pervert the course of justice. I dare say the extraordinary person who is now posted in the chief station of the law, would have been the same had that act never past; but it is a great satisfaction to all honest men, that while we see the greatest ornament of the profession in its highest post, we are sure he cannot hurt himself by that assiduous, regular, and impartial administration of justice, for which he is so universally celebrated by the whole kingdom. Such men are to be reckoned among the greatest national blessings, and should have that honour paid them whilst they are yet living, which will not fail to crown their memory when dead. I always rejoice when I see a tribunal filled with a man of an upright and inflexible temper, who, in the execution of his country's laws can overcome all private fear, resentment, solicitation, and even pity itself. Whatever passion enters into a sentence or decision, so far will there be in it a tincture of injustice. In short, justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind, that we may suppose her thoughts are wholly intent on the equity of a cause, without being diverted or prejudiced by objects foreign to it. I shall conclude this paper with a Persian story, which is very suitable to my present subject. It will not a little please the reader, if he has the same taste of it which I myself have. As one of the sultans lay encamped on the plains of Avala, a certain great man of the army entered by force into a peasant's house, and finding his wife very handsome, turned the good man out of his dwelling, and went to bed to her. The peasant complained the next morning to the sultan, and desired redress; but was not able to point out the criminal. The emperor, who was Sir Thomas Parker, Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield, and Lord Chancellor.-N. Posted-see the note in No. 48 of the Freeholder very much incensed at the injury done to the poor man, told him that probably the offender might give his wife another visit, and if he did, commanded him immediately to repair to his tent and acquaint him with it. Accordingly, within two or three days, the officer entered again the peasant's house, and turned the owner out of doors; who thereupon applied himself to the imperial tent, as he was ordered. The sultan went in person, with his guards, to the poor man's house, where he arrived about midnight. As the attendants carried each of them a flambeau in their hands. the sultan, after having ordered all the lights to be put out, gave the word to enter the house, find out the criminal, and put him to death. This was immediately executed, and the corps laid out upon the floor by the emperor's command. He then bid every one light his flambeau, and stand about the dead body. The sultan approaching it looked upon the face, and immediately fell upon his knees in prayer. Upon his rising up he ordered the peasant to set before him whatever food he had in the house. The peasant brought out a great deal of coarse fare, of which the emperor eat very heartily. The peasant seeing him in good humour, presumed to ask of him, why he had ordered the flambeaux to be put out before he had commanded the adulterer should be slain? Why, upon their being lighted again, he looked upon the face of the dead body, and fell down by it in prayer? and why, after this, he had ordered meat to be set before him, of which he now eat so heartily? The sultan, being willing to gratify the curiosity of his host, answered him in this manner. "Upon hearing the greatness of the offence which had been committed by one of the army, I had reason to think it might have been one of my own sons, for who else would have been so audacious and presuming? I gave orders, therefore, for the lights to be extinguished, that I might not be led astray, by partiality or compassion, from doing justice on the criminal. Upon the lighting of the flam beaux a second time, I looked upon the face of the dead person, and, to my unspeakable joy, found that it was not my son. It was for this reason, that I immediately fell upon my knees, and gave thanks to God. As for my eating heartily of the food you have set before me, you will cease to wonder at it, when you know that the great anxiety of mind I have been in, upon this occasion, since the first complaints you brought me, has hindered my eating any thing from that time till this very moment." No. 100. MONDAY, JULY 6. Hoc vos præcipuè, niveæ, decet. hoc ubi vidi, THERE is a certain female ornament, by some called a tucker, and by others the neck-piece, being a slip of fine linen or muslin that used to run in a small kind of ruffle round the uppermost verge of the women's stays, and by that means covered a great part of the shoulders and bosom. Having thus given a definition or rather description of the tucker, I must take notice, that our ladies have of late thrown aside this fig-leaf, and exposed in its primitive nakedness, that gentle swelling of the breast, which it was used to conceal. What their design by it is, they themselves best know. I observed this as I was sitting the other day by a famous she visitant at my Lady Lizard's, when accidentally, as I was looking upon her face, letting my sight fall into her bosom, I was surpris ed with beauties which I never before discovered, and do not know where my eye would have run, if I had not immediately checked it. The lady herself could not forbear blushing, when she observed, by my looks, that she had made her neck too beau VOL. III. 29 tiful and glaring an object, even for a man of my character and gravity. I could scarce forbear making use of my hand to cover so unseemly a sight. If we survey the pictures of our great grandmothers in Queen Elizabeth's time, we see them clothed down to the very wrists, and up to the very chin. The hands and face were the only samples they gave of their boautiful persons. The following age of females made larger discoveries of their complexion. They first of all tucked up their garments to the elbow, and notwithstanding the tenderness of the sex, were content, for the information of mankind, to expose their arms to the coldness of the air, and injuries of the weather. This artifice hath succeeded to their wishes, and betrayed many to their arms, who might have escaped them, had they been still concealed. About the same time, the ladies, considering that the neck was a very modest part in a human body, they freed it from those yokes, I mean those monstrous linen ruffs, in which the simplicity of their grandmothers had inclosed it. In proportion as the refined, the dress still sunk lower, so that when we now say a woman has a handsome neck, we reckon into it many of the adjacent parts. The disuse of the tucker has still enlarged it, insomuch that the neck of a fine woman at present takes in almost half the body. age Since the female neck thus grows upon us, and the ladies seem disposed to discover themselves to us more and more, I would fain have them tell us once for all, how far they intend to go, and whether they have yet determined among themselves where to make a stop. For my own part, their necks, as they call them, are no more than busts of alabaster in my eye. I can look upon The yielding marble of a snowy breast, with as much coldness as this line of Mr. Waller represented in the object itself. But my fair readers ought to consider, that all their beholders are not Nestors. Every man is not sufficiently qualified with age and philosophy, to be an indifferent spectator of such allurements. The eyes of young men are curious and penetrating, their imaginations of a roving nature, and their passions under no discipline or restraint. I am in pain for a woman of rank, when I see her thus exposing herself to the regards of every impudent staring fellow. How can she expect that her quality can defend her, when she gives such provocation? I could not but observe, last winter, that upon the disuse of the neck-piece (the ladies will pardon me if it is not the fashionable term of art) the whole tribe of oglers gave their eyes a new determination, and stared the fair sex in the neck rather than in the face. To prevent these saucy familiar glances, I would entreat my gentle readers to sew on their tuckers again, to retrieve the modesty of their characters, and not to imitate the nakedness, but the innocence of their mother Eve. What most troubles and indeed surprises me in this particular, I have observed," that the leaders in this fashion were most of them married women. What their design can be in making themselves bare, I cannot possibly imagine. Nobody exposes wares that are appropriated. When the bird is taken, the snare ought to be removed. It was a remarkable circumstance in the institution of the severe Lycurgus. As that great lawgiver knew that the wealth and strength of a republic consisted in the multitude of citizens, he did all he could to encourage marriage: in order to it, he prescribed a certain loose dress for the Spartan What most troubles, &c.—I have observed,] Imperfectly expressed, for-What most troubles, &c. is this, viz. I have observed. This negligent way of speaking was affected by the author, to intimate his concern in entering on this part of his subject as if he hardly durst speak out, or, as if the portentous object so occupied him, that he was not at liberty to mind his expression. |