tween them;
if, after a certain number of these kind of visits, she does not appear,
it is a denial; and the disappointed lover is obliged to desist.

We shall see afterward when we come to treat of the matrimonial compact,
that, in some places, the ceremony of marriage consists in tying the
garments of the young couple together, as an emblem of that union which
ought to bind their affections and interests. This ceremony has afforded
a hint for lovers to explain their passion to their mistresses, in the
most intelligible manner, without the help of speech, or the possibility
of offending the nicest delicacy. A lover in these parts, who is too
modest to declare himself, seizes the first opportunity he can find, of
sitting down by his mistress, and tying his garment to hers, in the
manner that is practised in the ceremony of marriage: if she permits him
to finish the knot, without any interruption, and does not soon after
cut or loose it, she thereby gives her consent; if she looses it, he may
tie it again on some other occasion, when she may prove more propitious;
but if she cuts it, his hopes are blasted forever.

LONG HAIR OF SAXONS AND DANES.

The human hair has ever been regarded as an ornament. The Anglo-Saxons
and Danes considered their hair as one of their greatest personal
beauties, and took great care to dress it to the utmost advantage. Young
ladies wore it loose, and flowing in ringlets over their shoulders; but
after marriage they cut it shorter, tied it up, and covered it with a
head-dress, according to the fashion of the times; but to have the hair
cut entirely off, was a disgrace of such a nature, that it was even
thought a punishment not inadequate to the crime of adultery; so great,
in the Middle ages, was the value set upon the hair by both sexes, that,
as a piece of the most peculiar mortification, it was ordered by the
canons of the church, that the clergy should keep their hair short, and
shave the crown of their head; and that they should not, upon any
pretence whatever, endeavor to keep the part so shaved from public view.
Many of the clergy of these times, finding themselves so peculiarly
mortified, and perhaps so easily distinguished from all other people by
this particularity, as to be readily detected when they committed any of
the follies or crimes to which human nature is in every situation
sometimes liable, endeavored to persuade mankind that long hair was
criminal, in order to reduce th