26.  I do not know any thing that has pleased me so much a great while, as this conquest of my friend Daphne’s.  All her acquaintance congratulate her upon her chance medley, and laugh at that premeditating murderer, her sister.  As it is an argument of a light mind, to think the worse of ourselves for the imperfections of our persons, it is equally below us to value ourselves upon the advantages of them.

27.  The female world seems to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in this particular; for which reason, I shall recommend the following extract out of a friend’s letter to the profess’d beauties, who are a people almost as insufferable as the profess’d wits.

’Monsier St. Evrement has concluded one of his essays with affirming, that the last sighs of a handsome woman are not so much for the loss of her life, as her beauty.

28.  ’Perhaps this raillery is pursued too far, yet it is turned upon a very obvious remark, that woman’s strongest passion is for her own beauty, and that she values it as her favourite distinction.  From hence it is that all hearts, which intend to improve or preserve it, meet with so general a reception among the sex.

29.  To say nothing Of many false helps, and contraband wares of beauty, which are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a maiden gentlewoman, of a good family, in any county of South Britain, who has not heard of the virtues of may-dew, or is unfurnished with some receipt or other in favour of her complexion; and I have known a physician of learning and sense, after eight years study in the university and a course of travels into most countries of Europe, owe the first raising of his fortune to a cosmetic wash.

30.  ’This has given me occasion to consider how so universal a disposition in womankind, which springs from a laudable motive, the desire of pleasing, and proceeds upon an opinion, not altogether groundless, that nature may be helped by art, may be turned to their advantage.  And, methinks, it would be an acceptable service to take them out of the hands of quacks and pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon themselves, by discovering to them the true secret and art of improving beauty.

31.  ’In order to do this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be necessary to lay down a few preliminary maxims, viz.

That no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more she can be witty only by the help of speech.

That pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

That no woman is capable of being beautiful, who is not incapable of being false.

And, that what would be odious in a friend, is deformity in a mistress.

32 ’From these few principles thus laid down, it will be easy to prove that the true art of assisting beauty consists in embellishing the whole person by the proper ornaments of virtuous and commendable qualities.  By this help alone it is, that those who are the favourite work of nature, or, as Mr. Dryden expresses it, the porcelain clay of human kind, become animated, and are in a capacity of exerting their charms:  and those who seem to have been neglected by her, like models wrought in haste, are capable, in a great measure, of finishing what she has left imperfect.