"The way in which the neck and left shoulder are ended, points out that the head is related to a figure in drapery cut in another block."
"The merchant of Bordeaux is distinguished by his noble easy and pompous manner, he makes himself easily forgiven a sort of boasting, which is the foible of the country."
How the ladies bathe at Mont d'Or, p. 218.:
"At five in the morning bathing begins. Two hardy Highlanders go and fetch in a kind of deal boxes the fashionable lady, who when in town never quits her bed-down before noon, the annuitant, the rich man, are all brought in the same manner in these boxes. It is one of the most pleasant bathing establishments; it offers a peristyle, a small resting-room, a warming-place for linen, with partitions to prevent its mixture."
The work consists of 446 mortal pages though I am bound to say a portion here and there is respectably written.
Weld Taylor.
WOMEN AND TORTOISES.
I had intended sending you a paper on Bishop Taylor's Similes, with Illustrative Notes on some Passages in his Works; but I soon found that your utmost indulgence could not afford me a tithe of
the space I would require. Instead, therefore, send you an illustration of a single simile, as it is short, and not the least curious in the lot:
"All vertuous women, like tortoises, carry their house on their heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye, and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions."—Life of Christ, Part I. s. ii. 4.
"Phidias made the statue of Venus at Elis with one foot upon the shell of a tortoise, to signify two great duties of a virtuous woman, which are to keep home and be silent."—Human Prudence, by W. De Britaine, 12th edit.: Dublin, 1726, 12mo., p. 134.
"Vertuous women should keep house, and 'twas well performed and ordered by the Greeks:
' . . . mulier ne qua in publicum
Spectandam se sine arbitro præbeat viro:'
Which made Phidias, belike, at Elis paint Venus treading on a tortoise: a symbole of women's silence and housekeeping.... I know not what philosopher he was, that would have women come but thrice abroad all their time, to be baptized, married, and buried; but he was too straitlaced."—Burton's Anat. Mel., part iii. sec. 3. mem. 4. subs. 2.
"Apelles us'd to paint a good housewife upon a snayl; which intimated that she should be as slow from gadding abroad, and when she went she shold carry her house upon her back: that is, she shold make all sure at home. Now, to a good housewife, her house shold be as the sphere to a star (I do not mean a wandring star), wherin she shold twinckle as a star in its orb."—Howell's Parly of Beasts: Lond. 1660, p. 58.