thongs. From this pectoral and robe were copied the garments and the gorget of Minerva, to which the Greeks gave the name of agis, making no other difference in the description than changing the leather thongs into serpents. The name is sufficient to testify that the stole, or robe of the Palladion, originated in Lybia.

All these nations seem to have shared the taste of your ladyship in their love of the pellucid stream, and all the luxuries of the bath. It was their morning and evening duty and relaxation; and the first objects which saluted the eyes of the sun as he rose from behind the deserts of Arabia, were the glowing dames of Africa laving their polished limbs in the translucent wave. The same ablutory rites greeted his setting beams; and he descended to other regions to witness, I fear, a far less lovely regimen of health and beauty. Here no cosmetics withered the youthful cheek; nor paint obliterated the hue of nature. Freshness and bloom were sought and obtained in the pure embraces of the vivifying waters.

'The fair daughters of Israel, and his valiant sons, when they quitted Egypt for Palestine, carried with them many of the good as well as evil habits of their hosts and oppressors. The calasiris was one of their exportations. It was usually worn by them as an inferior garment; and is sometimes called by Jewish historians by the simple name of sheet. With us, could I dare drop from my pen one of the words proscribed in the vocabulary of British female nicety, you should have the answering name at once in plain English !-But as that may not be, I will whisper it in French, and tell my fair Urania, that the likest thing in the world to an ancient calasiris is a modern chemise. A similar interior covering, made of linen, cotton, or camel's hair, is still worn by the Turks, Arabs, and Moors, and we even read of it in the pages of Mungo Park, as a customary garment with the negro nations on the banks of the Gambia and Niger.

When we recollect the antiquity of the fashion of wearing a chemise, and consider its intimate connection with decency, we cannot make so great a sacrifice to gallantry as to approve

the prevailing custom among the modern belles, of altogether banishing that modest veil from their wardrobe. Frown not, beauteous Urania, and decent as thou art fair! that I should presume, in thy presence, to enter on so delicate a subject !— On this theme I consider myself as writing under the misletoe; and as all things are free beneath the branches of that mysterious shrub (while I promise not to play the Gallic democrat, and extend my liberty to licentiousness,) I expect that even your potent ladyship will not venture, by proclaiming silence, to invade my rights. The sacred boughs of druidical devotion are now waving over my head, and sanctioned by their privilege, I proceed freely on my subject.

I proclaim myself Chevalier de la Chemise! I fight before the banner of the fair queen of Sweden, who a century or two ago, chose to elevate her interior garment of that name, upon a flag-staff, and send it forth to battle as the royal standard !— I, at least, regard it as the standard of modesty; and when Jadies, impelled by an idea of removing envious folds, and displaying their shapes to greater advantage, cast it away for an adhesive vesture, more becoming a man, and then shade that with an invisible petticoat and almost transparent lawn, I cannot but proclaim such ladies as deserters from the decency of their sex; and I admonish them, that having over-stepped

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the bounds of modesty, they are standing on the very brink of the precipice of female virtue, and one movement further will cast them headlong to the depths beneath.

The grossest order of rakes may possibly tolerate such abandonment of the natural graces of the sex ; but the usual order of men of gallantry, while they are amused with the display, turn with contempt from the fair exhibitor. But how shall I describe the feelings of a man of honor and refinement, gazing on such exposure ?-Disgust and abhorrence fills his heart towards the woman who so appears; and he would sooner suffer the extinction of the human race, than unite his hand and fate with such a creature.

Over the calasiris the tunic was worn. Both the men and women of Israel adopted it; the rougher texture being for

the one sex, and the softer for the other. This garment is called chethomene, by Josephus, and was very graceful.It was long and flowing, reaching to the ankles, and, with the ladies, sometimes sweeping the ground. The sleeves were straight, shewing the shape of the arm. It was usually made of fine linen, bordered and fringed with many colors; and often, in addition to the elegance of this garment they wore a purple or scarlet mantle.

