WOMEN AND WIVES.



Parva leves capiunt animos. -
OVID, Ars Am., i. 159.

Light minds are pleased with trifles.

When I was in France, I used to gaze with great astonishment at the
splendid equipages, and party-coloured habits of that fantastic
nation. I was one day in particular contemplating a lady that sat
in a coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely painted with the
Loves of Venus and Adonis. The coach was drawn by six milk-white
horses, and loaden behind with the same number of powdered footmen.
Just before the lady were a couple of beautiful pages, that were
stuck among the harness, and, by their gay dresses and smiling
features, looked like the elder brothers of the little boys that
were carved and painted in every corner of the coach.

The lady was the unfortunate Cleanthe, who afterwards gave an
occasion to a pretty melancholy novel. She had for several years
received the addresses of a gentleman, whom, after a long and
intimate acquaintance, she forsook upon the account of this shining
equipage, which had been offered to her by one of great riches but a
crazy constitution. The circumstances in which I saw her were, it
seems, the disguises only of a broken heart, and a kind of pageantry
to cover distress, for in two months after, she was carried to her