But, as all our fashions descend to our inferiors, a servant maid, in the Peak of Derbyshire, having purchased an old tête from a puppet-show woman, and being at a loss for some of this wool to stuff out the curls with, fancied a whisp of hay might do. [Takes the head.] Here is the servant maid, with her new-purchased finery; and here is her new-fashioned stuffing. But, before she had finished at her garret dressing-table, a ring at the door called her down stairs to receive a letter from the postboy; turning back to go into the house again, the postboy's horse, being hungry, laid hold of the head-dress by way of forage. Never may the fair sex meet with a worse misfortune; but may the ladies, always hereafter, preserve their heads in good order. Amen.
Horace, in describing a fine woman, makes use of two Latin words, which are, simplex munditiis. Now these two words cannot be properly translated; their best interpretation is that of a young Female Quaker. [Takes the head.] Such is the effect of native neatness. Here is no bundle of hair to set her off, no jewels to adorn her, nor artificial complexion. Yet there is a certain odium which satire has dared to charge our English ladies with, which is, plastering the features with whitewash, or rubbing rouge or red upon their faces. [Gives the head off.] Women of the town may lay on red, because, like pirates, the dexterity of their profession consists in their engaging under false colours; but, for the delicate, the inculpable part of the sex, to vermilion their faces, seems as if ladies would fish for lovers as men bait for mackerel, by hanging something red upon the hook; or that they imagined men to be of the bull or turkey-cock kind, that would fly at any thing scarlet. [Takes the head off.] But such practitioners should remember that their faces are the works of their Creator.—If bad, how dare they mend it? If good, why mend it? Are they ashamed of his work, and proud of their own? If any such there are, let 'em lay by the art, and blush not to appear that which he blushes not to have made them. If any lady should be offended with the lecturer's daring to take such liberties with her sex, by way of atonement for that part of my behaviour which may appear culpable, I humbly beg leave to offer a nostrum, or recipe, to preserve the ladies' faces in perpetual bloom, and defend beauty from all assaults of time; and I dare venture to affirm, not all the paints, pomatums, or washes, can be of so much service to make the ladies look lovely as the application of this. [Shews the girdle of good temper.]
Let but the ladies wear this noble order, and they never will be angry with me; this is the grand secret of attraction; this is the Girdle op Venus, which Juno borrowed to make herself appear lovely to her husband Jupiter, and what is here humbly recommended to all married folks of every denomination; and to them I appeal, whether husband or wife, wife or husband, do not alternately wish each other would wear this girdle? But here lies the mistake; while the husband begs his wife, the wife insists upon the husband's putting it on; in the contention the girdle drops down between them, and neither of them will condescend to stoop first to take it up. [Lays down the girdle.]. Bear and forbear, give and forgive, are the four chariot-wheels that carry Love to Heaven: Peace, Lowliness, Fervency, and Taste, are the four radiant horses that draw it. Many people have been all their life-time making this chariot, without ever being able to put one wheel to it. Their horses have most of them got the springhalt, and that is the reason why married people now a-days walk a-foot to the Elysian fields. Many a couple, who live in splendor, think they keep the only carriage that can convey them to happiness; but their vehicle is too often the postcoach of ruin; the horses, that draw it are Vanity, Insolence, Luxury, and Credit; the footmen who ride behind it are Pride, Lust, Tyranny, and Oppression; the servants out of livery, that wait at table, are Folly and Wantonness; them Sickness and Death take away. Were ladies once to see themselves in an ill temper, I question if ever again they would choose to appear in such a character.
Here is a Lady [takes up the picture] in her true tranquil state of mind, in that amiableness of disposition which makes foreigners declare that an English lady, when she chooses to be in temper, and chooses to be herself, is the most lovely figure in the universe; and on the reverse of this medallion is the same lady when she chooses not to be in temper, and not to be herself. [Turns the picture.] This face is put on when she is disappointed of her masquerade habit, when she has lost a sans prendre, when her lap-dog's foot is trod upon, or when her husband has dared to contradict her. Some married ladies may have great cause of complaint against their husbands' irregularities; but is this a face to make those husbands better? Surely no! It is only by such looks as these [turns the picture] they are to be won: and may the ladies hereafter only wear such looks, and may this never more be known [turns the picture] only as a picture taken out of Æsop's Fables. [Gives off the picture.]
May each married lady preserve her good man, And young ones get good ones as fast as they can.
It is very remarkable there should be such a plentiful harvest of courtship before marriage, and generally such a famine afterwards. Courtship is a fine bowling-green turf, all galloping round and sweet-hearting, a sunshine holiday in summer time: but when once through matrimony's turnpike, the weather becomes wintry, and some husbands are seized with a cold aguish fit, to which the faculty have given this name—[Shews the girdle of indifference.] Courtship is matrimony's running footman, but seldom stays to see the stocking thrown; it is too often carried away by the two grand preservatives of matrimonial friendship, delicacy and gratitude. There is also another distemper very mortal to the honeymoon; 'tis what the ladies sometimes are seized with, and the college of physicians call it by this title—[Shews the girdle of the sullens.]
