those Devotionists, who upon returning from Church shall give a
particular Account how two or three hundred People were dressed; a
Thing, by reason of its Variety, so difficult to be digested and fixed
in the Head, that 'tis a Miracle to me how two poor Hours of Divine
Service can be Time sufficient for so elaborate an undertaking, the
Duty of the Place too being jointly and, no doubt, oft pathetically
performed along with it. Where it is said in Sacred Wit, that _the
Woman ought to have a Covering on her Head, because of the Angels_ [2]
that last Word is by some thought to be metaphorically used, and to
signify young Men. Allowing this Interpretation to be right, the Text
may not appear to be wholly foreign to our present Purpose.

'When you are in a Disposition proper for writing on such a Subject, I
earnestly recommend this to you, and am,

_SIR,_

_Your very humble Servant._

T.

[Footnote 1: Thomas Parnell, the writer of this allegory, was the son of
a commonwealthsman, who at the Restoration ceased to live on his
hereditary lands at Congleton, in Cheshire, and bought an estate in
Ireland. Born in 1679, at Dublin, where he became M.A. of Trinity
College, in 1700 he was ordained after taking his degree, and in 1705
became Archdeacon of Clogher. At the same time he took a wife, who died
in 1711. Parnell had been an associate of the chief Whig writers, had
taste as a poet, and found pleasure in writing for the papers of the
time. When the Whigs went out of power in Queen Anne's reign, Parnell
connected himself with the Tories. On the warm recommendation of Swift,
he obtained a prebend in 1713, and in May, 1716, a vicarage in the
diocese of Dublin, worth L400 a year. He died in July, 1717, aged 38.
Inheriting his father's estates in Cheshire and Ireland, Pamell was not
in need. Wanting vigour and passion, he was neither formidable nor
bitter as a political opponent, and in 1712 his old friends, Steele and
Addison, were glad of a paper from him; though, with Swift, he had gone
over to the other side in politics.]

[Footnote 2: I Corinthians xi. 10.]

* * * * *

No. 461. Tuesday, August 19, 1712. Steele

'--Non Ego credulus illis--'

Virg.

For want of Time to substitute something else in the Room of them, I am
at present obliged to publish Compliments above my Desert in the
following Letters.