aughter: like a gunpowder
serpent, which, after hissing about for some time, goes off in a bounce.

17. Some excuse may perhaps be framed for this ill-timed merriment, in
the fair sex. _Venus_, the goddess of beauty, is frequently called
_laughter-loving dame_; and by laughing, our modern ladies may possibly
imagine, that they render themselves like _Venus_. I have indeed
remarked, that the ladies commonly adjust their laugh to their persons,
and are merry in proportion as it sets off their particular charms.

18. One lady is never further moved than to a smile or a simper, because
nothing else shews her dimples to so much advantage; another who has a
fine set of teeth, runs into a broad grin; while a third, who is admired
for a well turned neck and graceful chest, calls up all her beauties to
view by breaking into violent and repeated peals of laughter.

19. I would not be understood to impose gravity or too great a reserve
on the fair sex. Let them laugh at a feather; but let them declare
openly, that it is a feather which occasions their mirth. I must
confess, that laughter becomes the young, the gay, and the handsome: but
a whisper is unbecoming at all ages, and in both sexes: nor ought it
ever to be practised, except in the round gallery of St. _Paul's_, or in
the famous whispering place in _Gloucester_ cathedral, where two
whisperers hear each other at the distance of five-and-twenty yards.

_I am, Sir,

Your humble Servant._

_Beauty_.

1. Though the danger of disappointment is always in proportion to the
height of expectation, yet I this day claim the attention of the ladies,
and profess to teach an art by which all may obtain what has hitherto
been deemed the prerogative of a few: an art by which their predominant
passion may be gratified, and their conquest not only extended, but
secured; "The art of being PRETTY."

2. But though my subject may interest the ladies, it may, perhaps,
offend those profound moralists who have long since determined, that
beauty ought rather to be despised than desired; that, like strength, it
is a mere natural excellence, the effect that causes wholly out of our
power, and not intended either as the pledge of happiness or the
distinction of merit.

3. To these gentlemen I shall remark, that beauty is among those
qualities which no effort of human wit could ever bring into contempt:
it is therefore to be wished at least, that beauty was in some degree
dependent upon