'Th' adorning Thee, with so much Art, Is but a barbarous Skill; 'Tis like the Pois'ning of a Dart, Too apt before to kill.' [2] The _Pict_ stood before him in the utmost Confusion, with the prettiest Smirk imaginable on the finished side of her Face, pale as Ashes on the other. HONEYCOMB seized all her Gallypots and Washes, and carried off his Han kerchief full of Brushes, Scraps of _Spanish_ Wool, and Phials of Unguents. The Lady went into the Country, the Lover was cured. It is certain no Faith ought to be kept with Cheats, and an Oath made to a _Pict_ is of it self void. I would therefore exhort all the _British_ Ladies to single them out, nor do I know any but _Lindamira_, who should be Exempt from Discovery; for her own Complexion is so delicate, that she ought to be allowed the covering it with Paint, as a Punishment for choosing to be the worst Piece of Art extant, instead of the Masterpiece of Nature. As for my part, who have no Expectations from Women, and consider them only as they are Part of the Species, I do not half so much fear offending a Beauty, as a Woman of Sense; I shall therefore produce several Faces which have been in Publick this many Years, and never appeared. It will be a very pretty Entertainment in the Playhouse (when I have abolished this Custom) to see so many Ladies, when they first lay it down, _incog._, in their own Faces. In the mean time, as a Pattern for improving their Charms, let the Sex study the agreeable _Statira_. Her Features are enlivened with the Chearfulness of her Mind, and good Humour gives an Alacrity to her Eyes. She is Graceful without affecting an Air, and Unconcerned without appearing Careless. Her having no manner of Art in her Mind, makes her want none in her Person. How like is this Lady, and how unlike is a _Pict_, to that Description Dr. _Donne_ gives of his Mistress? Her pure and eloquent Blood Spoke in her Cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one would almost say her Body thought. [3] [Footnote 1: Ben Jonson's 'Epicoene', or the Silent Woman, kept the stage in the Spectator's time, and was altered by G. Colman for Drury Lane, in 1776. Cutbeard in the play is a barber, and Thomas Otter a Land and Sea Captain. "Tom Otter's bull, bear, and horse is known all over England, 'in rerum naturâ.'" In the fifth act Morose, who has married a Silent Woman and discovered her tongue after marriage, is played upon by the introduction of Otter, disguised as a Divine, and Cutbeard, as a Canon Lawyer, to explain to him 'for how many causes a man may have 'divortium legitimum', a lawful divorce.' Cutbeard, in opening with burlesque pedantry a budget of twelve impediments which make the bond null, is thus supported by Otter: 'Cutb.' The first is 'impedimentum erroris'. 'Otter.' Of which there are several species. 'Cutb.' Ay, 'as error personæ'. 'Otter. If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another.']