n
print, where only we have met the shrews. On the other hand, they
smoke, a contingency which does not seem to have occurred to the
author of _The Ladies' Calling_, who nowhere warns the sisterhood
against tobacco. The gravity of his indictment of excess in wine, not
less than the evidence of such observers as Pepys, proves to us that
drunkenness was by no means rare even among women of quality.

There never, we suppose, from the beginning of the world was a
man-preacher who did not warn the women of his congregation against
the vanity of fair raiment. The author of _The Ladies' Calling_ is no
exception; but he does his spiriting in a gentlemanlike way. The
ladies came to listen to him bedizened with jewels, with all the
objects which lie strewn at the feet of his penitent in the
frontispiece. He does not scream to them to rend them off. He only
remonstrates at their costliness. In that perfectly charming record of
a child's mind, the Memoir of Marjorie Fleming, the delicious little
wiseacre records the fact that her father and mother have given a
guinea for a pineapple, remarking that that money would have sustained
a poor family during the entire winter. We are reminded of that when
our divine tells his auditors that "any one of the baubles, the
loosest appendage of the dress, a fan, a busk, perhaps a black patch,
bears a price that would warm the empty bowels of a poor starving
wretch." This was long before the days of very elaborate and expensive
patches, which were still so new in Pepys's days that he remarked on
those of Mr. Penn's pretty sister when he saw her in the new coach,
"patched and very fine." Our preacher is no ranter, nor does he shut
the door of mercy on entertainments; all he deprecates is their
excess. His penitents are not forbidden to spend an afternoon at the
theatre, or an evening in dancing or at cards; but they are desired to
remember that, delightful as these occupations are, devotion is more
delightful still.

The attitude of the author to gaming is curious. "I question not the
lawfulness of this recreation," he says distinctly; but he desires his
ladies not to make cards the business of their life, and especially
not to play on Sundays. It appears that some great ladies, in the
emptiness of their heads and hearts, took advantage of the high pews
then always found in churches to play ombre or quadrille under the
very nose of the preacher. This conduct must have been rare; the
legends of