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ornaments? Hast thou not seen women of the mountains dressed in rough and poor clothes richer in beauty than those who are adorned? Make no use of the affecfted arrangements and headdresses such as those adopted by loutish maids, who, by placing one lock of hair more on one side than the other, credit themselves with having committed a great enormity, and think that the bystanders will forget their own thoughts to talk of them alone, and to blame them. For such persons have always the looking-glass and the comb, and the wind, which ruffles elaborate headdresses, is their worst enemy. In thy heads let the hair sport with the wind thou depictest around youthful countenances, and adorn them gracefully with various turns, and do not as those who plaster their faces with gum and make the faces seem as if they were of glass. This is a human folly which is always on the increase, and the mariners do not satisfy it who bring arabic gums from the East, so as to prevent the smoothness of the hair from being ruffled by the wind, — but they pursue their investigations still further in this direction.

49.

I cannot but mention among these precepts a new means of study, which, although it may seem trivial and almost ridiculous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to va-

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