my opinion splits itself into two opposite sides upon the same question.  I can suppose a French woman, though painted an inch deep, to be a virtuous, discreet, excellent character; and in no instance should I think the worse of one because she was painted.  But an English belle must pardon me if I have not the same charity for her.  She is at least an impostor, whether she cheats me or not, because she means to do so; and it is well if that be all the censure she deserves.

“This brings me to my second class of ideas upon this topic, and here I feel that I should be fearfully puzzled, were I called upon to recommend the practice on the score of convenience.  If a husband chose that his wife should paint, perhaps it might be her duty, as well as her interest, to comply.  But I think he would not much consult his own, for reasons that will follow.  In the first place, she would admire herself the more; and in the next, if she managed the matter well, she might he more admired by others; an acquisition that might bring her virtue under trials, to which otherwise it might never have been exposed.  In no other case, however, can I imagine the practice in this country to be either expedient or convenient.  As a general one it certainly is not expedient, because in general English women have no occasion for it.  A swarthy complexion is a rarity here; and the sex, especially since inoculation has been so much in use, have very little cause to complain that nature has not been kind to them in the article of complexion.  They may hide and spoil a good one, but they cannot, at least they hardly can, give themselves a better.  But even if they could, there is yet a tragedy in the sequel, which, should make them tremble.

“I understand that in France, though the use of rouge be general, the use of white paint is far from being so.  In England, she that uses one, commonly uses both.  Now all white paints, or lotions, or whatever they may be called, are mercurial, consequently poisonous, consequently ruinous in time to the constitution.  The Miss B——­ above mentioned was a miserable witness of this truth, it being certain that her flesh fell from her bones before she died.  Lady Coventry was hardly a less melancholy proof of it; and a London physician perhaps, were he at liberty to blab, could publish a bill of female mortality, of a length that would astonish us.

“For these reasons I utterly condemn the practice, as it obtains in England; and for a reason superior to all these I must disapprove it.  I cannot, indeed, discover that Scripture forbids it in so many words.  But that anxious solicitude about the person, which such an artifice evidently betrays, is, I am sure, contrary to the tenor and spirit of it throughout.  Show me a woman with a painted face, and I will show you a woman whose heart is set on things of the earth, and not on things above.

“But this observation of mine applies to it only when it is an imitative art.  For in the use of French women, I think it is as innocent as in the use of a wild Indian, who draws a circle round her face, and makes two spots, perhaps blue, perhaps white, in the middle of it.  Such are my thoughts upon the matter.