uin was dressed in a very dirty
shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear
foul linen because his laundress was made a princess. This was a
reflection upon the Pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her
brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented
her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the Pope
offered a considerable sum of money to any person that should
discover the author of it. The author relying on his Holiness'
generosity, as also upon some private overtures he had received
from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him
the reward he had promised, but at the same time to disable the
satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both
his hands to be chopped off."

When Addison treats of the ladies' "commode," a lofty head-dress which
had been in fashion in his time, he adds reflections which may moderate
all such vanities--

"There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.
Within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty
degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height,
inasmuch as the female part of our species were much taller than
the men. The women were of such an enormous stature that 'we
appeared as grasshoppers before them.' At present, the whole sex is
in a manner dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems
almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once
very near seven feet high, that at present want some inches of
five.... I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it
is for them to add anything that can be ornamental to what is
already the master-piece of Nature. The head has the most beautiful
appearance, as well as the highest station in a human figure.
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has
touched it with vermillion, planted in it a double row of ivory,
made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up, and
enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side
with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot
be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair
as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she
seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the mos