WHEN we consider the natural equality of women with the other sex, their influence upon so­ciety, and their original destination [Page 8]to be companions and comforters of man; when we recollect the pleasures derived from their^* a­greeable vivacity and sprightliness, the soothing tenderness of their friendship, and the ardency of their affaction; when we call to mind all their charms and attractions; above all, when we reflect, that the youth of both sexes are under their management for many of those [...]orly years, when all the du­rable impressions must be made, it may justly appear a matter of a­mazement, that their education has been so much and so generally neg­lected; that no nation, ancient or modern, has esteemed it an object of publick importance that no Phi­losopher or Legislator has inter­woven it with his system, nor any [Page 9]witter deemed it a subject worthy of a full or a serious discussion.

Many systems of instruction have been adopted for the other sex, va­rious as the countries, the religion, the climate, or even as the caprices of the writers, who, at different pe­riods, have undertaken to compose them. But, by a strange fatality, women have been considerably o­mitted in the account, as if they were not gifted with reason and understanding, but were only to be valued for the beauty of their persons, for the elegance of their manners, or the symmetry of their forms.

At the same time, we make no concessions, or abatement in our expectations from them, for this contemptuous neglect. Forming a high and flattering estimate of what their character should be, we extend no allowance for this [Page 10]insuperable disadvantage. We ex­pect a rich, spontaneous harvest to spring from an untilled soil; and whilst we make their failings inev­itable by our remissness, we fail not to load them with the heaviest censure, ridicule and contempt.

Complaints against the foibles and imprudence of women are al­most coeval with the foundation of the world.—Whatever, in other in­stances, may have been the scarcity of genius and talents, yet their im­perfections have never wanted re­corders. To do them ample justice, and place them in every varying point of view for the amusement of a busy and illnatured curiosity, for the gratification of a dark and malignant spleen, or the purpose of a publick and humiliating cor­rection, the shafts of satire, the flights of poetry, the lucubrations of the moralist, and even the more [Page 11]dignified labours of the Divine have, in turns, been employed. Many^* famous author of Greece and Rome, of modern Europe, and of our own country, have formed an ignominious phalanx, to wage, in inky armour, an unequal battle against this tender and defenceless sex. Even the sacred books of Rev­elation have been called in to sanc­tion these malevolent effusions; and, because Solomon declaimed, at an early period, only against the worst and most abandoned of the sex, he has been followed by a number of servile imitators, of all ages and nations, who indiscrim­inately, have applied the dark por­trait to all. I will not add a Ches­terfield to a group, (whose letters [Page 12]to his son, from beginning to end, are one continued libel upon wom­en) because I wish the memory of his immortal graces, and his refined dissimulation, to sleep forever with him in his grave.

Nor is this sex more indebted, in general, to those, who assume the appearance of friendship and esteem. Like princes, they seldom hear the language of truth. Ma­ny, like a Judas, betray them with a kiss. Their charms excite a fu­gitive passion. Passion vents it­ [...]f in profuse adulation. And that flattery has frequently little more in view, than a momentary pleas­ure, which must borrow its exist­ence from their misery and ruin.

To enumerate the various charg­es, which have been adduced, at different times, against this amia­ble part of the Creation, would be a very difficult and laborious [Page 13]undertaking. They are as the complexions or pre [...] the persons from whom [...] proceeded, as the circu [...] which have checquered the [...] lives, or the feelings wh [...] circumstances have excite [...] breast.

Some men of a saturr [...] gloomy complexion, ha [...] demned them for that [...] which constitutes the f [...] sweetest of their charme [...] might as well be angry [...] sky is not all over sable, w [...] streak of white or blue to [...] the horizon; whilst othe [...] retaliated on the sex at la [...] injuries and offences they [...] ceived from a few.

The Philosophe [...] comp [...] their levity and g [...]ddin [...] man of sentiment inveigh [...] the frivolousness of their t [...] [Page 14]the frothiness of their conversation. He who courts their society from motives of fashion, and makes it a system to say every thing but truth, pronounces them greedy of flat­tery in the extreme, and capable of swallowing that undeserved praise, which is the severest satire in dis­guise. The scholar is disgusted with their ignorance and insipidity; the lover with their coquetry, ca­prices and inconstancy in the ten­der connections. And he, who seeks them with the most honour­able views, for the companions of his life, is terrified with the pros­pect of that fondness for gaiety, which would sacrifice every emo­tion of the heart to splendour and parade, and, instead of making his retirement a Paradise, threatens to convert it into a dreary wilderness of vexation and remorse. From all quarters they have been attack­ed; [Page 15]and whilst their form is con­fessed to be enchanting, they are treated, by the bulk of men, as fit for little else but some domestick drudgeries, or some indelicate en­joyments.

