g came since into my house,
And broke thy pot of oil."_

Will's Coffee-house, July 15.

The discourse happened this evening to fall upon characters drawn in
plays, and a gentleman remarked, that there was no method in the world
of knowing the taste of an age, or period of time so good, as by the
observations of the persons represented in their comedies. There were
several instances produced, as Ben Jonson's bringing in a fellow smoking
as a piece of foppery;[406] "But," said the gentleman who entertained us
on this subject, "this matter is nowhere so observable as in the
difference of the characters of women on the stage in the last age, and
in this. It is not to be supposed that it was a poverty of genius in
Shakespeare, that his women made so small a figure in his dialogues; but
it certainly is, that he drew women as they then were in life; for that
sex had not in those days that freedom in conversation; and their
characters were only, that they were mothers, sisters, daughters, and
wives. There were not then among the ladies, shining wits, politicians,
virtuosas, free-thinkers, and disputants; nay, there was then hardly
such a creature even as a coquette: but vanity had quite another turn,
and the most conspicuous woman at that time of day was only the best
housewife. Were it possible to bring into life an assembly of matrons of
that age, and introduce the learned Lady Woodby into their company, they
would not believe the same nation could produce a creature so unlike
anything they ever saw in it. But these ancients would be as much
astonished to see in the same age so illustrious a pattern to all who
love things praiseworthy, as the divine Aspasia.[407] Methinks, I now
see her walking in her garden like our first parent, with unaffected
charms, before beauty had spectators, and bearing celestial conscious
virtue in her aspect. Her countenance is the lively picture of her mind,
which is the seat of honour, truth, compassion, knowledge, and
innocence.

_There dwells the scorn of vice and pity too._

In the midst of the most ample fortune, and veneration of all that
behold and know her, without the least affectation, she consults
retirement, the contemplation of her own being, and that supreme power
which bestowed it. Without the learning of schools, or knowledge of a
long course of arguments, she goes on in a steady course of
uninterrupted piety and virtue, and adds to the severity and privacy of
the