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290 whether it be best or not to describe their heroine: I must own I lean to the descriptive myself; I like to have the lady placed bodily before me—I like to know whether the eyes with whose tears I am to sympathise are of the true blue of patriotism, or of the deep black of poetry. I can call up the image more distinctly, when I know if her cheek is like or like

Judging of others by myself, and quoting the Spectator for my authority, let me, as some old author says, "paint my ladie with words."

Parted in the middle into two rich braids, the dark hair divided so as to do full justice to the oval of the face, and caught on its auburn wave the first shade of the crape hat, whose yellow was delicate as the earliest primrose—that faint soft yellow, so trying, yet so becoming; a colour to be avoided equally by the bright and the sallow, making the bright seem coarse, and the sallow sickly—but exquisite on that clear pale skin where the rose visits, but dwells not, and the blush passes with the feelings it betrays.