fell victims to Gowland's Lotion (which contains corrosive sublimate of mercury), applied to remove a few pimples. Many such instances are daily occurring. The much extolled pearl-white is composed of the white oxide of bismuth. That these injurious minerals can communicate their pernicious qualities to the circulating fluids through the medium of the skin, as well as when received into the stomach through the mouth, requires, I presume, no further proof than what has been already adduced. All the substances enumerated, when carried into the system, even in the most minute quantities, are difficult to be (if ever they are) expelled; never failing to induce most appalling results, as paralysis, contraction of the limbs, convulsions, neuralgia, and universal debility. Independent of these obvious results, they are liable to produce faintings, nervous affections, and call tubercles of the lungs into action (where such exist), and which might otherwise have remained inert.

Beauty of the complexion is only another term for a healthy skin, a pure, unsullied mirror of the harmony of the internal structure: if I may be permitted the expression, "it is visible health." There exists (as has been before stated) so intimate a connection

between the internal and external vessels, that every error or irregularity in the former shows itself first on the surface, particularly in the face and neck. How frequently are we struck with the aspect of an individual who considers himself in perfect health, and in a few days' illness, the result of some morbid matter concealed in the system, justifies the apprehension we entertained at our last interview.

Nature has wisely ordained that the earliest indications of internal derangement should be indicated by the expression of the countenance, yet to what do we in the generality of instances, apply this index? We do not avail ourselves of the beneficent warning; and the perseverance in the employment of pernicious substances, instead of promoting the object we have in view, ultimately tarnishes and destroys that beauty, so fondly, vainly hoped to be preserved, and imagined to be capable of improvement. How can we expect to make the skin healthy, without attending to the purity of the circulating fluids, as it is dependent on them for its very existence? How we should smile at an individual who would attempt to clean the tongue permanently by scraping, when the cause of its foulness arose from a disordered stomach! The three most

valuable cosmetics are, first, proper attention to the insensible perspiration, a process by which nature, if duly aided, will never fail to expel every deleterious particle; by it the surface of the body will be kept in a constant atmosphere of purifying exhalations, a species of volatile bath, the most efficacious method of preserving it soft and pliant, and animating it with the roseate tint of health and beauty. The next circumstance to be attended to, is the purity of the fluids, depending chiefly on a healthy state of the digestive functions; the third requisite is a free and unrestrained circulation of the blood: for the most uncontaminated juices, when too abundantly determined to the surface, inevitably induce disagreeable consequences, as redness, flushings, and other blemishes, of which females leading a sedentary life are frequently heard to complain; those predisposed, indeed, all our fair readers who are anxious for the preservation of their personal appearance, should avoid as much as possible every species of violent and fatiguing exercise, alternations of heat and cold, such being invariably detrimental to health and beauty of complexion; they should also abstain from the use of stimulating fluids, among which may be particularised wine

and spirits; the latter, when indulged in even to a slight extent, inevitably undermines the firmest constitution, producing premature decay of the faculties, mental as well as bodily. The same objections will hold good in regard to coffee, tea, &c., though to a much more limited extent. I fear that by thus denouncing the favourite beverage and solace of the breakfast and tea-table, I shall endanger my favour in the opinion of my fair readers; nevertheless I feel it an imperious duty to point out everything which may have a tendency, however slight, to injure the fairest of nature's works. All fluids when taken hot have power to weaken digestion, induce palpitation, and many serious nervous affections; only, for a moment, conceive a stomach inundated with hot water at a time when all its energies are required to be concentrated to complete the office of digestion. I cannot express in terms sufficiently strong the following important truth :-"That a healthy stomach can alone engender uncontaminated secretions, and that two-thirds of what is termed acrimony of the humours arise from a languid and defective digestion; such effects do not display themselves immediately, yet are they not the less certain, and will invariably follow at some period

sooner or later." There is another indulgence which, though pleasant, is exceedingly injurious, namely, bedwarming, and cannot be too strongly reprehended; where it has been carried to any extent a tawny or yellow tinge of the skin is sure to succeed; this debilitating habit should therefore never be permitted, unless illness is present, or damp beds are apprehended. I shall now notice the most troublesome blemishes to which the skin is subject.

WRINKLES

ARE little furrows seriously detrimental to female beauty; the thin and meagre are invariably more liable to these blemishes than the plump and embonpoint, which state is in fact one of the best preservatives against their inroads; for though wrinkles sometimes are seen in such, they essentially differ from those which are the effects of age. These defects are at first faint or scarcely visible, gradually appearing at the angles of the eyes, on the forehead, neck, and bosom ; and it is not till they are arranged in an endless succession of deep furrows that a beauty becomes seriously alarmed; she then only discovers that the fell destroyer Time is about to impress on her person