In the vast regions of the East, where long beards are highly esteemed, hospitality, filial piety, and fidelity in engagements are the premier virtues: men respect one another there. Let us take a people whom the same law subjects nearly to the same morals as ours, the Greek or Latin Christians who are under the Mahometan government: adultery, among them, is almost unknown, and yet the women are not confined; but they respect their husbands, and these husbands wear long beards. Where is filial piety now-a-days? will the sad wrinkled faces of our old men, which incite our disgust and contempt, prevail above the sweet majesty of a long, white beard? Where is conjugal fidelity? was it ever less observed than at the time, and in the countries where men appear before a sex, that ought to be under their subjection, in an effeminate dress? How many are there, in this shameful age, the sad victims of this truth! I repeat it; outward appearance is one of the great movers of a monarchial state, especially among a superficial nation. Deprive subjects of their popular notions of decorum, and of their customs, and people in place of their ornaments, manner, plausibleness, and grave imposing appearance: you will destroy most of the social virtues; there will be no more energy nor spirit in the people; all their mental faculties will become languid, if you cease to feed their imaginations with this aliment. An extravagant turn of mind has produced many a hero; reason, by analysing every thing, has discouraged and slackened the course of our actions, and luxury, &c. &c. have completed the work. But what a generation is ours! In times of yore, Diogenes, with a lantern in his hand, went through all the streets of Athens in broad day to seek a man: what could he find now in our great capital? breathing skeletons, women, children, horses, and that multitude of wheel carriages, the incommodious use of which crushes some to pieces and deprives others of the little strength they had left. Would he find men among these reverend gentry, whose toilet is their chief employment? Their chief merit is a mind fraught with borrowed trifles. Look at this modern Chrysostom, powdered and close shaved, repairing to an old coquet’s, a girl’s of the town, or the minister’s. Every where he repeats the same flattering phrases. With the one, an intriguer or base flatterer; with the other, an absolute libertine or a ridiculous puppy, he becomes every where necessary animal; in short, a downright plaything and piece of toilet furniture. Nothing gives this charming fellow any uneasiness; he is any thing they will have him, and will think just what they please: in a word, he performs the dapper parson admirably.