How far these heavy charges are founded on truth, it would appear invidious, and it is not, by any means, necessary to determine. Suffice it to remark in favour of this injured and persecuted sex, that the judge would be esteemed a monster of cruelty, who first in­duced a person to be a culprit, and afterwards condemned.

It is an established and univer­sally received maxim, that the future sentiments, actions and characters of men are considerably influenced by their earliest edu­cation; and if we consider the su­perior susceptibility of women, and that exquisite sensibility, which so [Page 16]wonderfully dispose them to re­ceive all impressions, and, in fact, have made so many of that sex, in different periods, and in various circumstances, martyrs to love, to friendship and devotion, it is reas­onable to conclude, that, if they are defective in any rational at­tainments, it is for want of a ju­dicious and timely cultivation. If a soul, so lodged, was not ne­glected, it would not be without its necessary excellences. If a mine so rich, was worked with skill and industry, it would reward its own­er with as great a quantity of sol­id gold and treasure, as, now, it only mocks him with a light and superficial tinsel, that glitters on the eye [...] To censure them before we have made this experiment, is ungenerous anticipation. It is expecting to reap, where we have [Page 17]not sowed, and gather where we have not strewed.

Whether we look into foreign countries or our own, and wheth­er into the ancient or modern his­tories of both, it will plainly ap­pear that the instruction of wom­en has engrossed but a little share of the publick attention; and, to a speculative mind, it may afford a moment's curious entertainment, if I endeavour to investigate the cause of this phaenomenon, why mankind have so uniformly ne­glected the heart and understand­ing of a creature, whose person has called forth their warmest pane­gyricks, and whose shrine they have approached with the richest incense of idolatry and adulation.

The happy age of our first par­ents in Eden is no subject of this contem [...]on. A state or inti­mate [Page 18]communion [...]th God sup­poses every possible degree of intel­lectual information. The knowl­ledge of both sexes issued imme­diately from the fountain of light, and, if it was not communicated in equal rays to both, our first father would be impelled by the combined workings of duty and affection, to make up, in the most insinuating manner, the difference to a woman, whom heaven had so lately given "as its last, best gift;" whom he had led "so sweetly blush­ing to the nuptial bower;" whom solitary haunts and familiar conver­sations must have riveted so very closely to his heart; whose un­studied innocence, and unartisicial charms must have poured a de­licious rapture through his soul, who combined in her own person all the tenderest relationships, and monopolized all the [...]eliest names [Page 19]and attachments, and without whose society, all the fragrant shrubs, and fruits, and blossoms of his Paradise would have been but insipid and unanimated blessings.

So soon as we lose fight of Par­adise (and alas! the golden pros­pect soon fades upon the eye) we trace the dawnings of shameful negligence to women. We dis­cover the baneful operation of a system, which, insensible to their charms, and unmindful of the blessings which they pour upon society, has bound them in the fet­ters of an illiberal oppression. The earliest ages of the world are dis­figured with a degrading treatment of this sex, which, notwithstand­ing all the allowance to be made for difference of manners, and primitive simplicity, necessarily in­volves but little moral culture, and less rational instruction. The sac­red [Page 20]writings exhibit women, en­gaged in the most laborious and ser­vile employments, tending flocks, carrying water and performing many other domestick drudgeries, which, whilst they strike us as un­suited to the dignity of their char­acter, or the delicacy of their frame, evidently bespeak the very low es­timation in which they were held.

The truth is, (and it is a first principle, to which we must often have recourse in the progress of thi [...] quiry) a considerable civ­ili [...]ation must have taken place in any age or country, before the manners of women will be suf­ficiently captivating to raise our admit [...]ion, or before we ourselves shall ha [...] [...]ny susceptibility of their many little, [...]meless and delicate attractions. In the beginnings of society, such a politeness must be utterly unknown. It springs from [Page 21]a constant collision with^* man­kind, from that unrestrained in­tercourse with other people and country [...]s, which only an extended commerce is observed to open in any part of the world; and from the liberal cultivation of those arts and sciences, which, if they are not always nursed in the bosom of lux­ury, at least suppose a period of ac­cumulated wealth. On this morn­ing of the world such an aera had not dawned. The pastoral life and agriculture, as they supplied the wants, occupied the hours and bounded likewise the wishes of these primitive and undesigning men. Satisfied with a plain and [Page 22]frugal repast, they sighed not for riches, and never so much as dream­ed of a commerce, which in ma­turer progressions of society, should spend its days, and nights and soul to accumulate, if possible, upon a single point, the treasures of the world. Ambition was, as yet, asleep, nor had Imagination opened to their dazzled view, its boundless regions of artificial pleasures, or artificial pains. Science was un­cultivated, and taste was unborn; the manners of the men were pro­portionably coarse, and the women were unrefined. It was happy, indeed, for the latter, that they were so. If they had been other­wise, their sensibility must have shuddered at the lowness of their servitude, and the rigours of sub­jection.

