Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/236

226 them their ſlaves. They ſent over the ducheſs of Portſmouth, who, beſides many other commiſſions, bore one to laugh us out of our veſts, which ſhe performed ſo effectually, that in a moment we were like ſo many footmen, who had quitted their maſters livery, we took it again, and returned to our old ſervice. So that the very time of doing this gave a very critical advantage to France, ſince it looked like an evidence of returning to their intereſts, as well as their faſhions.’

After giving this quotation from the marquis of Halifax, he proceeds to inveigh againſt the various kinds of luxury, in which people of faſhion indulge themſelves.

He obſerves that luxury has in a particular manner been deſtructive to the ladies: ‘That artificial dainties raiſe in their conſtitutions fierce ebullitions, and violent emotions, too rude for the delicate texture of their fibres; and for half the year together, they neither take any air, nor uſe any exerciſe to remove them. From hence diſtempers of body and mind; from hence an infinity of irregular deſires, unlawful amours, intrigues, vapours, and whimſies, and all the numerous, melancholy croud of deep hyſterical ſymptoms; from hence it comes to paſs that the fruit of their bodies lie in them like plants in hot-beds; from hence it proceeds that our Britiſh maids, who in the time of our Henrys, were not held marriageable till turned of twenty, are now become falling ripe at twelve, and forced to prematureneſs, by the heat of adventitious fire. Nor has luxury only changed our natures, but transformed our ſexes: We have men that are more ſoft, more languid, and more paſſive than women. On the other ſide we have women, who, as it were