scourse with the golden
shreds of Cicero and Virgil.

IT has been objected, and I fear with some reason, that female
conversation is too frequently tinctured with a censorious spirit, and
that ladies are seldom apt to discover much tenderness for the errors of
a fallen sister.

If it be so, it is a grievous fault.

NO arguments can justify, no pleas can extenuate it. To insult over the
miseries of an unhappy creature is inhuman, not to compassionate them
is unchristian. The worthy part of the sex always express themselves
humanely on the failings of others, in proportion to their own
undeviating goodness.

AND here I cannot help remarking, that young women do not always
carefully distinguish between running into the error of detraction, and
its opposite extreme of indiscriminate applause. This proceeds from the
false idea they entertain, that the direct contrary to what is wrong
must be right. Thus the dread of being only suspected of one fault makes
them actually guilty of another. The desire of avoiding the imputation
of envy, impels them to be insincere; and to establish a reputation for
sweetness of temper and generosity, they affect sometimes to speak of
very indifferent characters with the most extravagant applause. With
such, the hyperbole is a favourite figure; and every degree of
comparison but the superlative is rejected, as cold and inexpressive.
But this habit of exaggeration greatly weakens their credit, and
destroys the weight of their opinion on other occasions; for people very
soon discover what degree of faith is to be given both to their judgment
and veracity. And those of real merit will no more be flattered by that
approbation, which cannot distinguish the value of what it praises, than
the celebrated painter must have been at the judgment passed on his
works by an ignorant spectator, who, being asked what he thought of such
and such very capital but very different pieces, cried out in an
affected rapture, "All alike! all alike!"

IT has been proposed to the young, as a maxim of supreme wisdom, to
manage so dexterously in conversation, as to appear to be well
acquainted with subjects, of which they are totally ignorant; and this,
by affecting silence in regard to those, on which they are known to
excel.--But why counsel this disingenuous fraud? Why add to the
numberless arts of deceit, this practice of deceiving, as it were, on a
settled principle? If to disavow the knowledge they really ha