feriors, a servant maid, in
the Peak of Derbyshire, having purchased an old tete from a puppet-show
woman, and being at a loss for some of this wool to stuff out the curls
with, fancied a whisp of hay might {55}do. [_Takes the head._] Here
is the servant maid, with her new-purchased finery; and here is her
new-fashioned stuffing. But, before she had finished at her garret
dressing-table, a ring at the door called her down stairs to receive a
letter from the postboy; turning back to go into the house again, the
postboy's horse, being hungry, laid hold of the head-dress by way of
forage. Never may the fair sex meet with a worse misfortune; but may the
ladies, always hereafter, preserve their heads in good order. Amen.

Horace, in describing a fine woman, makes use of two Latin words,
which are, _simplex munditiis_. Now these two words cannot be properly
translated; {56}their best interpretation is that of a young Female
Quaker. [_Takes the head._] Such is the effect of native neatness.
Here is no bundle of hair to set her off, no jewels to adorn her, nor
artificial complexion. Yet there is a certain odium which satire has
dared to charge our English ladies with, which is, plastering the
features with whitewash, or rubbing rouge or red upon their faces.
[_Gives the head off._] Women of the town may lay on red, because, like
pirates, the dexterity of their profession consists in their engaging
under false colours; but, for the delicate, the inculpable part of the
sex, to vermilion their faces, seems as if ladies would fish for lovers
as men bait for mackerel, by hanging something red upon the hook; or
that they imagined men to be of the bull or turkey-cock kind, that would
fly at any thing scarlet. [_Takes the head off._] But such practitioners
should remember that their faces are the works of their Creator.--If
bad, how dare they mend it? If good, why mend it? Are they ashamed of
his work, and proud of their own? If any such there are, let 'em lay by
the art, and blush not to appear that which he blushes not to have made
them. If any lady should be offended with the lecturer's daring to take
such liberties with her sex, by {57}way of atonement for that part of
my behaviour which may appear culpable, I humbly beg leave to offer a
nostrum, or recipe, to preserve the ladies' faces in perpetual bloom,
and defend beauty from all assaults of time; and I dare venture to
affirm, not all the paints, pomatums, or washes, can be of so