Amongst the Aegyptians, who were celebrated for their learning, [Page 23]astronomy and Magi, women met with some partial and some distin­guishing marks of attention. They were admitted to the publick lec­tures in philosophy; the laurel of science wa [...] not supposed improper for their brow; and, by a taste, unparalleled and unheard of in any other country, they wer-entrusted^* with the management of negocia­tions, of commercial interests and other publick undertakings. But this was erring in another ridicu­lous extreme. It 'was attempting to make them move in a sphere for which Nature never gave them talents, nor Providence designed them. This people had not dis­covered, from a rightly cultivated taste, the true and striking point of female perfection. The sort of [Page 24]knowledge, which these sages com­municated, unmade the women^* It raised her understanding on the [...]ain of her graces. An Aegyptian Lady does not captivate us in re­collection, however, in such darker ages, she might shine. Such He­roines may dazzle in the page of history, but they are not the fe­males, who in the stiller walks of life, attract us by their softness, and enchant us by their ease.

In the history of the Babyloni­ans and Assyrians, we meet with little but conjectural hints, to di­rect our enquiry concerning the treatment or education of women. The ingenuity of the former ap­pears in the working^† of those [Page 25]carpets, hangings, embroidery &c. which might agreeably amuse the solitary, whilst it relieves the mel­ancholy hour. Such a trait in the portrait, likewise, may con­vince us that riches and luxury had made considerable advances in this kingdom, and that minds, at rest from procuring the necessaries, could exhaust their most inge­nious efforts on the elegances of life. It proves nothing of any mor­al culture directed to their hearts, or any efforts made to extend their understanding. One probable con­clusion, however, it involves, that, in the bosom of luxury, we must not expect unvitiated women, any more than to discover firmness of nerves, or delicacy of features in the torrid zone. If this presump­tive [Page 26]reasoning is not satisfactory, their^* shocking and indelicate cus­tom of collecting all their young, marriageable women, and dispo­sing of their charms and person [...] by auction, whilst it brings a blush on every modest cheek, may abun­dantly convince us, that this peo­ple had but slender ideas of female importance, of any moral qualities in the sex, or any mental perfec­tions.

The Medes and Persians afford us no specimens of any great par­tiality exercised to the fair. Still they groan under the rigour of the times. Still they are unmention­ed, and still they are unknown; or if any of them, casually, pass in review before the eye of the in­quisitive reader, it is only to shock [Page 27]him with the mention of a body, prostituted, at the call of a capri­cious tyrant, to a bestial degrada­tion, or a mind abandoned to the grossest ignorance, neglect and dis­order.

The luxury of the Assyrians was communicated to^* the Medes; that of the Medes was transmitted to the Persians. The dissoluteness of the Persian court was, proverb­ially, flagrant. For a refinement of sensual gratification, kingdoms were ransacked, ingenuity was tor­tured, and a considerable reward^§ offered to the person, who should extend the narrow boundaries of appetite, and possess the singular ability and address of inventing a new pleasure. Even the hardy, martial spirit of Alexander caught [Page 28]the luscious infection: and his sol diers, by dissolving, for a very lit­tle while, in the^† Luxuries of the metropolis, had nearly lost that bravery and vigour, to which they owed all the glories of the field.

It would be hoping, therefore, against all hope, and doing vio­lence to all the common princi­ples of probability, to conclude that the females of such a country, or of such an aera, had any regular instruction. A mad, furious Sav­age, boldly intent on conquering the whole world, imposing his ar­bitrary edicts upon all, and bind­ing, in equally inglorious fetters, their bodies and their minds; for the sake of a harlot, burning a magnificent city, and in a fit of drunkenness, murdering his near­est friend, affords but slender hopes of such a moral policy, or virtuous [Page 29]legislation, as would consult the less spacious, though more impor­tant interests and happiness of women. Universal savageness, in short, and a species of brutality disgrace these darker ages of the world; and very little mention is made of a sex, who could contrib­ute nothing to the trophies of a Conqueror, to the extension of em­pire, of the splendours of a des­potick throne. Women, in such a mode of calculation, were com­paratively, cyphers; and, when they had produced a race of sav­age and of healthy warriors for the state, were supposed to have fulfilled the purposes of their exist­ence, if they did not even possess one sentiment of the heart, or one illuminating ray of understanding.

After poring so long ever these dark ages, I congratulate, at once, myself and the reader on arriving [Page 30]at a period which History has ir­radiated with a clearer informa­tion. I mean the famous ages of Greece and Rome. Here we may expect the condition of women to assume a very different, and more chearing aspect. Here we may suppose their captivity will cease, and their trampled honour and dignity revive. But this, like many other illusive hopes, is only form­ed to be disappointed. It is one of those bright mornings which is quickly overcast with darkness and clouds.

