these villages is a strongly fortified tower, in which, in case of invasion, they shut the women and the riches of the country. These towers, as well as all the houses, are built of wood, decorated with great art, and furnished with taste.

The dress of the Circassian men is a mixture of the Greek and Turk ish habits. It consists of a pair of wide pantaloons, buskins, a close boddice fastened with a girdle, a kind of domino with open sleeves, and a cap or turban not very high, broad at top and narrow at bottom. They shave their beards, leaving very long mustachios.

The dress of the Circassian women is more simple and pleasing. It consists of pantaloons, a boddice, and a long robe in the Armenian taste, or a large furred pelisse. From the cap or bonnet, of the shape of a sugar-loaf, hangs a veil. This bonnet is richly ornamented with pearls. The dress is never sold with the woman, unless agreed for separate ly. The Circassian women, how. ever, like the European, wear, under all, a linen garment, which they change every day, and this garment the seller is obliged to give with the woman to the purchaser. In this state he delivers his merchandize.

For the Literary Magazine.

ANECDOTES OF WASHINGTON.

The following anecdotes of general Washington are given on the authority of the Monthly Register, a New York periodical publication, conducted by John Bristed, to whom they were transmitted by a correspondent at Philadelphia. These anecdotes are new to us; and if they gratify our leaders as much as they have delighted us, the purpose for which we have inserted them will be fully answered.

WHILE a colonel, Washington was stationed at Alexandria with his regiment. There happened at this time to be an election in Alexandria

for members of assembly, and the contest ran high between colonel G. Fairfax and Mr. Elzey. Washington was the warm friend of Fairfax, and a Mr. Payne headed the friends of Elzey. A dispute happening to take place in the court-house yard, Washington, a thing uncommon with him, got warm, and, which was still more uncommon, said something that offended Payne: whereupon the little gentleman, who, though but a cub in size, was the old lion in heart, raised his sturdy hickory, and, at a single blow, brought our hero to the ground. Several of Washington's officers being present, whipped out their cold irons in an instant, and it was expected that there would have been murder off hand. To make bad worse, his regiment, hearing how he had been treated, bolted out from their barracks with every man his weapon in his hand, threatening dreadful vengeance to those who had dared to knock down their beloved colonel. Happily for Mr. Payne and his party, Washington recovered time enough to go out and meet his enraged soldiery, and after thanking them for this expression of their love assured them, that he was not hurt in the least, and begged them, as they loved him or their duty, to return peaceably to their barracks. As for himself, he went to his room, generously chastizing his imprudence, which had thus struck out a spark, that had like to have thrown the whole room into a flame. Finding, on mature reflection, that he had been the aggressor, he resolved to make Mr. Payne honourable reparation by asking his pardon on the morrow! No sooner had he made this noble resolution, than recovering that delicious gaiety, which ever accompanies good purposes in a virtuous mind, he went to a ball in town that night, and behaved as pleasantly as though nothing had happened. Glorious proof that great souls, like great ships, are not affected by those puffs, which would overset feeble minds with passion, or sink them with spleen!

The next day, he went to a tavern,

and wrote a polite note to Mr. Payne, whom he requested to meet him. Mr. Payne took it for a challenge, and repaired to the tavern, not without expecting to see a pair of pistols produced: but what was his surprize, on entering the chamber, to see a decanter of wine and glasses on the table. Washington arose, and in a friendly manner met him, and gave him his hand. "Mr. Payne," said he," to err sometimes, is nature: to rectify error, is always glory. I find I was wrong in the affair of yesterday; you have had, I think, some satisfaction, and if you think that sufficient, here's my hand let us be friends." A few years after this, Payne had a cause tried in Fairfax court, and Washington happened on that day to be in the house. The lawyer on the other side, finding he was going fast to leeward, thought he would luff up, with a whole broadside at Payne's character; and, after raking him fore and aft with abuse, he artfully bore away under the jury's prejudices, which he endeavoured to inflame against him. "Yes, please your worships," continued he, as a proof that this Mr. Payne is a most turbulent fellow, and capable of all I tell you, be pleased to remember, gentlemen of the jury, this is the very man, who, sometime ago, treated our beloved Washington so barbarously. Yes, this is the wretch who dared, in this very court house yard, to lift his impious hand against that greatest and best of men, and knocked him down as though he had been but a bullock of the stall!"

This, roared out in a thundering tone, and with a tremendous stamp on the floor, made Payne look very wild; for he saw the countenances of the court begin to blacken on him. But Washington arose immediately, and addressed the bench:

"As to Mr Payne's character, may it please your worships," said he," we have all the satisfaction to know that it is perfectly unexceptionable; and with respect to the little difference, which formerly happened between that gentleman and myself,

it was instantly made up, and we have lived on the best terms ever since; and besides, I could wish all my acquaintance to know, that I entirely acquit Mr. Payne of blame in that affair, and take it all on myself as the aggressor.”

