes on the fan mount of the youngest of the two, as she stood up in prayer time, I was really ashamed to see _naked Cupids, and women almost so_, represented as sleeping under trees, while dancing shepherds and piping fawns compleated the shameful groupe. What a pity it is that any lady should seem to countenance immodesty or indecency in the least degree, especially in the house of God! Would it not have been much better for ladies to have no fans at all, than to have such mounts to them, as, on beholding, tend only to inflame the passions, and promote the loosest ideas?’