It is certain the Greeks were the very patterns of every thing that could be charming and exquisite in taste. It breathed in their stat­ues; it glowed in their paintings; it fascinated in their orators; it warms us with all the ardour of enthusiasm in their poets; and their writings are still the model [Page 31]of excellence to every refined and cultivated mind. To them the fine arts, in general, owe an exqui­site perfection, which all succeed­ing ages emulate in vain. Still they wanted that true politeness and urbanity of manners, which extend to women all the delicate civilities, and all the flattering attentions.^*

With their exquisite sensibility to every other sort of beauty, with a passion for seeing all her lifeless perfections, glowing on the canvas, they suffered, by an amazing kind of indifference, the charms of liv­ing women to wither in neglect. "and waste their sweetness on the desert air."

[Page 32] The truth is, eloquence and val­our were the sole, exclusive am­bition of the times. As yet, wom­en had not emerged from a low and inglorious condition of servil­ity. It was a still, unexploded sys­tem to shut them up from^* society, and the consequences of this con­finement were strongly discernible in the features of both the sexes. The men were rough and insolent; and the women, for want of a col­lision with their natural associates, had not every possible elegance to charm. Thus imbosomed in sol­itude, the manners of the Grecian Ladies might be pure, but they were not very captivating; their taste might be innocent, but it was not improved. Retirement gave them awkwardness; and awkward­ness [Page 33]in its turn, denied them admiration.

As taste, however, gradually ad­vanced, and knowledge made the feeling [...] exquisitely alive, the Greeks began ardently to pant for an in­tercourse with the sex: And, to the eternal disgrace of their moral­ity, they found it in their courte­zans. They gave to vice the dis­tinctions of virtue, and offered, at the ignominious shrine of prosti­tutes, what should have been the unvarying rewards of merit, of delicacy and discretion.

In reality, it was not so much a matter of wickedness, as of taste. Whilst women of modesty were deprived of all advantages for im­proving themselves, these courte­zans, by mixing in publick circles, had acquired all the interesting al­lurements [Page 34]and^* attractions. Hence the unbound [...] [...]ions they re­ceived [...] most learned [...] a [...] their houses. Hence poets of the highest fame paid homage to their charms; and hence the most celebrated painters endeavoured to immortalize, with a licentious pencil, their merit and their graces! So true it is, that taste is not always, a concomitant of virtue; and that over a people, in certain periods of society, lan­guishing with sensibility, and en­feebled in their morals, the bril­liant accomplishments will have a greater influence, than all the vir­tues and good qualities united. Amongst such a people what was [Page 35]female Education? Whilst mod­esty was thus openly violated and shocked, where was moral disci­pline, culture and improvement?

The behaviour of the Romans to their women assumes a differ­ent aspect, according to the vary­ing state of their taste, from the revolutions of their empire, the extension of their conquests, from their intercourse with other na­tions, and the progressive culture of knowledge, politeness and re­finement.

At first, a hardy, warlike and heterogeneous race of men collect­ed from the banditti of all places and countries, fired only with the passion of military glory, frugal in their taste and rigid in morals, they expected, and they experienc­ed a^* strong similarity of rigid [Page 36]qualities in their women, a faith­ful attention to domestick duties, an inviolable constancy and a sub­missive, unremitting attention. But their conduct to the sex was that of Despots to their slaves, unmix­ed with esteem, and unsoftened with affection. They never thought of treating wives, as their Equals, with the luxury of confidence, or the reciprocity of tender and^* endearing conversation. If their women had but plain and homely virtue, it was all they desired. They left it to others, whose minds [Page 37]grasped at less than the conquest of the globe, to engage in so very effeminate an office, as that of nurs­ing the embryo graces of their heart, or calling forth, by adequate encouragements, the native and unsuspected vigour of their under­standing. Valour and a thirst for military glory, considerably swal­lowed up all the tender emotions; and, whilst to die for their country was the height of their ambition, they left it to the Quixotism of other times to expire for a woman. The heroism of those early ages^* had not that agreeable accommo­dation [Page 38]in its manners, that gentle­ness in its nature, or humanity in its exercise, which later times have produced. Warriors had not tem­pered intrepidity with softness, nor courage with sensibility. They had not softened the forbidding por­trait of the soldier with the milder graces of the citizen, the philoso­pher or the friend. A successful hero did not, then, invite a gener­al he had vanquished, to partake of the social, elegant repast, pre­pared by politeness, and sweetened with a noble and a generous com­miseration. Such a combination of, seemingly, opposite qualities, such a softening of the natural [Page 39]horrors of war, we certainly owe to the superior progress of modern civilization. It was an honour re­served for the conquerors of the present age, and will last, when the greenest of their laurels has decayed.