When men wore this graceful, though cumbrous habit, the girdle was an indispensable appendage to the dress; especially to those who were engaged in any employment or exercises which required freedom and agility. The girdle was bound about the loins, when worn by the laity; but the chethomenes of the priests were girt under the breasts. On entering a house it was customary for the man to loose his girdle, and lay it aside, in token that he came to take rest. It was replaced in its former situation on his body when he rose to depart; and for this reason, when the scripture means to inculcate a state of readiness, it metaphorically says, "Be your loins-girded."

These girdles were often of splendid materials; embroidered, gold, silver, studded with precious stones. They were not denied to the women, who wore them like the cestus of Venus, immediately under the swell of the bosom

The mantle, or hyke, is one of the most ancient, and sometimes the most gorgeous of the Jewish habits. It was vast in its dimensions, and by numerous and well adapted folds, would completely and gracefully envelope the whole body; it is still worn by the Arabs; and, indeed, in form and use, is not much different from the plaid of the highlanders in Scotland.

The diadem, or fillet of gold, was an ornament worn by the princes and princesses of Judea, and personages of the highest ranks. The same kind of crown was placed on the heads of the bridal pair of whatever degree, at the marriage. The tiara, or bonnet, called in our translation of the bible, the headtye, was the ladies' most favorite head-dress. It was of a conical form, and admitted much ornament in embroidery and gems.

Phylacteries, or frontlets, formed an indispensible part of the Jewish habit. They consisted of scrolls to wear as bracelets, and in front of their fillets in their foreheads. They contained some short sentence from the law of Moses. A modern traveller, describing the dress of the Arabs of Yemen, particularly notices their cap, which was often embroidered in the most costly style, with words from the koran. This custom is clearly derived from the Jews; and I cannot but wish that the ladies of our Christian lands had a similar practice. I will not be so partial to my own sex, as not to desire that the same good custom were extended to men.

What think you, my lovely widow, would our British lords and gentlemen be so likely to get within the pale of Doctors' Commons, if they wore in front of their foreheads, " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife?" Or do you believe that our married dames would so readily fall into the arms of a seducer, if their braceleted arms were stamped with the impresse, "Thou shalt not commit adultery?"

While our hunters after fashions ransack every kingdom of the earth, to bring home a new cap or bonnet for the heads of our ladies, how beneficially would they exert their influence in the world at large, if they were to introduce a few of these obsolete, but becoming Jewish and Arabic modes !— Perhaps our squeamish wanderers from the path of decorum, might shrink at bearing about them such plain speaking lessons as those quoted above. Poets might then be brought into very pretty pay to devise neat couplets which might contain the same spirit of counsel in more courtly language; and thus morality, religion, and the divers callings of men and women be alike promoted.

The wearer would profit by the apothegm on her forehead or arm; to compose it, would profit the poet, in being paid for his pains; to embroider it, would profit the hired sempstress. In short, it would be a matter of commerce, a matter of intellectual improvement, a matter of personal ornament; a matter of private good and public benefit. And thus having explained the reason of my wish for decking my fair

country women with wise sentences within and without, I bid your ladyship a short adieu! promising to open the wardrobe of ancient days again, in my next epistle. Your

(To be continued.)

PARIS.

A COURSE OF

LECTURES ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY,
BY J. LATHROP, JUN. 4. M.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.
(Concluded from p. 22.)

THE properties generally allowed to be common to all matter, are extension, impenetrability, figure, divisibility, inertia, attraction, expulsion and motion.

Impenetrability, as a property of matter, is considered as expressing that two particles of matter, whatever they may be, cannot exist at the same time in the same place, so long as one retains its situation, the other is necessarily excluded.

Extension is another property of the same kind, and is included in the idea of impenetrability, when it is considered with regard to space, namely, that two particles cannot exist in the same place at the same time; they are therefore extended, that is, they occupy a certain portion of space.

Figure is another property that results from the very existence of matter. Whatever is material must have figure or shape: every finite extension is terminated or comprehended under some figure.

Divisibility. If this expression be confined to the possibility of conceiving that every atom of matter, may be indefinitely divided by a sufficient power; that is to say, that when extended, a right and a left may be always separated by the mind, and by a sufficient power, could be continually repeated, it necessarily flows from the idea of matter, as here defined. The infinite divisibility of matter is an hypothesis, which is said to rest on mathematical demonstration. It may