little commonwealth within itself. They often go into company, that
they may return with the greater delight to one another; and
sometimes live in town, not to enjoy it so properly as to grow weary
of it, that they may renew in themselves the relish of a country
life. By this means they are happy in each other, beloved by their
children, adored by their servants, and are become the envy, or
rather the delight, of all that know them.

How different to this is the life of Fulvia! She considers her
husband as her steward, and looks upon discretion and good
housewifery as little domestic virtues unbecoming a woman of
quality. She thinks life lost in her own family, and fancies
herself out of the world when she is not in the ring, the playhouse,
or the drawing-room. She lives in a perpetual motion of body and
restlessness of thought, and is never easy in any one place when she
thinks there is more company in another. The missing of an opera
the first night would be more afflicting to her than the death of a
child. She pities all the valuable part of her own sex, and calls
every woman of a prudent, modest, retired life, a poor-spirited,
unpolished creature. What a mortification would it be to Fulvia, if
she knew that her setting herself to view is but exposing herself,
and that she grows contemptible by being conspicuous!

I cannot conclude my paper without observing that Virgil has very
finely touched upon this female passion for dress and show, in the
character of Camilla, who, though she seems to have shaken off all
the other weaknesses of her sex, is still described as a woman in
this particular. The poet tells us, that after having made a great
slaughter of the enemy, she unfortunately cast her eye on a Trojan,
who wore an embroidered tunic, a beautiful coat of mail, with a