filthy, and disgusting inhabitants of Australia and Southern Africa, there are not wanting individuals who approach to something like symmetrical forms. In Central Africa there are females whose shapes might be models for the sculptor. There are females of considerable beauty among the North American Indians; and in some of the islands of the Pacific, there are women who, in physical beauty, compare favorably with the finest in Europe. Throughout Asia, beauty in woman is considered the supreme good; and it is everywhere sought after and cultivated. It is an article of commerce and monopoly. From the time of Solomon, and perhaps ages before, the choice beauties of the empire were culled for the sovereign-and distant States paid tribute in beauty. Next came the rich and great personages, who were served in this respect only less luxuriously than their monarch. Then, and in all times to the present day, women were shut up in harems, prisoners, reconciled by custom to their condition, and educated to think it the most desirable on earth. In the East, the customs of to-day are those of three thousand years ago, and the description given of the harem of Ahasuerus, in the book of Esther, would answer well for a Persian seraglio of the present day.

But it is in Europe that woman's beauty has exerted the greatest power. Her empire came from the North; and it was the barbarians of Germany who gave the world chivalry and romance, placed woman upon her proper eminence, and by this means gave an impulse to civilization. In savage nations beauty is subordinate to usefulness. A strong wife, and especially an industrious one, is preferred to a pretty one. In Oriental nations beauty languishes in chains. The chains are worn willingly and happily, but man is not less the tyrant; and his power is his weakness.

In ancient Greece the influence of beauty appears to have been confined to a few, and the most celebrated Grecian women were such as we should style notorious. In Rome women occupied more nearly their true position, and had a considerable, and at first a favorable influence in the state. At last the sex and the nation grew corrupt together, acting reciprocally on each other.

The influence of female beauty, everywhere felt, in all times acknowledged, often exerted for evil, sometimes used

for good; is capable of being rendered a more powerful instrument in the education and elevation of humanity, than statesmen or philosophers have yet conceived. If beautiful women choose to exert their combined influence for good or evil, there is no power in the world could stand against them they could change customs, refine manners, ameliorate conditions, modify legislation, reform constitutions, and overthrow despotisms. They could fill the world with peace, refinement, and happiness.

If beautiful women knew their power, and knew how to make the best use of it, we should not wait long for the realization of those noble theories of human progress and happiness, which have so long filled the minds of benevolent reformers. Unhappily, philosophers have but too often been insensible of the power of this influence, either to degrade or elevate-to drag the world down into the hells in which it lies groaning, or elevate it to those heavens of purity and beauty, to which the human race is most surely destined. Whenever that elevation shall come, foremost in the influences that shall produce it, will be found that of refined and intellectual female beauty.

WOMAN.

PART SECOND.

FEMALE COSTUME.

IN whatever manner the human race first came into being, whether by the creation of a single pair in Eden, or several pairs as the progenitors of distinct races in various parts of the world, or whether we adopt the doctrine of "progressive development;" in either case, mankind was at first without clothing, and adopted it from sentiment, convenience, or necessity.

Our Revelation tells us that our first parents were without clothing so long as they remained innocent; but that, having partaken of the forbidden fruit, they first felt the sentiment of modesty, since considered a virtue, when they adopted the first and simplest clothing-aprons of fig leaves. After this, God taught them to make garments of the skins of animals.

But this account is supposed by many to be allegorical; Adam and Eve representing a primitive state of societyfirst ignorant and innocent-then curious, and with growing intelligence, seeking sinful enjoyment, and, as is too often the case at the present day, improving their minds at the expense of their morals.

But whatever may have been the origin of mankind and their habits, dress is at this day, with all but the most savage tribes, a matter of custom, of ornament, or of necessity. There may be found, on Islands in the South Seas, in some parts of Africa, and in Australia, small tribes who are still in a state of entire nudity. Human nature in them is so dimly revealed, that they seem but one grade removed from the brutal creation. But generally, among the most savage, where dress is not regarded for its modest uses, some kind of costume is worn for ornament.

Shells

are hung to the hair, a bone is stuck through the ear or nose, and the wrists and ankles are bound round with some uncouth bracelet.

Naturally, females are more given to dress than males. Their tastes for the ornamental are more delicate, they show a greater fondness and finer taste for colors, and their costume is generally the most graceful. This is so evident in civilized life, and where women have a social equality, as to require little illustration. While our men wear none but the soberest colors, and for full dress wear only black and white, women are decked in all the hues of the rainbow. While men wear, for their chief garments, black cloth, relieved by white linen; women are dressed in an infinite variety of fabrics-silks, linens, cottons, and other stuffswith delicate manufactures of laces and embroidery. While men wear the hat, simple and severe in color and contour, the ladies have an immense number of head dresses, varied by every possible combination. Men in civilized society wear few ornaments-scarcely any but such as have the pretence at least, of utility. The ladies, on the other hand, display a profusion of articles merely ornamental. They wear gay ribbons, feathers, natural and artificial flowers, ruffles, lace borders, hair ornaments of various kinds, earrings, head-bands or coronets, neck-laces, chains, bracelets, rings, and a variety of other ornamental appendages. In our male costumes ornament is subservient to usefulnesswith the other sex, when left to their own impulses, and aside from the necessities of climate, ornament is the first, and utility a secondary consideration.

But this supposes a certain degree of freedom in, and a high consideration for, the female sex. Where man asserts an absolute authority, and women are but the slaves of his caprices, we find a decided difference. In half civilized nations men wear finery, and sport trinkets and jewels, while women are only seen in the most modest apparel. In Mahomedan countries, women never dress for public display. Long robes and thick veils envelope them whenever they go abroad. At home, they ornament themselves to please their lords, and to gratify a taste natural to the sex, and which can never be entirely eradicated.

In savage tribes the men wear the most ornaments.

Among the North American Indians, the smartest robes, the longest feathers, and the brightest streaks of paint belong to the warriors. The squaws are more plainly attired. In the South Sea Islands where the height of ornamental costume consists of elaborate tattooings of the skin, the females are afforded very little-a line or two around the arms, with a few dots here and there.

The materials of dress in different countries, vary with climate and natural productions. The first clothing was vegetable, the large leaves of trees, plaited together, or bark, such as the tappa of the South Sea Islands. The skins of animals, killed for food, were a natural resource, and are still worn almost exclusively, in the polar regions. Wool, goat's hair, and camel's hair were first spun for clothingthen vegetable fibre, as cotton, linen, and hemp; then silk; though some have supposed that the silk-worm and spider were our teachers in the arts of spinning and weaving.

Among the Hottentots inhabiting South Africa, the most essential article of dress is a single cat skin, worn where it is most required. The rest is ornamental, or a protection against the cold. The ornamental part of a Hottentot lady's costume consists of grease-that skimmed from the pot is preferred-mixed with soot, and rubbed profusely all over her from head to foot; the hair being first of all filled with this pomatum. When the Hottentot belle is thoroughly anointed in this manner, with a large coil of raw hide or twisted entrails around her ankles, and a dirty sheep skin thrown over her shoulders, she is ready for a promenade, and considers herself perfectly and fashionably apparelled.

The negresses of Guinea have more refined tastes. They use the clean oil of the cocoanut, or palm, to anoint their glossy skins, and wear usually a piece of cotton cloth about the waist. Their hair is plaited into separate portions, to each of which is fastened a piece of lead, shell, or gold. Necklaces, bracelets, and rings in their ears and noses, complete their costume.

It is the remark of travellers, that black skins, however much exposed, do not seem naked. There is a costume in the very color. If this be so, every negro is well provided with a wardrobe.