on to be only
a Pretence, and a piece of Art, for it is well known we have not had a
more moderate Summer these many Years, so that it is certain the Heat
they complain of cannot be in the Weather: Besides, I would fain ask
these tender constitutioned Ladies, why they should require more
Cooling than their Mothers before them.

I find several Speculative Persons are of Opinion that our Sex has of
late Years been very sawcy, and that the Hoop Petticoat is made use of
to keep us at a Distance. It is most certain that a Woman's Honour
cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in Circle within
Circle, amidst such a Variety of Out-works and Lines of
Circumvallation. A Female who is thus invested in Whale-Bone is
sufficiently secured against the Approaches of an ill-bred Fellow, who
might as well think of Sir _George Etherege_'s way of making Love in a
Tub, [1] as in the midst of so many Hoops.

Among these various Conjectures, there are Men of Superstitious
tempers, who look upon the Hoop Petticoat as a kind of Prodigy. Some
will have it that it portends the Downfal of the _French_ King, and
observe that the Farthingale appeared in _England _a little before the
Ruin of the _Spanish_ Monarchy. Others are of Opinion that it foretels
Battle and Bloodshed, and believe it of the same Prognostication as
the Tail of a Blazing Star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a
Sign that Multitudes are coming into the World rather than going out
of it.

The first time I saw a Lady dressed in one of these Petticoats, I
could not forbear blaming her in my own Thoughts for walking abroad
when she was _so near her Time_, but soon recovered myself out of my
Error, when I found all the Modish Part of the Sex as _far gone_ as
her self. It is generally thought some crafty Women have thus betrayed
their Companions into Hoops, that they might make them accessory to
their own Concealments, and by that means escape the Censure of the
World; as wary Generals have sometimes dressed two or three Dozen of
their Friends in their own Habit, that they might not draw upon
themselves any particular Attacks of the Enemy. The strutting
Petticoat smooths all Distinctions, levels the Mother with the
Daughter, and sets Maids and Matrons, Wives and Widows, upon the same
Bottom. In the mean while I cannot but be troubled to see so many
well-shaped innocent Virgins bloated up, and w