Occasional mention, indeed is made of some illustrious Roman^* Ladies, who, by stooping from their dignity, to the painful and arduous office of forming youthful minds, did honour to humanity and to their sex. But this atten­tion was, chiefly, lavished on the boys. It had only in contempla­tion the training up of orators or heroes for the state. Girls are not so much as mentioned in the account. They were silently aban­doned to that untutored ignorance, [Page 40] [...] which Nature had produced them. Amongst this celebrated people, women were always thrown into the back ground of the piece. The picture, at large, was grouped with the laurels, and emblazoned with the trophies and atchieve­ments of the men.

^* As we approach farther into Roman civilization, a new page opens on us in the history of wo­men. A revolution, similar to that of all other countries, in cer­tain stages of society, took place in the treatment and manners of the sex. Dragged from a long and in­glorious confinement, their pat­ronage was courted, and their charms were admired. In a state of roused passion, and of inflamed imagination, as objects of pleasure, they had a temporary consequence. [Page 41]Asiatic luxury, imparted to [...] capital, viewed them as a part [...] sensual refinement; and, havi [...] exhausted all the other varied: [...] gions of sensuality for its gra [...] fication, wished at last to revel [...] their arms. But the sex are n [...] indebted to any age or count [...] for this kind of valuation. It insults their delicacy; it degra [...] their understanding, and has [...] most unhappy influence on th [...] fortunes and their taste.

^* The manners of the Roman [...] quickly took the infection of t [...] times. In the hot bed of luxury, [...] their virtues and graces relaxe [...] Their modesty declined, their chas [...] ty became less tremblingly alive the unhallowed touch; and, by degrees, their delicacy lost its nati [...] [Page 42]fairness, till, at length, it was ting­ed with the darkest shades of in­decency and vice. Never was the female character^* more prostitut­ed than at Rome. A reader, who enters on their history with admi­ration, is obliged to close it with amazement and regret.

Knowledge, which is, generally, seen in those epochs of society, when luxury has made considera­ble advances, dispensed, indeed, some of its favours on the sex. The Romans enumerate several illustrious women, whom science crowning with its greenest laurels, has preserved from that oblivion, which is, too generally, the por­tion of the sair. But they are mentioned, only to be disapproved by every person of sentiment and [Page 43]taste. Their attainments were of an enormous and improper kind; a dropsy in the understanding. Besides the reign of their talents was but short. It preceded but a little while, the extirpation of the Empire. The taper just shot forth an extraordinary blaze, before it was about to be extinguished for­ever.

Where, in short, shall we turn, or whither change the scene, to see women with no marks of de­gradation upon them, treated with respect, and educated, as ration­al and intelligent creatures? The greatest lawgivers and the bright­est geniuses, that ever figured in antiquity,^* Confucius, Zoroaster, [Page 44]Solon and Lycurgus, famed through the world for their exten­sive talents and wise legislation, have scarcely made one single de­cree in favour of this sex, except­ing with some view, remote or immediate, to political advantage. In the prosecution of their fav­ourite schemes of policy and of national greatness, they have con­sidered them but as mere, passive instruments of an extensive popu­lation. Some of these Sages have done violence to their delicacy by the most immoral and arbitrary regulations. Their chastity has been violated; their modesty shocked, and the sacred tie of marriage modified and changed, as the ever fluctuating interests of society have seemed to require; and, with bodies to answer all po­litical purposes, very little thought has been lavished on their minds.

[Page 45] ^* Though in the ages of Chiv­alry, women received a kind of adoration, and numbered in their service, such a pompous crowd of heroes, warriors and knights, yet this appears not to have proceeded from that heart felt esteem, which is conferred on intrinsick merit, or an elevated understanding. In fact, they were distinguished mere­ly for their sex. Because it was the fashion, they were courted as objects of a romantick protec­tion, and as instruments of a ri­diculous, and visionary honour. And, though, when this rage expir­ed, their abilities were carried to an extraordinary height, under the powerful workings of an unnatur­al enthusiasm, they were but dis­gusting monuments of talents mis­applied, [Page 46]and of taste misdirected. A^* woman, issuing out laws, disput­ing in philosophy, [...]ranguing the Pope in Latin, writing Greek, studying Hebrew, commencing Theologian, and preaching in pub­lick, may be a literary heroine, that challenges our wonder, but has nothing of that softness, timidity and reserve, which, in that sex, so powerfully captivate our hearts, and inchant our imaginations.

^§ To this spirit of chivalry, however, the women owe an eter­nal obligation. It was this which called them forth from confine­ment and obscurity into publick [Page 47]attention. It was this, which has given birth to that species of gal­lantry, which, moulded as it has been by increasing knowledge, still, in a greater or a less degree, per­vades every part of the continent of Europe. It is this, which, by giving them a collision with society, has wonderfully heightened all their graces and their charms; which has appropriated to them no inconsiderable rank in civilized society, and made the strength and consequence of the other sex, fash­ionably, subservient to their ease and their protection. Highly as we think of our gallantry and po­liteness, they have issued from this northern source. From Barbari­ans we have learned complaisance to the sex, if not to instruct them.

