FEMALE "FRIENDS."

I write of what I know.

EVELYN.

GENTLE Reader, hath it ever happened to you to have been domesticated, for any length of time, with a family belonging to the Society of Friends? If it have, you will be able to judge of the fidelity of my picture; if, on the contrary, they have flitted before your sight, leaving nothing on your memory but a vision of a plainly-dressed, plainly-spoken, and, it may be, plainly-featured people, the following little sketch may not prove uninteresting, from its novelty.

It hath fallen to my lot, in the earlier period of my life, to be thrown into the society of not a few of the most distinguished families of the Sect. On my first acquaintance, I was greatly at a loss to distinguish any difference in the female part of the fraternity. In their instance, youth and age seemed to have lost their usual characteristics, when attired in the same sombre livery: and when at length I learned

at a glance to distinguish the matron from the maiden, I found that it required a still keener perception to distinguish one maiden from another;-the same brown gown and poke-bonnet were common to them all; and it was not until after a two months' residence among them, that I learned to separate the smart from the staid. By the end of that period, however, I became familiar with the nice distinction of a plaited and drawn-crowned bonnet; between the bonnet lined with white, and the bonnet lined with the same colour; between the gaiety of white strings, as compared with the gravity of strings made of the palest drab!

On my first introduction to a Friend's family, the peculiarity that most struck (and I must confess, surprised) me, was the entire absence of all finesse in the manners of the ladies. To my sophisticated taste, there was something, as it seemed to me, too unveiled - too straightforward—both in appearance and manner; a sort of angularity, which appeared to me to want rounding off. They asked questions without circumlocution, and returned answers without any softening qualification. It hath been said, that "a Quaker never gives a direct answer.' This saying appears to me to belong to that family of jests which are more distinguished for their piquancy than their truth. I should say, that the reverse of this maxim is the fact; but that I fear to attempt, by my individual strength, to remove what has been considered so ancient a land-mark.

Another peculiarity, which forcibly struck me in their conversation, is what Mrs. Malaprop would call, a "nice derangement of epitaphs;" in other words, an extreme propriety of diction-their strict attention to the strictest rules of Lindley Murray. With them, our excellent friend Hannah More could have no pretext for reiterating her favourite precept of "calling things by their right names." With them "pink is pink, and not scarlet!" In their conversation, there is an utter absence of all exaggeration or embellishment; and I am almost tempted to believe, that their children are born with a knowledge of the degrees of comparison of the distinction subsisting between positive and superlative. However this may be, I am quite certain that a mere child would stand a chance of severe reprehension, who should be guilty of characterising an accident as a misfortune.

But my reader must not imagine that I gained all this information as easily as he does. No, indeed! it required some tact to approach very near the gentle Sisters, (of the Brothers, I profess to know nothing), for they have a profound horror of ridicule, and a shrinking sort of distrust for all who are clad in motley. This feeling does not arise from coldness, but is the result of a retired education and a secluded life.. To a Quaker, the presence of a silly woman of fashion would inspire more restraint than that of a whole body of profound philosophers.

Their peculiarity of language, too, which they value as the hedge of their "garden enclosed," tends to place a great gulf between them and the rest of the world; they cannot ask you how you do, without feeling that they have not even words in common with their fellowcreatures. This prevents a free interchange of ideas, and may be one cause why they are so little known; they seldom, perhaps, feel quite at their ease, excepting in the society of persons of their own persuasion.

And here I cannot but remark how seldom a correct version of the Quaker phraseology is to be met with, even in the works of such writers as have chosen members of that body for their dramatis persona. Our great novelist, Sir Walter Scott, has made worthy Joshua Geddes guilty of swearing at little Benjie; and his gentle sister Rachael manifests small respect for the rules of grammar. The sentiments imputed to these good people, are, however, more in accordance with those of the " Society" than their phraseology; the acquisition of which would seem to be a matter of some difficulty, since their trusty friend and well-beloved champion, Charles Lamb, is not entirely guiltless of now and then murdering the Friends' English.

But if any adventurer, urged by curiosity, or a better feeling, will take the trouble to break the ice, and pierce beyond the veil, I do not think that he will find his labour ill bestowed. He will immediately be struck with what I have already noticed -a startling

candour of manner; the result either of great confidence or great singleness of mind-he must decide which; if he appeal to me, I shall without hesitation refer it to the latter cause. And now, supposing my reader to have advanced some steps towards an acquaintanceship-to have got over the chill which the THEE and THOU will not fail to throw over a first colloquy he will still stand some chance of being frozen back by a want of sympathy in the material of small talk. Music, and places of public amusement (those staple commodities of the overture of conversation), will not avail him here; to them, dancing and music are forbidden things. Of all such tastes and sciences, our Protestant nuns are profoundly ignorant. Their education has unfitted them to decide on the respective merits of a Pasta or a Sontag. They cannot descant on the talent of the rival composers, Beethoven or Rossini, or decide on the superior charm of the mazurka or the gallopade.

But though they can do none of these things, and are not versed in the art of elegant trifling, we will venture to predict that he will meet with no lack of useful or valuable information among them. If the super

structure be without ornament, the foundation is not without solidity. He will find none of that ignorance of matters which should be of universal notoriety, which is sometimes to be met with in the conversation of their more showy neighbours. No female member of