sures against us, and with an unqualifying severity to talk of the ruling passions of women as absolute universalities. The poets and moralists of ancient and modern times are stuffed with this common-place against us; and even the petit-maître of philosophy, the flimsy Fontenelle, amidst all his gallantries, has not scrupled to put the following confession into the mouth of a queen of Syria, who, in one of his dialogues of the dead, tells her story to Dido, as illustrative of our ruling passion of vanity.

A painter, who was of the court of my husband, had long owed me a grudge; and, to gratify his resentment, he painted me in the arms of a soldier. The picture was exposed, and the artist absconded. My subjects, zealous for my honour, were on the point of burning the piece in the public street; but as I was, to say the truth, most admirably painted, and every way charming, although it must be acknowledged the attitude in which I was represented was not much to the advantage of my virtue, yet I rescued the picture, and pardoned the painter.'

"It is surprising what transformations are sometimes formed by this perverse direction of the principle of shame. I remember a very promising girl, the daughter of a worthy neighbour, who had learned, under her mother's instructions, many useful arts and accomplishments: she could make pastry and pickles, knew the price and quality of meat, and was a tolerable proficient in carving: she could write legibly, spell correctly, and speak her own language purely and grammatically: in short, her mind was so vulgarised, that she knew more of the Bible than of lord Chesterfield or Voltaire; and I really once detected her knitting stockings for prizes to the Sunday-school girls, whom she often instructed herself. On the death of her mother, she was sent by

her father to a place of fashionable education; and, in the course of three weeks, rose to such a piece of modesty, as to blush at the mention of her former meannesses. She is now squared and tortured into a very fine married lady; and so sensibly delicate, that, on passing by a butcher's shop the other day, she was seized with an agony in every joint; and on meeting by accident a charity-girl, when she was far gone in her pregnancy, she has ever since been under the terrible apprehension of bringing into the world a child with a pair of knit-stockings on its legs.

"I would not pretend to suggest any new system, in the place of that against which I have so much descanted; I would only presume to recommend a little more of the Christian religion, and a little less of fashionable idolatry. I do not desire, that learning or politics, or riding astride, should succeed to this mischievous culture; I wish only to see the native ornaments of a woman's mind primarily attended to; I wish to see her arrayed in all her natural perfections of sensibility, softness, and grace; and to contemplate, through a curtain of unaffected modesty, an understanding furnished with every thing that has a tendency to make the heart good, and the conduct exemplary.

"How can I here resist the temptation to quote a passage from an admirable writer? to quote whom cannot be pedantry even in a woman; while not to have read and studied him, is want of taste in man or woman. It is thus that Dr. Hawkesworth sums up the character of Stella, in his life of Swift:

Beauty, which alone has been the object of universal admiration and desire, which alone has elevated the possessor from the lowest to the highest situation, has given dominion to folly, and armed caprice with the power of life and death, was in Stella only the

ornament of intellectual greatness; and wit, which had rendered deformity lovely, and conferred honour upon vice, was in her only the decoration of such virtue, as without either wit or beauty would have compelled affection, esteem, and reverence.'

"I am very far from desiring to level these distinctions which custom has established between the virtues and excellencies of the male and female character. Nature has clearly enough appointed our different offices and destinations; and, by the many domestic wants and dependencies with which she has encompassed us, has circumscribed the sphere of our exertions and our ambitions within the circle of our families and our houses. When I see a woman launching out beyond this natural line of her ability, and challenging the rewards of popular talents, I look upon her as a kind of deserter, or as a soldier fighting under foreign banners, whose renown is infamy, and whose victories are disgraces.

"The expediency of life, and the moral order of the world, demand the observance of this natural distinction between our duties and capacities; and not only our greatest pleasures, but the highest concerns of our being, depend upon their separation. I regard the social system of the world as a great machine, which requires a regular distribution of labour, for the uniform course of its operation: a deficiency of hands in one part of it is little remedied by the superfluity of them in another; and such as are out of their place, can only be regarded as so much loss in quality, and incumbrance in quantity.

"We surely can never reasonably complain of our unimportance in the system, when we consider ourselves as charged with the first care of the species, and intrusted with the heirs of immortality, during that important interval, when the seeds of

virtue or of vice are sown in their minds. For the execution of so high and delicate a trust, we have a right to every advantage of culture and instruction in our youth, which will be necessary to correct our judgements, to regulate our desires, and multiply our innocent pleasures; but the duties which this paramount object of our lives imposes upon us, require also that nothing should enter into the scheme of our education that can taint our minds with a relish for those attainments and exertions, which belong to a different sphere of action, and another range of obligations.

66

By keeping these objects, I mean the care of infant minds, and the management of our families, constantly in our view, we shall obtain a rational rule of female education, and a proper estimate of female worth. This measure will direct us in the cast of our studies, and the choice of our amusements. It will exclude, as well all the follies of the mode, and the laborious impertinence of fashionable culture, as the dangerous and distorted lessons of ambition and enterprise; while it will let in all those sensibilities and graces of the heart and understanding, which are of real weight and utility in the tender concerns of a wife or a mother, and are the ornaments of the female character in every scene and allotment of life."

Here Miranda finished her discourse, which was very much applauded by the rest of the company, and seemed to speak the general sense. For my part, as my natural tenderness for the sex leads me always to mix a great deal of encomium in every question concerning them, I could not help thinking Miranda a little deficient on this head, and only excusable as a party concerned: I endeavoured, therefore, to fill up this deficiency, by quoting some very

fine things said in their commendation by very wise ancients. I perceived that I recommended myself much to them all by this piece of gallantry; and that my quotations from Plutarch, to which I took care to give the handsomest turn I could in my translation, were particularly admired.

Miranda, who was still a little heated from the great part she had taken in the conversation, went so far as to propose that the bust of that entertaining author should be placed in a part of the room, together with my own. The old lady my mother, who smiled more than was usual with her at this idea, putting her hand into her pocket with much significancy, drew out of it the County Chronicle, and pointing with her knitting-needle to a particular advertisement, bid me read it aloud; declaring, that if we would consent to put the advertiser's head between those of Plutarch and Simon Olive-branch, she would agree to the proposal.

06

"Woman is the master-piece of the Almighty. "Has any of us beauty, softness, or grace, to compare with hers? Is not her mind the arcana of "all that is desirable? Seek for elegance, you find "it in her shape; for penetration, you find it in her eye; for beauty, you find it in every feature, especially if she has consulted the improvement of "her charms so far as to adorn them with Vickery's "incomparable têtes."

I assure my readers that the project of the busts is totally laid aside.

VOL. XLI.