There has been lately sent me a much harder question than was ever yet put to me since I professed astrology; to wit, how far, and to what age, women ought to make their beauty their chief concern? The regard and care of their faces and persons are as variously to be considered, as their complexions themselves differ; but if one may transgress against the careful practice of the fair sex so much as to give an opinion against it, I humbly presume, that less care, better applied, would increase their empire, and make it last as long as life. Whereas now, from their own example, we take our esteem of their merit; for it is very just, that she who values herself only on her beauty, should be regarded by others on no other consideration. There is certainly a liberal and pedantic education among women as well as men, and the merit lasts accordingly. She therefore that is bred with freedom, and in good company, considers men according to their respective characters and distinctions; while she that is locked up from such observations, will consider her father's butler not as a butler, but as a man. In like manner, when men converse with women, the well-bred and intelligent are looked upon with an observation suitable to their different talents and accomplishments, without respect to their sex; while a mere woman can be observed under no consideration but that of a woman; and there can be but one reason for placing any value upon her, or losing time in her company. Wherefore I am of opinion, that the rule for pleasing long, is, to obtain such qualifications as would make them so were they not women. Let the beauteous Cleomira then show us her real face, and know, that every stage of life has its peculiar charms, and that there is no necessity for fifty to be fifteen: that childish colouring of her cheeks is as ungraceful, as that shape would have been when her face wore its real countenance. She has sense, and ought to know, that if she will not follow nature, nature will follow her. Time then has made that person, which had (when I visited her grandfather) an agreeable bloom, sprightly air, and soft utterance, now no less grateful in a lovely aspect, an awful manner, and maternal wisdom. But her heart was so set upon her first character, that she neglects and repines at her present; not that she is against a more staid conduct in others, for she recommends gravity, circumspection, and severity of countenance, to her daughter. Thus, against all chronology, the girl is the sage, the mother the fine lady. But these great evils proceed from an unaccountable wild method in the education of the better half of the world, the women. We have no such thing as a standard for good breeding. I was the other day at my Lady Wealthy's, and asked one of her daughters, how she did? She answered, she never conversed with men. The same day I visited at Lady Plantwell's, and asked her daughter the same question. She answers, "What's that to you, you old thief?" and gives me a slap on the shoulders. I defy any man in England, except he knows the family before he enters, to be able to judge whether he shall be agreeable or not, when he comes into it. You find either some odd old woman, who is permitted to rule as long as she lives, in hopes of her death, and to interrupt all things; or some impertinent young woman, who will talk sillily upon the strength of looking beautifully. I will not answer for it, but that it may be, that I (like all other old fellows) have a fondness for the fashions and manners which prevailed when I was young and in fashion myself: but certain it is, that the taste of grace and beauty is very much lowered! The fine women they show me nowadays, are at best but pretty girls to me, who have seen Sacharissa,[86] when all the world repeated the poems she inspired; and Villaria,[87] when a youthful king was her subject. The things you follow and make songs on now, should be sent to knit, or sit down to bobbing or bone-lace: they are indeed neat, and so are their sempstresses; they are pretty, and so are their handmaids. But that graceful motion, that awful mien, and that winning attraction, which grew upon them from the thoughts and conversations they met with in my time, are now no more seen. They tell me I am old: I am glad I am so; for I don't like your present young ladies. Those among us who do set up for anything of decorum, do so mistake the matter, that they offend on the other side. Five young ladies who are of no small fame for their great severity of manners and exemplary behaviour, would lately go nowhere with their lovers but to an organ-loft in a church, where they had a cold treat, and some few opera songs, to their great refreshment and edification.