My French governess says, she feels an aversion to those antiquated precepts, which, however proper they may be for the regulation of a nunnery, are unfit for the consideration of people of fashion.

Miss Woodley. I'm afraid that people of fashion have degenerated from the dignified manners of their ancestors.

Miss Gayton. Quite the reverse, my dear, I assure you. We daily improve in all the elegant arts of life. Our milliners provide the raw materials of personal decoration, and we adjust them. Our perfumers collect cosmetics and odorous essences, and we apply them. Our booksellers manufacture repositories of arts, London and Paris fashions, amusing tales of scandal, and pretty poems, and we purchase them for the encouragement of literature and the fine arts. In short, we patronise whatever contributes to personal or social elegance, from the invention of a new movement in dancing, to the philosophic analysis of the component parts of a comet. You must endeavour to elevate your taste to the altitude of modern refinement.

Miss Woodley. That I shall never attempt. If, to be accomplished, it is requisite to become vitiated, I shall, without repining, cherish my harmless simplicity of manners, and prefer the dictates of nature to the illusions of art.

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Miss Gayton. The dictates of nature! O heavens! Matilda, you quite terrify me! Why, girl, if we were to obey the dictates of nature we should throw ourselves into the arms of the first handsome fellow we met. Your simplicity, as you term it, would soon make fine work in the fashionable world. We should hear of ladies running away with their footmen-lords carrying off cookmaids in triumph-and dames of high rank, like Mrs. Gregson, making love to their coachmen. No, Matilda, as Falstaff says, 66 no more of that, if you love me."

Miss Woodley. Well, my lively cousin, since I find I cannot convince you of the advantages of simplicity, I only beg that you will not urge me to adopt your principles of refinement.

Miss Gayton. No, my dear Matilda, no; you are a free-born Englishwoman, and have a right to judge for yourself, but I have no doubt that you will soon become a convert to our delightful system of modern elegance. Pray what's your opinion of Captain W of the guards? we expect him to spend the evening with us.

Miss Woodley. I only saw the gentleman once at my uncle's, and therefore cannot pretend to judge of his merit or character. He seemed foppish, or what in your new vocabulary is termed a Dandy.

Miss Gayton. Ah! that is perfectly in cha

racter. An officer, without foppery, would be a strange kind of animal. Their dashing manner is quite charming. I delight to see them look like heroes.

Miss Woodley. And I hope they look like what they are.

Miss Gayton. Who can doubt it, after the trophies they gained at the battle of Waterloo ? But there's young Weston, the West India merchant, a fellow polite enough I grant, but seemingly with a bosom as frigid as the rocks of Nova Zembla.

Miss Woodley. Pray where did you learn these hard names?

Miss Gayton. From my tutor in geography, to be sure; don't you know, my dear, that young ladies are now taught every thing, by the most approved masters?

· Miss Woodley. Then they must be very knowing indeed!

Miss Gayton. No doubt of it, Matilda. A modern fine lady's head is the circle of the sciences a terrestrial, or, if you will-a celestial sphere of knowledge. I'll engage to find you a boarding school adept in fashionable accomplishments, who knows more than is contained in Rees's cumbrous and voluminous Cyclopedia! But I must defer my dissertation on modern acquirements till another opportunity.

Miss Woodley. Very well, my fair cousin; from your present lecture I have learnt, that the boasted accomplishments communicable in Londón, resemble their specious improvements in architecture such as their Roman cement, or artificial stone, which, at a distance, looks grand, but, on our approach, we observe the cracks and flaws which deform it; and, like the charms of enamelled ladies, renders deformity still more disgusting, because it has the semblance of grace and beauty.

QUACKERY.

Aviendo pregonado vino, venden vinagre.

Spanish Proverb.

After having cried up their wine, they sell us vinegar.

London, so justly celebrated for whatever can contribute to the comfortable and elegant accommodation of man, also abounds with such a variety of specious productions of empiricism, as must excite the indignant wonder of the rational observer. Indeed, the credulity of the people, not only of this great city, but of England in general, respecting the healing powers of advertised medicines, as well as the skill of regular physicians, is almost incredible. Men who, in the common transactions of life, are prudent, cautious, and vigilant, lest they should be out

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witted, seem quite divested of suspicion when they resign themselves and their families to the Doctor. They very sagaciously conceive that a man of science who has, like a true patriot, devoted his attention to the structure of the human machine, who has watched over all its movements from the first period of infancy to the last of old age, and who has administered medicine in all its forms and combinations, must be much better qualified to manage the health of his neighbours than a cobler, or a tailor. Hence, every gentleman, nay, every genteel tradesman, has his family Physician, who, for an annual sum, engages to keep the machinery of his fire-side in thorough repair, as far as human skill can operate. The propriety and expedience of employing a popular physician must be evidentshould Madam be attacked by the vapours caught over an unfortunate game at cards, or Miss be visited by one of those imaginary evils of Pandora which are nameless, because they never existed, the Doctor is sent for, and after feeling the lady's pulse, rather a critical operation, and viewing her tongue, the conformation of which would puzzle the most experienced Anatomist, he prescribes a palatable mixture from the luxurious pharmacopéia; and she is sent to bed at an early hour, as "the best medicine is a sound sleep."

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