times; for what could better designate the reign of fanaticism?

I have no doubt that some future age will observe a certain fanciful innovation of the eighteenth century, whereby the ladies, instead of the uncouth names of their grandmo' thers, have designated themselves by the enchanting sounds of Leonora, Evelina, and it will be acknowledged that they have manifested some taste by such a choice: but the wonder will be, whence they got them; until some dealer in literary curiosities informs them that there were then a sort of books that they called novels, that he had actually seen one himself that had some how survived the injuries of time; that those books depended very much upon such names for something that the ladies were very fond of, called sentiment; in short that they became sentimental themselves (whatever that may mean) and that it was very natural for them to identify themselves, in name, with characters that they had assimilated themselves to in idea.

I shall mention one more instance of the indirect importance of names, which, as a Christian, I must be allowed to exult in. It is hardly necessary to say, that whatever illus trates the truth and validity of the Bible, makes some addition to my happiness. But however that may be, there are no persons or institutions, that have been recognized in this manner so extensively as those of holy writ. In what civilized country can we make acquaintance without meeting with John, Thomas, Abraham, Joseph? The name of the first man, as called in our scriptures, was known to the East-Indians before their communications with the Europeans. There must have been a vast impetus in those names, or rather in the characters that invested them, to have defied oblivion, and propagated themselves so far beyond the memory of every thing else; and this I attribute (though philosophy should smile at my credulity) to the divinity of that revelation in which they were concerned.

M. L.

From the New-York EVENING POST.

Render to Cesar the things that are Cesar's.

We republish the following letter on white-washing, as much with the view of restoring it to its rightful owner, the late Francis Hopkinson, Esq. of Philadelphia, as from a desire to treat our readers with a piece of such genuine humour. Strange as it may seem, although it was printed in Hopkinson's Works several years ago, it has now been going the round of our newspapers, and credit given for it to the Northumberland Gazette, published we believe somewhere in the state of Pennsylvania. Justice forbids us to permit that a piece of so much merit should be stolen, and the i fraud pass unnoticed; a fraud the more contemptible as the person guilty of it has resorted to the pitiful trick of occasionally altering a word or two in a sentence, in the hope of thus escaping detection, à la manière de Bristed.

A Letter from a gentleman in America
to his friend in Europe.

ON WHITE-WASHING. When a young couple are about to enter on the matrimonial state, a never-failing article in the marriagetreaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of White-washing, with all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances. You will wonder what this privilege of white-washing is. I will endeavour to give you some idea of the ceremony as I have seen it performed.

There is no season in the year in which the lady of the house may not claim the privilege of white-washing, but the last of May is most generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by certain prognosticks when the storm is near at hand. When the lady is unusually fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the filthiness of everything about her, these are signs which ought not to be neglected; yet these are not decisive, as they sometimes occur and go off again, without producing any further effect. But if when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard a wheelbarrow with a quantity of lime in it, or cer

tain buckets with lime dissolved in them, there is then no time to be lost; he immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers or private property are kept, and putting the key in his pocket betakes himself to flight. For a husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage; his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more consideration and importance than he. He has nothing for it but to abdicate

and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify.

The husband gone the ceremony begins. The walls are in a few minutes stripped of their furniture; paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie in huddled heaps about the floors, the curtains are torn from their testers, the beds crammed into windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles crowd the yard, and the garden fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, and cloaks, old coats and ragged breeches. Here may be seen the lumber of the kitchen forming a dark and confused mass for the foreground of the picture; gridirons, frying-pans, rusty shovels, and broken tongs, spits, and pots, jointstools, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. There a closet has disgorged its bowels; riveted plates and dishes, halves of china bowls, cracked tumblers, broken wine-glasses, phials of forgotten physick, papers of unknown powders, seeds, and dried herbs, handfuls of old corks, tops of old teapots, and the stoppers of departed decanters, from rag hole in the garret, to the rat hole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment. In this tempest the words of King Lear naturally present themselves, and might, with little alteration, be made strictly applicable:

"Let the great gods

Find out their enemies now. Tremble thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipt of Justice!.

-Close pent up guilt,

Rive your concealing continents, and ask These dreadful summoners grace."

This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is, to smear the walls and cieling with brushes dipped in a soJution of lime, called white-wash; to pour buckets of water on every floor, and scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes charged wih soap-suds, and dipped in stonecutters' sand. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the pent-house, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a bucket within reach, she dashes away innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of the passengers in the street.

I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of those water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation; but after a long argument, it was determined by the whole court that the action would not lie; inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences; and so the poor gentleman was doubly non-suited-for he not only lost his suit of clothes, but a suit at law.

