CHAP. VI.

Of the tyranny of Fashion in laying enormous taxes upon the commonalty, and grinding the faces of the poor.

EVERY one who reads English history must know, that Richard the Third had a humped back. And, as ancient story goes, humping became quite fashionable during his reign: the courtiers, the Lords, the Ladies, and the under gentry, patterning after royalty, wore, each, a fashionable crook in the back; so that the English of that day were "a crooked generation," sure enough. Be this, however, as it may, in point of ridiculous absurdity it hardly exceeds what is very commonly seen among ourselves.

Though we should be called a christian people, it is a fact, as notorious as sad, that an antichristian deity is worshipped among us in town and country, and by immense numbers of all classes and of both sexes. Look where you will, you see all ranks bowing, cringing, bending the knee-to what? to Fashion. This is the goddess of their idolatry. They yield implicit obedience to her laws, however absurd and barbarous; and though she changes as often as the moon, they follow her in all her changes, and ape her in all her freakshumping whenever she humps. They are brought to endure cold and nakedness, when, but for having followed her mandates, they might be comfortably clad. They reject and despise the diet which she forbids, though wholesome and palatable, and best suited, as well to their constitution as to their circumstances. They pay tythes to her of all they possess. Tythes did I say ? It were well if only a tenth would satisfy her: she often claims more than one half. Did she tax only the rich, who are able to pay, it would not be so bad; but she lays her rapacious hands on the middling classes, and even upon the poor. Nay, the knavish huzzy seizes what ought to be laid up against old age and sickness, and also what ought to go to the creditor.

By the decree of fashion, this republican, and otherwise free nation, is thrown into castes, as really, in

some respects, as the Hindoos have been by their brahmius; and the only way to gain admission, or maintain a standing, in the higher castes, is to dress gorgeously and fare sumptuously, no matter by what means. Hence the general struggle. The rich march foremost in the ranks of fashion, and the others keep as close to their heels as possible, following on, in a long train, like files of geese. This is comic in appearance, but tragic in reality. It is amusing at first thought, to see families in narrow circumstances, struggling to make the appearance of high life; to see them vying, not only with one another, but with the rich, to exceed in finery and splendor; to see how much pains they take and how many arts they use, to dazzle the eyes of the beholder with the mockery of wealth. But on due reflection, one finds more reason to be sad than merry. When we consider that these deluded people are following a phantom that is leading them to ruin, that they are incurring expenses which they are utterly unable to support, that they are bartering away solid comforts for an empty show, that by striving to live splendidly they are losing the means of living decently and comfortably; when we consider that they are bringing wretchedness upon their children, by leaving them to the buffetings of poverty, aggravated highly by their early acquaintance with fashionable life; when we consider, finally, that some of them are defrauding their creditors, by sacrificing on the altar of fashion what is needed for the payment of their just debts ;when we put these considerations together, we find them enough to excite deep regret and sorrow.

It is questionable whether great wealth conduces, on the whole, even to worldly happiness. It cannot cure an aching head, nor sooth an aching heart; it is no shield from the shafts of misfortune, nor from the arrows of death; it brings to the possessor an addition of cares as well as of comforts; and is often the means of bringing moral ruin upon his children; and while it increases his power and influence, it increases also his responsibility. The rich have, however, one exclusive privilege: they have a right to make a splendid appearance in the world, because their circumstances can well afford it. Fine houses, expensive furniture, stately equipage, and sump

tuous fare, are within the bounds of their real means, and therefore not censurable in them. In one point of view the profusion of their expenses is beneficial to community, as it gives employment and affords sustenance to industry. Yet there can be shown a more excellent way. Frugality is comely even in the rich. Not that frugality which degenerates to parsimony, and causes the rich to wear the garb of poverty, from a sordid spirit of penuriousness; nor yet that frugality which saves merely to increase a hoard already too large; but it is a prudent saving from the grasp of profusion for the purpose of charity and beneficence. Take the following example:

Benevolus has both an ample fortune and a liberal heart. Content with his present worldly store, he is now resolved that his expenses shall about equal his income. He lives daily in the style of affluence, but never in the style of extravagance: and what he saves by frugality, he bestows in charity. To the children of misfortune and want, he is a friend and a father; of every useful and laudable undertaking, he is a bountiful encourager.-Does Benevolus aspire to be a leader of fashion? Yes: with all the weight of his influence he tries to make industry, prudent economy, and frugality, fashionable; to make the moral and christian virtues fashionable; to make it fashionable to behave well, and to do good.-Happy man! happy the children of such a father, and the community that has such a pattern!

