then commonly worn in private parties. Besides this there were protuberances on the hips called bustlers, another behind which was called in plain language a rump, and a merry-thought of wire on the breast to puff out the handkerchief like a pouting pigeon. Women were obliged to sip their tea with the corner of their mouths, and to eat sideways. A yet more extraordinary costume succeeded, that of pads in front, to imitate what it must have been originally invented to conceal. All these fashions went like the French monarchy, and about the same time; but when the ladies began to strip themselves, they did not know where to stop. And these follies travel where the science and literature and domestic improvements of the English never reach! Well does Anguillesi say in his address to Fashion: Non perchè libera e industre guerra, Non perchè del suo Newtono Ma perchè ti nacque idéa Come l'angliche Myledi. Not because she is free and industrious, great in peace and great in war, is triple England now so dear and so illustrious among us; not because that land proudly rejoices in her Newton, and in that great one by whom Othello and Hamlet are become immortal names. But because it has pleased thee, O powerful goddess, to attire thyself after the English mode,-every one speaks of that country. Hence it is that in fine emulation we are seen to dress like My-lord, and Italian matrons like the English My-lady.—TR. 278 LETTER L. Lady Wortley Montagu's Remark upon Credulity-Superstitions of the English respecting the Cure of Diseases.—Sickness and Healing connected with Superstition.-Wesley's Primitive Physic.— Quacks.- Dr. Graham.- Tractors.Magnetic Girdles.—Quoz.-Quack Medicines. LADY Mary Wortley Montagu, the best letter-writer of this or of any other country, has accounted for the extraordinary facility with which her countrymen are duped by the most ignorant quacks, very truly and very ingeniously. "The English," she says, "are more easily infatuated than any other people by the hope of a panacea, nor is there any other country in the world where such great fortunes are made by physicians. I attribute this to the foolish credulity of mankind. As we no longer trust in miracles and relics, we run as eagerly after receipts and doctors, and the money which was given three centuries ago for the health of the soul, is now given for the health of the body, by the same-sort of people, women and halfwitted men. Quacks are despised in countries where they have shrines and images." How much to be lamented is the perversion of a mind like hers, which, had it not been heretical, would have been so truly excellent! She perceives the truth; but having been nursed up in a false religion, and afterwards associated with persons who had none, she does not perceive the whole truth, and confounds light and darkness. The foolish credulity of mankind! To be without faith and hope is as unnatural a state for the heart as to be without affections, Man is a credulous animal; perhaps he has never yet been defined by a characteristic which more peculiarly and exclusively designates him, certainly never by a nobler one; for faith and hope are what the heretics mean by credulity. The fact is, as she states it. Infidelity and heresy cannot destroy the nature of man, but they pervert it; they deprive him of his trust in God, and he puts it in man; they take away the staff of his support, and he leans upon a broken reed. In the worst sufferings and the most imminent peril a true catholic never needs despair; such is the power of the saints, and the infinite mercy of God and the most holy Mary: but the heretics in such cases have only to despair and die. They have no saint to look to for every particular disease, no faith in relics to make them whole. If a piece of the true cross were brought to a dying Englishman, though its efficacy had been proved by a thousand miracles he would reject it even |