Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/31

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Returning to the Steyne, instead of the spectacles, we have now time and opportunity to observe its late spectators. A more lovely groupe is rarely to be seen; most charming women, with complexions freshened by healthy air and exercise, their nerves braced by that element, from which sprang the fair deity whom many of them equal in attractive beauty; their thoughts free from the anxious cares of the evening, when the momentous dice are to agitate the heart of eager expectants of a toy. Their breasts and their eyes are animated by the sound of martial music, and the sight of martial men; while they themselves, like Venus, not only possessing but displaying charms, nearly approach to that state in which statuaries exhibit the bewitching divinity: with charms so transparent, who does not wish for a nearer approach? the soft complacency of their lovely counte-