Whilst the institution of Chiv­alry rendered women of such un­usual consequence, and celebrated [Page 48]all their charms with eulogies in Europe, a Lawgiver and a Religion had sprung up in Asia, which rig­idly doomed them to an inglorious confinement, as mere objects of a sensual and fugitive delight. This slavery and this confinement, time has not altered. The customs of the^* Orientals are, in general, as unchangeable as the rocks, which surround them. The increasing humanity and learning of the times have not yet been able to penetrate into the East, or give this injured sex the shadow of relief. Instead of consulting the improvement of their minds, their tyrants and adorers expect nothing from them, but to give their persons every per­fume, and every luscious advan­tage, that may communicate a [Page 49]higher zest to an indelicate mo­ment, and heighten the luxury of mere, animal indulgence. As if they had no souls, they are treated but as brutes of a superior order. Even their very virtue is rendered involuntary; their distresses are unpitied, and their signs are un­heard.

In Africa, or the wilds of Amer­ica, it is vain to expect a better fate, or a more respectful attention to females. Savages of all coun­tries, indolent and cruel, take ad­vantage of superior^* strength to oppress the weaker sex, and blind them in the fetters of slavery and subordination. In some of these countries, the hardships of women are grievous beyond all possible description. In one place^‡ treat­ed [Page 50]as beasts of burden, carrying to the war their children, hammocks and provisions on their backs; in another, though nominally united to Sovereigns, yet performing^* the drudgeries of common slaves; in a third, permitted^† to appear, only, in a kneeling posture, in the presence of their Lords; in a fourth,^‡ hired out for the wages of prostitution; here, sold like cattle, to the^§ highest bidders in a publick market; and there, doomed, when nature has pro­nounced them incapable of bearing children, to^‖ be put to death, what heart of tenderness relents [Page 51]not at their lot? What mind of delicacy does not shudder at the prospect? But, destitute of know­ledge, and devoid of sensibility, the cruel^* savage beholds such suffer­ings with a stupid unconcern, and would load a single murmur of an oppressed sex, with a redoubled oppression.

Hitherto I have placed the cause of female neglect in the want of a proper civilization and refine­ment, and considered it as result­ing from a particular stage of so­ciety and manners. I have been reviewing periods and nations, in which a savage barbarism or an ardent thirst of extending domin­ion was considered as the essence of wisdom and of glory. I have been speculating, at leisure, on the conduct of men, uninfluenced by [Page 52]religious sentiments and unenlight­ened by the gospel. If, therefore, we have blamed their treatment of this sex, their criminality is con­siderably alleviated by their igno­rance, and those very physical causes, which produced, palliate the moral guilt, which would, other­wise, attend it. We pity women; and, from views more enlarged than their despots had, we even pity or forgive their oppressors. If the first were degraded, insulted or enslaved, candour pleads in fa­vour of the latter, that no proper sense of duty operated on their conscience; that revelation had not dissipated their intellectual darkness, or pointed out the awful consequences of actions; and that they did not know the richness or the value of the jewel they despis­ed.

[Page 53] But when we come to coun­tries and aeras, when all the secon­dary causes of advanced know­ledge, taste and civilization combine with that, which should always be the first (I mean religious princi­ple) to give women every possible advantage of moral discipline and cultivation; when, as men valuing themselves on their refinement, we should deny no attentions to this weaker sex, and, as Christians, [...]e taught that they, like all oth [...] [...] ­man creatures, are of infinite con­sequence in the sight of heaven; that they are gifted with the treas­ure of an immortal soul; that they are training for eternal hap­piness or misery; that the awful alternative will very much depend on their present education; and that the care of it, therefore, is the highest duty, that can possibly en­gage the parental solicitude—with [Page 54]these phy [...]l advantages—these suggestions of conscience—and these powerful impressions of religion on the mind—what can be said, if any negligence is still observable to those, who, at the same time, are confessedly the fairest and most elegant part of the creation; who bear and nurse our offsprings, are admitted to our bosoms, alleviate our cares; who, by their gentle­ness, compose the agitations of our minds, and are formed to con­tribute to all the delicate pleasures and transports of life? What pleas can we offer to extenuate our guilt? What evasions can we make at the tribunal of reason or of Heaven, and what more than even savage insensibility must dark­en our characters with an indelible disgrace.

