For such ladies as choose more simple disguises, she has provided dominos, jalousies-and also the smaller articles of dress, such as prominent bosoms and behinds, from the most enormous to the most moderate; and cool and airy masks of all kinds.

Convenient rooms will be ready, adjoining to the shop, for adjusting ceremonies, and settling plans, in case the apartments in the Hotel allotted for accommodation should be too much crowded.-As the sole relish of this rational and

elegant entertainment depends upon secrecy, customers may be assured that effectual means will be taken that no person in one chamber shall know what is going on in the next.

She has also been solicited by several of her friends to commission gentlemen's masks; but as fashionable gentlemen at present require little additional disguise in comparison with the ladies, she will not boast of the same variety in this department. Those who have no characters to support (by much the greatest number, no doubt, upon such occasions,) may be supplied with various coloured dominos.-She has ordered a few excellent devils' masks, with gilded horns-a very good Don Quixote, with a shining Mambrinoa young Bacchus, but as the character is so common, particular decorations will be given

Several running-footmen, jockies, harlequins, chimney-sweeps-Many good dresses for Sir Johns and Jackie Brutes-men-midwives, with circumstantial printed advertisements-Calibans, Cupids, and Adonises in abundance-A very elegant dress for mad Tom, the blanket being worked like a modern shawl, and the crown filled with goose feathers in place of straw, the pole a Lochaber-axe-A very good knave of clubs, and a ninth of diamonds-A very fine dancing bear, and orang outang, fitted to represent human nature, either in its improved upright state, or in its primitive, upon all fours-N. B. with or without tails. With many other original characters too tedious to mention-Inquire at the warehouse. A fine group, meant to represent an exciseman tormenting a landholder, a distiller, and a farmer, accompanied with a John Bull laughing.

It is rumoured, that the Manager has been applied to for dresses; but ladies and gentlemen are requested to take notice, that they can only be served, in this way, with frippery that has been exposed to public view these twenty years.

* For particular friends, who may happen not to be prepared, she has provided some excellent bon mots and repartees, warranted not to be found in the jest-books. She makes a special bargain, however, that (after being spoken) they

shall not be sent to the newspapers, as she foresees, from the advancing state of this country, that they may again be wanted, and injury might be done to her trade by publishing them.

This not to be repeated, as the advantage is clearly on the side of the purchaser, and not of the seller; and the public ought to think themselves much obliged to the advertiser for this single notice.

E. C.

[The following letters appeared periodically in the Edinburgh Evening Courant.]

LETTER FIRST.

Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

SIR,

SOLOMON.

Feb. 18. 1786.

In compliance with the fashion of essayists, I beg leave to introduce myself to your acquaintance by a quotation from an antiquated author, of whom, by the way, I am no admirer; but my mind is of that assimilating nature, that it can draw nourishment even from poisonous sources.

You must know, Sir, I look with a jealous eye to all periodical papers.-The newspapers that have been conducted by my secret influence have always been the most successful; and the magazines which I patronize are the most read. When the Lounger was announced, I confess I was led by the title to hope that it would be a publication suited to my sentiments and opinions. I am sorry, however, to say that my hopes have been disappointed, and that it has hitherto been inimical to my views and wishes respecting men and manners. Opinions, Sir, should vary, like all other things, with the fashion, and not be thrown out to stem the tide of freedom and fashionable enjoyments. You have fortunately lived, Sir, to see an ease of manners, and a liberality of sentiment, pervade all ranks of society, which were hitherto unknown in your country.-People in Scotland formerly read, thought, and reasoned too much; which produced a certain strictness of manners, and a cramped attention to decorum, which provoked me exceedingly. They would then talk of restraints of duty, of moral obligation, and conscience, of decency and propriety of conduct, and such like stuff. But now there is a happy thoughtless frivolity and ease of manners introduced, when people may do what they please, and not be the worse thought of by

the world; and this, sir, let me tell you, liberality of mind.

is true

There was formerly a certain stately dignity of character, that was above doing a mean or an immoral action. The lines of duty, and the laws of decorum, were ascertained and attended to. But all this produced a kind of stiffness of manners, and often prevented people from doing what they had an inclination to, very unsuitable to a pleasure-loving age.

There was formerly a certain nothingness of character, which was despised in society, but which now, by a few easy-attained fashionable rules, and the pursuit of fashionable pleasures, is highly raised in the scale of importance. Labour and study to acquire manly principles, useful knowledge; elegant manners and accomplishments are now unnecessary. It must be allowed, that it is much easier now to be a gentleman than formerly; and this, of itself, is a very great improvement. A late very elegant friend of mine has shewn, that a person's whole life and conduct ought to be falsehood and deceit; and if to this he can add bowing and flattery, he is a gentleman to all intents and purposes. But, however much a person may deserve the appellation of a liar, it must not be told, without the offence being appeased by