Mr. Payne used often to relate another anecdote of Washington, which reflects equal honour on the goodness of his heart. "Immediately after the war," said he," when the conquering hero was returned in peace to his home, with the laurels of victory green and flourishing on his head, I felt a strong desire to see him, and so set out for Mount Vernon. As I drew near the house I began to experience a rising fear lest he should call to mind the blow I gave him in former days. However, animating myself, I pushed on. Washington met me with a smiling welcome, and presently led me into an adjoining room where Mrs. Washington sat. "Here, my dear," said he, presenting me to his lady, "here is the little man, you have heard me so often talk of, and who, on a difference between us one day, had the resolution to knock me down, big as I am. I know you will honour him as he deserves, for I assure you he has the heart of a true Virginian." "He said this," continued Mr. Payne," with the air that convinced me, that his long familiarity with war had not robbed him of a single spark of the goodness and nobleness of his heart; and Mrs. Washington looked at him, I thought, with something in her eyes which shewed that he appeared to her, greater and lovelier than ever."

For the Literary Magazine.

THE ART OF SCRATCHING THE

HEAD.

From the French.

THE faculty of thinking is almost inseparably connected with scratching the head. It was for this reason

that Champfort said, "I have no great opinion of people with welldressed and powdered hair, because they cannot venture to rub their hands round their heads."

The thoughts which flow to the brain produce a frequent titillation in the neighbouring region; and, therefore, the man of reflection must scratch himself often; the blockhead who wishes to pass for a man of wit scratches himself still more; and the woman who has something to do more important than that of thinking scratches very seldom. The manner of satisfying so universal a want ought to have been an object worthy of attention and emulation among men. But I see with regret that I must go back to antiquity, in order to find out the traces of this most simple and convenient practice. In the free cities, which contained as many rivals as citizens, an attentive observation of each other was the great art of life; and the science of physiognomy formed an entire part of the study of public jurisprudence. Barbarians judged of a hero exactly as they found him; but subtle republicans examined him more closely, and wished to know why they admired him. I have read Tacitus, Machiavel, count d'Avaux, and cardinal de Retz, and I have not found in them any thing that can be compared to the policy of Alcibiades, when he caused the tail of his dog to be cut off, in order to confound the prating idlers of Athens. It is to be presumed that he was the person who invented the mode of scratching the head with the point of the finger: this elegant exercise was in unison with the lisp ing which distinguished that great and accomplished man.

The practice passed from Athens to Rome, where it made such progress, that it became proverbial to describe men of delicate research in the following words. Qui digito scalpunt uno caput. I ask pardon of my young fellow-citizens for making use of expressions unknown to them; but Juvenal, from whom I have taken the passage, was such

a pedant, that he never knew how to write a word of French.

Licinius Calvus has left us an epigram, in which he asked a young woman who was scratching with the point of her finger, if she was not looking for a husband. But this was only idle talk on the part of a poet, jealous of those who were good scratchers; because he himself was bald, as his name imports.

If there be any fact authenticated in history, it is this, that Pompey who was oftener called the handsome than the great, never used more than one finger in scratching his head. For this he has been done justice to by the tribune of Claudius, by Seneca the elder, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the emperor Julian.

Julius Cæsar, another Roman still more illustrious, signalized himself in a similar manner, as we learn from Cicero and Plutarch. It is really worthy of remark, that the empire of the world was then contested for by two men who were the best scratchers of their age; and, for the honour of the gods, I would willingly believe, that, at Pharsalia, they decided in favour of him who had brought the art to the highest degree of perfection.

There can be no doubt but that, for the last ten years, we have inherited this fashion from the Greeks and Romans; and all our young heads, rounded after the manner of the ancients, are so many proofs of the fact. Is it not, therefore, grievous to behold those pretty black heads scratched with such barbarous rusticity? I am ready to faint away, when, in the midst of a saloon or in the most elegant company, an Alcibiades or an Antinous opens his hands like two great combs, places them behind his ears, and in that form drives them from the bottom to the top of his head, leaving ten furrows in his hair to bear testimony to their passage.

What a horrible discordance ! Is it fit, my countrymen, that, while the muses are instructing milliners and tailors, you should mix with

their finest performances all the rudeness of the peasants of the Danube? But your error proceeds only from ignorance; and, thanks to Heaven! it will soon be removed. Young persons in an antique fashion like you, should not scratch, except with the end of the finger, without incurring the imputation of barbarism; and, in obeying this precept, to which Cæsar and Pompey submitted, you will, in time, give a proof of atticism and erudition.

I expect that you will perfect yourselves in this exercise. The display of the arm, the whiteness of the hand, the lustre of a ring, are elements worthy of your combinations. Why then should not the fingers sporting on your hands have sufficient genius and expression to show us, by the variety of its movements, whether you are throwing out a declaration of love, or are receiving information concerning the tiers consolidés.

For the Literary Magazine.

ESSAY ON DRESS.

