talks, sings, and dances 36 well, a “terrible flirt;” who admit nothing as propriety but what is conventionally correct and insipid. The media of flirting are indeed endless; a clever woman can find in simply listening a method of conveying the most delicate flattery and covert admiration. Indeed, flirting in its highest quality is an art requiring the greatest amount of tact and skill, and women who would flirt and be blameless, no matter how vast their materials, must follow Opie’s plan and “mix them with brains.”

It used to be a maxim that no gentleman could be refused by a lady, because he would never presume beyond the line of her encouragement; therefore it is to be presumed, on this rule, no lady advances further than she is willing to ratify. But such a state of society would be very stupid and formal, and we should miss a very piquant flavor in life, which even very good and great people have not been able to resist.

Upon this rule we must convict Queen Elizabeth as an arrant flirt, and “no lady;” we should be compelled to shake our heads at the fair Thrale and the great Dr. Johnson, 37 at naughty Horace Walpole and Mrs. Hannah More, and to even look with suspicion on George Whitefield and “good Lady Huntingdon.”

No, in polished society flirting in a moderate form is an amusement, and an investigation so eminently suited to the present condition of the sexes that a much better one could be better spared. In one case only does it admit of no extenuating circumstances,—that of the married flirt of both sexes.

A flirt may not indeed be an altogether lovely character, even with all her alluring faults; but she is something a great deal nicer than a prude. All men prefer a woman who trusts them, or gayly challenges them to a combat, in which she proposes their capture, to her who affects horror at masculine tastes and ways, and is always expecting them to do some improper, or say some dreadful, thing. Depend upon it, if all the flirts were turned into prudes, society would have gone further to fare worse.