[Here the Northumberland Gazette thought fit to break off: the authour, however, continues his subject with equal felicity, as follows:]

These smearings and scratchings, these washings and dashings being duly performed, the next ceremony is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house raising or a ship lanch-recollect if you can the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleansing match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make

things clean. It matters not how many useful, ornamental or valuable articles suffer death under the operation. A mahogany chair and a carved frame undergo the same discipline: they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy attention. For instance: a fine large engraving is laid flat upon the floor; a number of smaller prints are piled upon it, until the superincumbent weight cracks the lower glass; but this is of no importance. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, till the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvas of the first.

The frame and glass of a fine print are to be cleaned, the spirit and oil used on this occasion, are suffered to leak through and before the engraving no matter! If the glass is clean and the frame shines it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able arithmetician hath made a calculation, founded on long experience, and proved that the losses and destruction incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire. This cleansing frolick over, matters begin so resume their pristine appearance: the storm abates and all would be well again: but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should pass over without producing some consequences. For two or three weeks after the operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore eyes, sore throats, or severe colds, occasioned by exhalations from wet floors and damp walls.

I know a gentleman here who is fond of accounting for every thing in a philosophical way. He considers this, which I call a custom, as a real, periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is whimsical and ingenious, but I am not at leisure to give you the detail. The result was that he found the distemper to be incurable; but after

much study he thought he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purposé, he caused a small building about twelve feet square to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort. His hope was that when the white-washing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub and scour and sweat to their hearts' content; and so spend the violence of this disease in this outpost, while he enjoyed himself in quiet at head-quarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation. It was impossible it should since a principal part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband, at least once in every year, to turn him out of doors and take the reins of government into her own hands.

There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher; which is to cover the walls of the house with paper. This is generally done. And though it does not abolish, it at least shortens the period of female dominion. This paper is decorated with various fancies, and made so ornamental that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design.

There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress. He generally has the sole use of a small room for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a privileged place, even in the white-washing season, and stands like the land of Goshen amid the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever upon his guard; for should he inadvertently go abroad and leave the key in his door, the house-maid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms and brushes takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights, to his ut

and scold her servants with admirable discretion-she cant unravel the intricacies of political economy and federal government, but she can knit charming stockings." And this they call praising a wife, and doing justice to her good charac

ter.

I say women generally employ their time to better purpose than in scribbling; otherwise this facetious writer had not escaped so long unanswered. We have ladies, who sometimes lay down the needle and take up the pen: I wonder none of them have attempted some reply. For my part, I do not pretend to be an authour: I never appeared in print in my life, but I can no longer forbear saying something in answer to such imperti

nence.

Only consider, Mr. Editor, our situation. Men are naturally inattentive to the decencies of life; but why should I be so complaisant? I say they are naturally nasty beasts. If it were not that their connexion with the refined sex polished their manners, and had a happy influence on the general economy of life, these lords of the creation would wallow in filth, and populous cities would infect the atmosphere with their noxious vapours. It is the attention and assiduity of the women that prevent men from degenerating into swine. How important, then, are the services we render! And, yet for these very services we are made the subject of ridicule and fun— base ingratitude!-nauseous creature! Perhaps you may think I am in a passion-no, Mr. Editor, I do assure you, I was never more composed in my life; and yet it is enough to provoke a saint, to see how unreasonably we are treated by the men-Why, now, there's my husband, a good enough sort

of a man in the main, but I will give you a small sample of him: He comes into the parlour, the other day, where, to be sure, I was cutting up a piece of linen. "Lord, says he, what a clutter here is-I cannot bear to see the parlour look like a tailor's shopbesides, I am going to make some important philosophical experiments, and must have sufficient room." You must know my husband is one of your would-be philosophers. Well-I bundled up my linen as quick as I could, and began to darn a pair of ruffles, which took up no room, and could give no offence. I was determined, however, to watch my lord and master's important business. In about half an hour, the tables were covered with all manner of trumpery-bottles of water, phials of drugs, pasteboard, paper and cords, glue, paste, and gum-arabick, files, knives, scissors and needles, rosin, wax, silk, thread, rags, jags, tags, books, pamphlets, and manuscripts.

Lord bless me! I am almost out of breath, and yet I have not enumerated half the articles. Well, to work he went, and although I did not understand the object of his manoeuvres, yet I could sufficiently discover that he did not succeed in any one operation: I was glad of that-yes, I confess, I was glad of that, and good reason too. After he had fatigued himself with mischief, like a monkey in a china shop, and had called the servants to clean every thing away, I took a view of the scene before me. shall not even attempt a minute description-suffice it to say, that he had overset his inkstand, and stained my best mahogany table with ink; he had spilt a quantity of vitriol upon my carpet, and burned a hole in it; my marble hearth was all over spotted with

I