petticoats.

A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer but his
tobacco. You must know, Sir, every woman carries in her hand a
stove with coals in it, which, when she sits, she snugs under her
petticoats; and at this chimney dozing Strephon lights his pipe. I
take it that this continual smoking is what gives the man the ruddy
healthful complexion he generally wears, by draining his superfluous
moisture, while the woman, deprived of this amusement, overflows with
such viscidities as tint the complexion, and give that paleness of
visage which low fenny grounds and moist air conspire to cause. A
Dutch woman and Scotch will well bear an opposition.

The one is pale and fat, the other lean and ruddy: the one walks as if
she were straddling after a go-cart, and the other takes too masculine
a stride. I shall not endeavour to deprive either country of its share
of beauty; but must say, that of all objects on this earth, an English
farmer's daughter is most charming. Every woman there is a complete
beauty, while the higher class of women want many of the requisites to
make them even tolerable. Their pleasures here are very dull, though
very various. You may smoke, you may doze; you may go to the
Italian comedy, as good an amusement as either of the former. This
entertainment always brings in Harlequin, who is generally a magician,
and in consequence of his diabolical art performs a thousand tricks on
the rest of the persons of the drama, who are all fools. I have seen
the pit in a roar of laughter at this humour, when with his sword he
touches the glass from which another was drinking. 'Twas not his face
they laughed at, for that was masked. They must have seen something
vastly queer in the wooden sword, that neither I, nor you, Sir, were
you there, could see.

In winter, when their canals are frozen, every house is forsaken, and
all people are on the ice; sleds, drawn by horses, and skating, are at
that time the reigning amusements. They have boats here that slide
on the ice, and are driven by the winds. When they spread all their
sails, they go more than a mile and a half a minute, and their motion
is so rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. Their ordinary manner
of travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sail in covered
boats drawn by horses; and in these you are sure to meet people of all
nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, and the English
play at cards. Any man who likes co