THERE have been at all times violent declaimers against an attention to dress, which has also had, from time immemorial, illustrious defenders. In fact, it is averred, that the most polished and enlight ened nations have been precisely those that have been most addicted to the cultivation of the arts of dress. It seems as if there were an immutable analogy between a taste for the arts and a taste for dress, in such a manner that the latter may almost be considered as a certain thermometer of the degree of the former.

Among the ancients, the goddess of science had for her attributes, on the one side books and mathematical instruments, and on the other needles, spindles, and instruments for embroidery. Their mythology, which was almost always an alle. gory equally just and ingenious, proves that the instinct of genius

(for experience, in this respect, they as yet could not have) had caused them to discover this relation.

Let us cast a rapid glance over the nations who loved and cultivated the arts. We shall find that the

poets, the philosophers, the petitmaîtres, and the beauties, vied with each other in their exertions to charm the mind and the eyes; the former by the lustre of their talents, the latter by the allurement of personal ornaments.

In Greece, both were frequently equally solicitous to adorn at once their persons and their minds: thus we find that Plato, the wise Plato, seldom went to the Academy without his purple mantle; and it was Aspasia, the coquette Aspasia, who taught rhetoric to Socrates.

It is to be remarked, likewise, that the tonish ladies of Athens were almost all equally polite and wellinformed; while those who made a merit of not being in the fashion piqued themselves likewise on not being able to spell*.

The ancient rival of ancient Athens, Marseilles, which produced so many illustrious men of learning; Marseilles, whose urbanity is extolled by Livy, and which Pliny calls the mistress of the arts, was so celebrated for the attention of its inhabitants to dress, that, as Athenæus tells us, they became proverbial for it.

It was when the fine arts flourished among the Romans, in the time of Virgil, Sallust, and Athenodorus, that Rome was most devoted to fashions and dress. Horace complains of this: yet, when the return of Augustus was to be celebrated, his flattering Apollo advised the Roman ladies to adorn themselves with their most modish ribands.

"Let some one seek," exclaims he, "the singer Neraa! Let her come habited in her most brilliant robe, to celebrate with me this happy day!"

In the fifteenth century, learning was revived and cultivated in Italy,

* Travels of Anacharsis.

and with it were cultivated the arts of civility and dress. In the following age Paris became the asylum and centre of the arts, and fashion the idol there universally worshipped.

If, from the nations which have cultivated letters, we pass to the great men who have protected them, we shall find a new proof of this connection. Pericles went every day from the cabinet to the toilette, to the apartment of Aspasia. The elegant Lucullus was as celebrated for his eight or ten thousand dresses as for his victories over Mithridates. "His superb residence at Rome might be considered," says Plutarch, " as a palace of the muses." The master of the world, Augustus, sent for a mirror and adjusted his hair, when dying and the famous Mecænas, so great, so active, when the affairs of the state required discernment and vigilance, when they were no longer urgent, was as anxiously attentive as a woman to the embellishments of his person.

Leo X, Francis I, and Louis XIV loved and encouraged equally improvements in dress and the arts. At the same time that Peter the great founded academies and open ed public libraries, he invited the Muscovite beauties to his court, and presented them with gowns of a new shape. He civilized the fashions; and it was by his orders that the Russians shaved their beards. Examples of this kind might be greatly multiplied; nor are others wanting to prove, that, where literature and the arts have been neglected, dress has likewise been equally disregarded.

The stoics were great enemies to dress; and they condemned, in like manner, all cultivation of style and language. The Carthaginians had no taste for learning; neither had they any, notwithstanding their great trade and wealth, for dress. The people of Croton equally despised it; and we are told, also, that, in their eyes, the most laudable act of Jupiter was his having driven

from heaven the god of the arts, the elegant Apollo.

A beautiful thought appears still more beautiful when arrayed in suitable and ornamental language; and the same motive which incites us to embellish reason with grace, must naturally induce us to heighten personal beauty with ornament. The mind is the beauty of men, and the care which they take to cultivate it is an indirect example which they give the women to adorn their beauty: that beauty which is to them the first gift of nature; or, at least, that to which they attach the greatest value, and which the greater part of men will ever consider as their most essential endowment. A wellsuited dress, put on with taste, will make conquests, aided by some portion of beauty and wit, and sometimes even alone.

Men may be

made very secure prisoners by being enchained with ribands: the strongest bond is not always that which holds them fastest.

Since all men avoid those who have not the good fortune to please them, why should they condemn those who are unwilling to omit any thing which they think may conduce to render themselves agreeable?

M. de Buffon has somewhere said, that our dress is a part of ourselves; and, however little we may have studied mankind, we must be convinced of the justness of this reflection. It would be difficult to determine whether, when we commend their figure and their beauty, they find themselves more gratified than when we praise their taste in dress, and the grace with which they wear its ornaments; it is at least almost certain that they would prefer the latter praise to that which is bestowed on many (perhaps more valuable) endowments.

With respect to the importance attached by women to dress, is it their fault if exterior objects always make the greatest impression upon them? Is it their fault, also, if almost the first ideas presented to their minds have dress for their ob