ble for bad teeth. They also look pallid, and many
are troubled with certain feminine disorders, arising from a relaxed
habit. The Portuguese ladies, on the other hand, entertain with
sweetmeats, and yet they have very good teeth; but their food, in
general, is more of a farinaceous and vegetable kind than ours. They
also drink cold water, instead of sipping hot, and never taste any
fermented liquors; for these reasons, the use of sugar does not seem to
be at all pernicious to them."

"Men seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their
beauty. I am not young, but, methinks, there is not quite so much beauty
in this land as there was. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom,
I suppose, by sipping tea. Even the agitations of the passions at cards
are not so great enemies to female charms. What Shakespeare ascribes to
the concealment of love, is, in this age, more frequently occasioned by
the use of tea."

To raise the fright still higher, he quotes an account of a pig's tail,
scalded with tea, on which, however, he does not much insist.

Of these dreadful effects, some are, perhaps, imaginary, and some may
have another cause. That there is less beauty in the present race of
females, than in those who entered the world with us, all of us are
inclined to think, on whom beauty has ceased to smile; but our fathers
and grandfathers made the same complaint before us; and our posterity
will still find beauties irresistibly powerful.

That the diseases, commonly called nervous, tremours, fits, habitual
depression, and all the maladies which proceed from laxity and debility,
are more frequent than in any former time, is, I believe, true, however
deplorable. But this new race of evils will not be expelled by the
prohibition of tea. This general languor is the effect of general
luxury, of general idleness. If it be most to be found among
tea-drinkers, the reason is, that tea is one of the stated amusements of
the idle and luxurious. The whole mode of life is changed; every kind of
voluntary labour, every exercise that strengthened the nerves, and
hardened the muscles, is fallen into disuse. The inhabitants are crowded
together in populous cities, so that no occasion of life requires much
motion; every one is near to all that he wants; and the rich and
delicate seldom pass from one street to another, but in carriages of
pleasure. Yet we eat and drink, or strive to eat and drink, like the
hunters and huntress