As the richest families may be beggared by extravagance, much sooner will it consume one's all, when that all is but little :-and what avails the ruffle without the shirt?-Persons who are but in small circumstances, must prudently husband what they have, or it will quickly slip out of their hands. How unwise is it for them to make an ostentation of wealth which they do not possess, or to pursue fashion "when she runs faster than they can follow!" If you follow fashion beyond your real means, depend upon it the skittish jade will throw you

into the mire at last.

CHAP. VII.

Of the Papal Rescript from the Court of Fashion, indirectly forbidding to Marry.

THE injunction of celibacy, or of the monastic life, by the Romish Church, being directly in opposition to the order and ordination of nature, has more than any other single cause whatever, produced a vast mass of evils, both moral and physical, in those countries that have been under the papal dominion; evils too obvious to need pointing out, and too flagitious, some of them, to name. With prophetic reference, as we protestants fully believe, to the doings of that corrupted church, St. Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, expresseth himself as follows: "Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons." And immediately after he particularizes the unnatural rescript, Forbidding to Marry, as of the same ungracious family, or nearly allied with, the doctrines of demons, aforementioned.

If, however, there were no forbidding to marry, except in the Romish Church, we might hope that a full cure of the deadly evil is at hand: since Old Grey Beard, as a French satirist used to call the Pope, is become too impotent, much longer to impose a law, at which all the genuine feelings of nature revolt.* But this demoniacal prohibition, to wit, forbidding to Marry, has been enjoined and enforced even more extensively in one other way, than it ever was by the canons of the Vatican. I will explain my meaning by sketching a fragment of ancient history.

The ancient Romans were Republicans after their kind, and continued such for a considerable number of centuries. Though they were pagan idolaters, and their worship was deplorably corrupt, yet, previous to their imbibing the atheism of Epicurus, they generally

* At the time when this paper was written there could have been no expectation of the restoration of the Pope.

believed in a future retribution of rewards and punishments; which belief operated so powerfully upon them, that they were truly exemplary in some few of the social virtues. In particular, perjury was scarcely known among them, and infidelity in the connubial state was no less uncommon.

The Roman republicans were plain men and women, accustomed to daily labor, and quite unaccustomed to finery of apparel or luxury of living. A Roman of even noble blood, tilled his little field with his own hands, and was proud of tilling it with superior industry and skill; whilst his lady, if lady she might be called, made it her chief ambition to be an excellent house-wife.

While this state of things lasted, and a very long while it did last, the Romans were eager enough to get themselves wives. They married generally, and they married young for they thought, and well they might, that whoso found a wife, found a good thing-a real helpmeet, as well as a dear and faithful companion. And what is singularly remarkable, if true, it is recorded by a Roman historian, that there had not been known in the city of Rome, a single instance of divorcement during the whole space of five hundred years; though the law had put it in the power of the husband to repudiate his wife almost at pleasure.

Unfortunately for the Roman republic, and more especially for the female part of it, a great and splendid event quite changed the morals, the taste, the habits, and the whole face of the country. One hundred and ninety years before the christian æra, the Romans, for the first time, entered Asia with an army, which, under Scipio, defeated and conquered Antiochus the Great, of Syria: and from thence they brought home such a taste for the luxuries of the East, as promoted and hastened the ruin of their commonwealth and in no way more directly, than by a practical forbiddance of marriage.

The Roman women, once so plain, frugal and industrious, became enamoured of the costly finery that was brought from the East. One of them, named Lullia Paulina, when dressed in all her jewels, is said to have worn to the value of three hundred and thirty two thou