undertook to introduce mixed assemblies, as in other parts of Europe; she altered the women's dress by substituting the fashions of England; instead of furs, she brought in the use of taffeta and damask; and cornets and commodes instead of caps of sable. The women now found themselves no longer shut up in separate apartments, but saw company, visited each other, and were present at every entertainment.

But as the laws to this effect were directed to a savage people, it is amusing enough to see the manner in which the ordinances ran. Assemblies were quite unknown among them; the Czarina was satisfied with introducing them, for she found it impossible to render them polite. An ordinance was therefore published according to their notions of breeding, which, as it is a curiosity, and has never before been printed that we know of, we shall give our readers :—

"1. The person at whose house the assembly is to be kept, shall signify the same by hanging out a bill, or by giving some other public notice, by way of advertisement, to persons of both sexes.

"2. The assembly shall not be open sooner than four or five o'clock in the afternoon, nor continue longer than ten at night.

"3. The master of the house shall not be obliged to meet his guests, or conduct them out, or keep them company; but though he is exempt from all this, he is to find them chairs, candles, liquors, and all other necessaries that company may ask for: he is likewise to provide them with cards, dice, and every necessary for gaming.

"4. There shall be no fixed hour for coming or going away; it is enough for a person to appear in the assembly.

5. Every one shall be free to sit, walk, or game, as he pleases; nor shall any one go about to hinder him, or take exceptions at what he does, upon pain of emptying the great

eagle" (a pint-bowl full of brandy): "it shall likewise be sufficient, at entering or retiring, to salute the company.

6. Persons of distinction, noblemen, superior officers, merchants, and tradesmen of note, head workmen, especially carpenters, and persons employed in chancery, are to have liberty to enter the assemblies; as likewise their wives and children.

"7. A particular place shall be assigned the footmen, except those of the house, that there may be room enough in the apartments designed for the assembly.

"8. No ladies are to get drunk upon any pretence whatsoever; nor shall gentlemen be drunk before nine.

"9. Ladies who play at forfeitures, questions and commands, &c. shall not be riotous: no gentleman shall attempt to force a kiss, and no person shall offer to strike a woman in the assembly, under pain of future exclusion."

Such are the statutes upon this occasion, which in their very appearance carry an air of ridicule and satire. But politeness must enter every country by degrees; and these rules resemble the breeding of a clown, awkward, but sincere.(1)

ESSAY XXIX.

FEMALE CHARACTERS.

Man's province is universal, and comprehends every thing, from the culture of the earth, to the government of it men only become coxcombs by assuming particular

(1) [These, soirées are said to have been attended with the happiest effects; though the admission of such a mixed company was sometimes productive of rather awkward situations. The great propensity which the Russians generally had for strong liquors, the ladies as well as gentlemen, was occasionally indulged in to excess, and scenes occurred that would not be tolerated in civilized society.-See Barrow's Peter the Great, p. 318.]

characters, for which they are particularly unfit, though others may shine in those very characters. But the case of the fair sex is quite different; for there are many characters which are not of the feminine gender, and, consequently, there may be two kinds of women coxcombs; those who affect what does not fall within their department, and those who go out of their own natural characters, though they keep within the female province.

I should be very sorry to offend, where I only mean to advise and reform; I therefore hope the fair sex will pardon me, when I give ours the preference. Let them reflect, that each sex has its distinguishing characteristic, and if they can with justice (as certainly they may) brand a man with the name of a cott-quean, if he invades a certain female detail which is unquestionably their prerogative, may not we, with equal justice, retort upon them when, laying aside their natural characters, they assume those which are appropriated to us? The delicacy of their texture, and the strength of ours; the beauty of their form, and the coarseness of ours, sufficiently indicate the respective vocations. Was Hercules ridiculous and contemptible with his distaff? Omphale would not have been less so at a review, or a council-board. Women are not formed for great cares themselves, but to sooth and soften ours; their tenderness is the proper reward for the toils we undergo for their preservation; and the ease and cheerfulness of their conversation, our desirable retreat from the labours of study and business. They are confined within the narrow limits of domestic offices, and when they stray beyond them, they move eccentrically, and consequently without grace.(*)

(1) ["A man that is too busy in meddling with women's affairs."Phillips's New World of Words.]

(2) [The spirit of the whole of this article is much the same with that of the Memoir of Catherina Alexowna. But in this passage, and in the allusion to Hercules, the author repeats himself, as is not unfrequently the

Aggripina, born with an understanding and dispositions which could, at best, have qualified her for the sordid helpmate of a pawnbroker or usurer, pretends to all the accomplishments that ever adorned man or woman, without the possession, or even the true knowledge of any one of them. She would appear learned, and has just enough of all things, without comprehending any one, to make her talk absurdly upon every thing. She looks upon the art of pleasing as her master-piece, but mistakes the means so much, that her flattery is too gross for self-love to swallow, and her lies too palpable to deceive for a moment; so that she shocks those she would gain. Mean tricks, shallow cunning, and breach of faith, constitute her mistaken system of politics. She endeavours to appear generous at the expense of trifles, while an indiscreet and unguarded rapaciousness discovers her natural and insatiable avidity. Thus mistaking the perfections she would seem to possess, and the means of acquiring even them, she becomes the most ridiculous, instead of the most complete of her sex.

Eudosia, the most frivolous woman in the world, condemns her own sex for being too trifling. She despises the agreeable levity and cheerfulness of a mixed company; she will be serious, that she will; and emphatically intimates, that she thinks reason and good sense very valuable things. She never mixes in the general conversation, but singles out some one man, whom she thinks worthy of her good sense, and in a half voice, or sotto voce, discusses her solid

case, literally :-" Women are not naturally formed for great cares themselves, but to soften those of the opposite sex. Their tenderness is the proper reward for the dangers men undergo for their preservation; and the ease and cheerfulness of their conversation, our desirable retreat from the fatigues of intense application. They are confined within the narrow limits of domestic assiduity: and when they stray beyond them, they move beyond their sphere, and consequently without grace."-See vol. ii. "Citizen of the World," Letter lxi.]

trifles in his ear, dwells particularly upon the most trifling circumstances of the main trifle, which she enforces with the proper inclination of head and body, and with the most expressive gesticulations of the fan, modestly confessing every now and then, by way of parenthesis, that possibly it may be thought presumption in a woman to talk at all upon those matters. In the mean time, her unhappy hearer stifles a thousand gapes, assents universally to whatever she says, in hopes of shortening the conversation, and carefully watches the first favourable opportunity, which any motion in the company gives him, of making his escape from this excellent solid understanding. Thus deserted, but not discouraged, she takes the whole company in their turns, and has, for every one, a whisper of equal importance. If Eudosia would content herself with her natural talents, play at cards, make tea and visits, talk to her dog often, and to her company but sometimes, she would not be ridiculous, but bear a very tolerable part in the polite world.

Sydaria had beauty enough to have excused (while young) her want of common sense. But she scorned the fortuitous and precarious triumphs of beauty: she would only conquer by the charms of her mind. An union of hearts, a delicacy of sentiments, a mental adoration, or a sort of tender quietism, were what she long sought for, and never found. Thus nature struggled with sentiments till she was five and forty, but then got the better of it to such a degree, that she made very advantageous proposals to an Irish ensign of one and twenty equally ridiculous in her age and in her youth.

Canidia, withered by age, and shattered by infirmities, totters under the load of her misplaced ornaments; and her dress varies according to the freshest advices from Paris, instead of conforming itself (as it ought) to the