allow her the Praise of Dress, any more than I would call a Plagiary
an Author.'

When I threw my Eye towards the next Woman to her, WILL. spoke what I
looked, [according to his romantic imagination,] in the following Manner.

'Behold, you who dare, that charming Virgin. Behold the Beauty of her
Person chastised by the Innocence of her Thoughts. Chastity,
Good-Nature, and Affability, are the Graces that play in her
Countenance; she knows she is handsome, but she knows she is good.
Conscious Beauty adorned with conscious Virtue! What a Spirit is there
in those Eyes! What a Bloom in that Person! How is the whole Woman
expressed in her Appearance! Her Air has the Beauty of Motion, and her
Look the Force of Language.'

It was Prudence to turn away my Eyes from this Object, and therefore I
turned them to the thoughtless Creatures who make up the Lump of that
Sex, and move a knowing Eye no more than the Portraitures of
insignificant People by ordinary Painters, which are but Pictures of
Pictures.

Thus the working of my own Mind, is the general Entertainment of my
Life; I never enter into the Commerce of Discourse with any but my
particular Friends, and not in Publick even with them. Such an Habit has
perhaps raised in me uncommon Reflections; but this Effect I cannot
communicate but by my Writings. As my Pleasures are almost wholly
confined to those of the Sight, I take it for a peculiar Happiness that
I have always had an easy and familiar Admittance to the fair Sex. If I
never praised or flattered, I never belyed or contradicted them. As
these compose half the World, and are by the just Complaisance and