The condition of women in England, no doubt, may justly be [Page 55]pronounced to be supremely hap­py, if we compare it with what that of many females has been in some of the ages, that have just passed in review before us, or what it is, at present, in most countries of the world. They have certain­ly, in their allotment here, as many obvious advantages, over women in general, as Nature has given them a marked superiority of per­sonal beauty, figure and attrac­tions. If Europe has been called the Paradise of the sex, Britain seems to be the choicest spot of this Paradise, in which the sove­reign Former has deigned to place the fairest of the fair, and munifi­cently, to distil, upon their favour­ed heads, the richest of his sweets. In a happy, and enviable tem­perature of climate, in the riches of commerce, in the improvement of the arts, in the blessings of lib­erty, [Page 56]and of a religion purified from bigotry on the one hand, and fanaticism on the other, they are, doubtless, equal partakers with ourselves. Nor in the present scale of society, do British ladies want considerable weight. Is it the fashion of the times to pay them attentions; and gallantry is planning honours for itself, when it seems only studious to decorate the brows, and to enhance the consequence of women. Incivility to a female, however frivolous, would, in modern estimation, re­dound upon its author, however distinguished; and even men of rig­id principles are led, almost me­chanically, to heap flattering com­pliments and encomiums upon women, for which their private judgment does not always find a claim in their hearts or under­standing. Still if this sex could [Page 57]diseriminate nicely, and would di­vest themselves of an infatuating vanity, perhaps they would discov­er, that even all this amounts not to a rational or an adequate atten­tion.

Is it not a strong impulse of passion, that suggests such smooth things? Is it not a selfish vanity, that would be called polite, and stand well with the sex? Is it not a studious accommodation of our­selves to (what we conceive) their frivolous sentiments and taste? Is it not a policy, which shrinks from their censure, and would not wholly sacrifice their applause and admi­ration? Is it not the mechanical influence of manners, unaccom­panied with any correspondent con­viction, or is it not a motley figure, composed of all these different ma­terials, which we offer at their shrine, without any very high o­pinion [Page 58]of the sex, or any proper [...]timation.

It the Ladies knew what unre­served observations, we make upon them, in their absence, and what degrading liberties are taken with their characters, particularly by those, who offer them, when pres­ent, the most fulsome adulation, they would know, that this is a necessary caution, and they would learn to distinguish a supersicial po­liteness from a real respect. If they would reason justly, they might soon be undeceived. They might conclude from the very face of their prevailing education, that we wish them to bewitch our sen­ses by their beauty and accom­plishments, instead of securing our love and our esteem by any solid qualities or any rational acquire­ments.

[Page 59] But let us carefully analyze this subject. Let us come to first prin­ciples, and reason from facts.

Till of late years, a very re­markable negligence prevailed in the culture of their understanding.

It requires no violent effort of memory to recall the period, when there were females, and of no trifling rank, that were not able to compose or even spell a letter with propriety; and though of late, this defect has been con­siderably remedied, yet how insuf­ficient is the education, which we still, generally give them to fit them to be prudent mothers, sen­sible companions, wise and valua­ble members of society, or (what is most of all) thoughtful and re­ligious christians? As soon as they are born, we consign them over to the care of a mercenary nurse who infuses, with her milk, [Page 60]the illiberality of her mind, the ruggedness of her temper, and the p [...]p [...]le diseases of her constitution, and, when they are of age to dis­criminate, and lay in a stock of ideas, we fend them to a boarding school to learn, what? Musick, dancing, accomplishments, dissi­pation and intrigue—every thing but solid knowledge—every thing but humility—every thing but pi­ety—every thing but virtue?

Is this an adequate discharge of the parental (that is) the highest of all christian and social duties? Can a mother easily acquit her conscience, if a girl thus vitiated from her early years, becomes the slave of folly, the plaything of fashion, the dupe, as she grows up, of some insidious villain, or, at least, the insipid poisoner of a connexion, that promised every [Page 61]sweet and every blessing? When such a mother lies upon her death­bed, will she feel no melancholy re­gret for a daughter's past, and no dreadful anticipation of her future indiscretions? Can she bid her the last adieu with a composed heart, and will not these words dart, like a sunbeam, on her awakened con­science, ‘And thou shalt teach these statutes diligently unto thy children, (of these surely daugh­ters are a part) and shalt talk of them, when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up?’

There are, doubtless, many ex­ceptions to be made of parents, who are studiously and religiously attentive to this important duty. The Queen of these realms is an illustrious instance. Amidst all [Page 62]th [...] incir [...]ling cares of greatness and the enchantments of a throne, she has never forgotten, even for a moment, the tenderest or the minutest attentions of a mother. Her royal daughters do honour to her efforts and proclaim her suc­cess. Strangers and foreigners are captivated with their persons, but they who know them best, declare that they discover still superior charms in their hearts and under­standing. Group them in one part, as cultivating laudable im­provements of the mind, reading the best authors, proficients in the belles lettres, and conversant with the studies, which particularly in­terest and ornament their sex, Ge­ography, Astronomy, Natural History, Poetry, &c. in another, as excelling in all the creative ef­forts of the needle, fancy work, flowering, embroidery, &c. and [Page 63]you will have a beautiful picture before^* you, that exhibits woman in her zenith of perfection, and will be viewed with admiration, by the latest posterity, when all the little earthly distinctions of royalty are fled.

