both are equally objectionable judges, and we must seek more judicious ones.

There are many men, who, born with tender passions, know how to unite gaiety with decency in the company of women they esteem: these are the men whom we should listen to.

All agree in acknowledging the happiest qualities in the sex, which only want a little culture to be rendered valuable.

It is certain that Nature places women in a state to appear to advantage much sooner than us.

A young person of fifteen years of age feels and expresses with ingenuity, and makes one of the charms of a society, into which a man of the same age could not be admitted.

Like those forward trees, which, only opposing to the sap a tender and light bark, are covered with leaves and blossoms a long time before others have even felt the approach of spring, women, thus disposed to a ready developement, have much less need

than us of the assistance of art to attain the degree of perfection of which they are capable.

And let it not be thought that this degree is much inferior to our's. Many among them can bear a comparison with respect to the mind, and the greater part take the lead in point of the qualities of the heart. There are, without doubt, some faults in them: they are marked, like us, with the stamp of humanity; but a great number of virtues may very well excuse these small faults; faults, indeed, for the greater part of which they are indebted to the men-the desire of pleasing, natural to the sex, leading them to regulate themselves by the ideas imbibed from among the men who surround them.

The chief misfortune of women, as well as of the great, is their being beset, from the most tender age, by a crowd of flatterers, who are interested in concealing the truth from them.-It is an inconvenience for beau

ty to have near them a set of superficial and

idle people.

These men, attentive to feed in women a childish vanity of which they mean to take advantage, put every art in practice to divert their minds from serious thought.

Surrounded by such men, whose smallest fault is that of being frivolous, is it surprising that women should become so themselves? If any thing ought to surprise us, should it not rather be to see so many estimable females remain, when all things conspire to stifle the happy dispositions they have received from Nature?

The best means, then, of reforming the women, would be to reclaim the men.

An illustrious citizen, zealous for the honour and good of his country, tried, a short time back, to rectify the ideas of his fellow-citizens, and to snatch from among them even the principle of ill. The friend of man is necessarily the friend of woman, since the well understood interests of the one sex are closely united with those of the

other. Whilst waiting the effect of his wise counsels, I venture, after his example, to address to my female fellow-citizens some observations on what they owe to themselves, and what society requires of them. There are books enough printed every day to corrupt them-it is necessary to offer something as an antidote.

DIVISION

OF THE SUBJECT.

ISHALL inquire relatively to the rank they hold among us; what is the kind of study and occupation that belongs to them; of the particular pleasures, among which are ranked luxury and dress. I shall, then, proceed to some reflections on love, marriage, and the education of children. I shall, as I

go along, treat of the domestic government that naturally belongs to women, and finish with a small picture of their virtues, less uncommon than it pleases some persons to give them credit for. My object is, in few words, to offer to the observation of women, truth, which custom seems de