She often shews them her _own picture_, which was taken when their father fell in love with her. She tells them how _distracted_ he was with passion at the _first sight_ of her; and that she had never had so _fine_ a _complexion_, but for the diligence of her good mother, who took exceeding care of it. The children see so plainly _the temper_ of their mother, that they affect to be _more pleased_ with dress, than they really are. They saw their eldest sister once brought to her _tears_, and her _perverseness_ severely reprimanded, for presuming to say, that she thought it was better to cover the _neck_, than to go so _far naked_ as the modern dress requires. 7. She stints them in their _meals_, and is very scrupulous of what they eat and drink, and tells them how many _fine shapes_ she has seen spoiled in her time for want of such care. Whenever they begin to look _sanguine_ and _healthful_, she calls in the assistance of the _doctor_; and if _physic_, or _issues_, will keep the complexion from inclining to _coarse_ or _ruddy_, she thinks them well employed. By this means they are _poor_, _pale_, _sickly_, _infirm_ creatures, _vapoured_ through want of spirits, _crying_ at the smallest accidents, _swooning_ away at any thing that frights them, and hardly able to bear the _weight_ of their best cloaths. The eldest daughter lived as long as she could under this discipline, and died in the twentieth year of her age. When her body was opened, it appeared that her _ribs_ had grown into her _liver_, and that her other _entrails_ were much hurt, by being _crushed_ together with her _stays_; which her mother had ordered to be twitched so strait, that it has often brought tears into her eyes, whilst the maid was dressing her. Her youngest daughter is run away with a _gamester_, a man of great beauty, who in _dressing_ and _dancing_ has no superior. _Matilda_ says, she should die with grief at this accident, but that her _conscience_ tells her, she has contributed nothing to it herself. She appeals to their _closets_, to their books of devotion, to testify what care she has taken to establish her children in piety. 8. Now, tho’ I don’t intend to say, that no daughters are brought up in a _better way_ than this; yet thus much may be said, that the greater part of them are not brought up so well, or accustomed to so much religion. Their minds are turned as much to the care of their beauty and dress, without having such rules of devotion to stand against it. So that if _solid_ piety is much wanted in that sex, it is the plain consequence of a corrupt education. And if they are often ready to receive the first _fops_, _beaux_, and fine _dancers_, for their husbands, ’tis no wonder that they should like that in men, which they have been taught to admire in themselves. Some people will perhaps say, that I am exercising too great a severity against the sex.