coquetting-no gambling of old ladies nor hoyden s chattering and romping of young ones-no felf fatisfied ftruttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets-nor amufing conceits, and monkey divertisements of fmart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies feated themselves demurely in their rufh-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen ftockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say yah Mynher, or yah ya Vrouw, to any question that was afked them; behaving, in all things, like decent, well educated damfels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly fmoked his pipe, and feemed loft in contemplation of the blue and white tiles, with which the fire places were decorated; wherein fundry paffages of fcripture were pioufly pourtrayed-Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman fwung conspicuously on his gibbet, and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.

The parties broke up without noife and without confufion. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting fuch of the wealthy, as could afford to keep a waggon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their refpective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door: which, as it was an established piece of

etiquette, done in perfect fimplicity and honesty of heart, occafioned no scandal at that time, nor fhould it at the present—if our great grandfathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their defcendants to fay a word against it.

CHAP. IV.

Containing further particulars of the Golden Age, and what constituted a fine Lady and Gentleman in the days of Walter the Doubter.

In this dulcet period of my history, when the beauteous island of Mannahata presented a scene, the very counterpart of those glowing pictures drawn of the golden reign of Saturn, there was, as I have before observed, a happy ignorance, an honeft fimplicity prevalent among its inhabitants, which, were I even able to depict, would be but little understood by the degenerate age for which I am doomed to write. Even the female fex, thofe arch innovators upon the tranquillity, the honefty, and grey-beard cuftoms of fociety, feemed for a while to conduct themselves with incredible fobriety and comeliness, and, indeed, be haved almost as if they had not been sent into the world to bother mankind, baffle philofophy, and confound the universe.

Their hair untortured by the abominations of art, was fcrupulously pomatomed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads. Their petticoats of linfey woolfey were ftriped with a variety of gorgeous dyes, rivalling the many coloured robes of Iris-though I must confess these gallant

garments were rather fhort, fcarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the number, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen's fmall clothes; and what is ftill more praife-worthy, they were all of their own manufacture-of which circumftance, as may well be supposed, they were not a little vain.

These were the honeft days, in which every woman ftaid at home, read the Bible, and wore pockets -aye, and that too of a goodly fize, fashioned with patch-work into many curious devices, and oftentatiously worn on the outfide. Thefe, in fact, were convenient receptacles, where all good houfe-wives carefully ftored away such things as they wifhed to have at hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed-and I remember there was a ktory current when I was a boy, that the lady of Wouter Van Twiller once had occafion to empty her right pocket in fearch of a wooden ladle, and the utenfil was discovered lying among fome rubbish in one corner-but we must not give too much faith to all thefe ftories; the anecdotes of these remote periods being very subject to exaggeration.

Befides these notable pockets, they likewife wore fciffars and pincushions fufpended from their girdles. by red ribbands, or among the more opulent and fhowy claffes, by brass, and even filver chains-indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and induftrious spinfters. I cannot say much in vindication of the

thortness of the petticoats; it doubtlefs was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted with magnificent red clocks-or perhaps to display a well turned ankle, and a neat, though serviceable foot; fet off by a high-heeled leathern fhoe, with a large and fplendid filver buckle. Thus we find, that the gentle fex in all ages, have shown the fame difpofition to infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray a lurking beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery.

From the sketch here given, it will be feen, that our good grandmothers differed confiderably in their ideas of a fine figure, from their scantily dreffed defcendants of the prefent day. A fine lady, in those times, waddled under more clothes even on a fair fummer's day, than would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball room. Nor were they the lefs admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary, the greatness of a lover's paffion seemed to increase in proportion to the magnitude of its object and a voluminous damfel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, was declared by a low-dutch fonnetteer of the province, to be radiant as a funflower, and luxuriant as a full blown cabbage. Certain it is, that in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain more than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accomodate half a dozen-The reason of which I conclude