Our countrywomen, in like manner, when a celebrated _belle_ came under the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, who exhibited to her emulative rivals the sweet peculiarities of her long and languishing eye, they must needs all have the same; and not a lady could appear in public, be her visual orbs large or small, bright or dull, but she must affect the soft sleepiness, the tender and slowly-moving roll of her subduing exemplar. But though Sir Peter’s gallant pencil deigned to compliment his numerous sitters by drowning their strained aspects after the model of the peerless _belle_, yet, in place of the nature-stamped look of modest languishment, he could not but often recognize the disgraceful leer and hideous squint. Let every woman be content to leave her eyes as she found them, and to make that use of them which was their design. They were intended to see with, and artlessly express the feelings of a chaste and benevolent heart. Let them speak this unsophisticated language, and beauty will beam from the orb which affectation would have rendered odious. Analogy of reasoning will bring forward similar remarks with regard to the movements of the mouth, which many ladies use, not to speak with or to admit food, but to show dimples and display white teeth. Wherever a desire for exhibition is discovered, a disposition to disapprove and ridicule arises in the spectator. The pretensions of the vain are a sort of assumption over others, which arms the whole world against them. But, after all, “What are the honors of a painted skin?” I hope it will be distinctly understood by my fair friends, that I do not, by any means, give a general license to painting; on the contrary, that even rouge should only be resorted to in cases of absolute necessity. GENERAL THOUGHTS ON DRESS AND PERSONAL DECORATION. “Costly your habit as your purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy, For the apparel oft proclaims the woman.” SHAKSPEARE. Every person of just observation, who looks back on the fashions of our immediate ancestors, and compares their style of dress with that of the present times, will not hesitate to acknowledge the evident improvement in ease and gracefulness. When I say this, I mean to eulogize the taste which yet prevails with persons of real judgment, to maintain the _ease and gracefulness_ of our assumed Grecian mode, against a new race of stay-makers, corset-inventors, &c., who have just armed themselves with whalebone, steel, and buckram, to the utter destruction of all the naturally-elegant shapes which fall into their hands.