an open landscape, is raising one hand to grasp a
crown dangled out of her reach in the clouds, and in the other, with
an air of great affectation is lifting her skirt between finger and
thumb. A purse, a coronet, a fan, a mirror, rings, dice, coins, and
other useful articles lie strewn at her naked feet; she spurns them,
and lifts her streaming eyes to heaven. This is the sort of picture
which does its best to prevent the reader from opening the book; but
_The Ladies' Calling_, nevertheless, is well worth reading. It excites
in us a curious wish to know more exactly what manner of women it was
addressed to. How did the great-grandmothers of our great-grandmothers
behave? When we come to think of it, how little we know about them!

The customary source of information is the play-book of the time.
There, indeed, we come across some choice indications of ancient
woman's behaviour. Nor did the women spare one another. The woman
dramatists outdid the men in attacking the manners of their sex, and
what is perhaps the most cynical comedy in all literature was written
by a woman. It will be some time before the Corinnas of _The Yellow
Book_ contrive to surpass _The Town Fop_ in outrageous frankness. Our
ideas of the fashions of the seventeenth century are, however, taken
too exclusively, if they are taken from these plays alone. We conceive
every fine lady to be like Lady Brute, in _The Provok'd Wife_, who
wakes about two o'clock in the afternoon, is "trailed" to her great
chair for tea, leaves her bedroom only to descend to dinner, spends
the night with a box and dice, and does not go to bed until the dawn.
Comedy has always forced the note, and is a very unsafe (though
picturesque) guide to historic manners. Perhaps we obtain a juster
notion from the gallant pamphlets of the age, such as _The Lover's
Watch_ and _The Lady's Looking-Glass_; yet these were purely intended
for people whom we should nowadays call "smart," readers who hung
about the outskirts of the Court.

For materials, then, out of which to construct a portrait of the
ordinary woman of the world in the reign of Charles II, we are glad to
come back to our anonymous divine. His is the best-kept secret in
English literature. In spite of the immense success of _The Whole Duty
of Man_, no one has done more than conjecture, more or less vaguely,
who he may have been. He wrote at least five works besides his most
famous treatise, and in preparing each of these for t