Nor do I wish to deny the mer­it of those few, who have even handled the pen upon this subject. I am ready to acknowledge every attention bestowed on the sex, by the labours of a Halifax, by the the sensible and religious observa­tions of a Chapone, and the more elegant and judicious sketches of a Gregory. The present writings of Madame la Comtesse de Genlis are a treasure to young Ladies. And I review, not without a sin­gular pleasure, the great and ever pious Fenelon, esteeming it a­ [...]st [Page 64]the highest of his pastoral cares, to become as well by his pen, as his discourses, the relig­ious guardian and instructor of women; whilst the spectators, tat­tlers, the guardian, the world, the rambler, in their respective times, must be confessed to have attend­ed, in many excellent, fugitive pieces of raillery and of serious­ness, to their knowledge and im­provement. Still a few examples, to the contrary, do not affect a general observation. Such a partial remedy is not calculated to remove the malignant disorder. Even royal virtue, in this instance, has not spread with so diffusive a rapidity, as would probably, have attended royal indiscretion.

It may be said, that England justly boasts many literary women. True. But who can say that they are not so many prodigies in their [Page 65]species, or that general rules admit not of exceptions? There are uncommon me [...]eors in the plane­tary world. There are eccentrick bodies in the heavens, which chal­lenge our amazement. There are females, enriched with an etherial spirit, which mounts up to its kindred skies. I wish not to de­ny the fame of a Graham, the knowledge of a Carter, or to pluck one single, well earned laurel from the temples of a Seward. But prodigies of female genius do not prove at all, the general state of female talents, or the ordinary level of female understanding. I would ask, at the same time, whether, for one of these cultivated few, we have not thousands of an opposite description, unlettered and unread.

Besides, I am not arguing for these great attainments. I am only contending for that degree of cul­t [...]e, [Page 66]and, particularly, of m [...] culture, which shall conven [...]tly incorporate with the mass of common duties; which shall ad­minister a proper share of princi­ples and taste, and, whilst it does not exalt a woman to an unnatu­ral and invidious eminence, does not depress her to an abject state of frivolousness, insipidity and con­tempt.

Though the^* French Ladies, by being educated in convents, and there relieving the uniformity and loneliness of their prison with en­tertaining books, and afterwards by a constant intercourse with the other sex, have acquired considera­ble knowledge and refinement, yet what principles of just morality or decorum can have been graven on their hearts, when their characteris­ [...]k [Page 67]feature is levity, and fashion is int [...]gue? It is obvious to any discerning observer, that female lit­erature, in this country, is swelled beyond its natural dimensions. To sit as judges upon literary produc­tions, is intruding on the prerog­ative of the other sex. I want not a plethora, but a sound and undis­tended state of the female under­standing; and if a woman had ev­ery thing that glitters in knowl­edge, or fascinates in taste, what comfort would she administer to the possessor of her person, if he could not rely on the tenderness of her friendship, and the sincerity of her affection? To trust graces with such women, is putting weapons into the hands of one, who is intoxicat­ed or insane. To give the charms of knowledge, is only furnishing incentives for a speedier seduction. It is laying thorns under pillows, [Page 68]that thould have down; and it is cou [...]ting ease in the bosom of vex­ation.

France, indeed, is so far from being any proper model of female education, that I conceive it to be the vitiated taste of this people, which, set off with a graceful and bewitching manner, has infected many other countries of Europe, but particularly, our own, and overwhelmed them, at least, with a deluge of frivolity, if not of crimes.

The levity, or (to speak in soft­er terms) the vivacity of this peo­ple, arising from air, climate, food, education, government, frequency and peculiar kind^* of intercourse, and unchecked by a religion, that is contrived to be made very easy [Page 69]to the conscience,^* has burst those [...]ber barriers, which either princi­ple or delicacy would impose, and, and where the female sex are con­cerned, thinks of and studies nothing, but the graces.

In this school, a Chesterfield learned his art of profound dis­simulation. From such originals, he took his disgusting portraits of the whole sex. From this source, principally, issues the impure stream of British indiscretion, intrigue and infidelity.

In proportion as our people of quality have been connected with the French, they have imbibed their [Page 70]maxims. Morals have been sac­rificed to graces, principles to po­liteness. Hence the fashionable mode amongst ladies of high taste, is to be frank and easy. Hence a system, which calls delicacy, prud­ishness; and reserve, the unweildy incumbrance of a gothick age, though a celebrated writer has, somewhere, remarked, that ‘"There's no woman, where there's no re­serve."’

^* The depraved education of fe­males in Italy, is abundantly obvi­ous from every page of their writ­ers. We trace it sufficiently in the prevalence of a ridiculous custom, [Page 71]which, affecting all the quixotism of platonick, fosters at least, the strong suspicion of indulgence to the impurest love; a custom, which degrades a husband into the mere, passive, uncomplaining beholders of nameless indiscretions; which represents a woman as the dupe of a foolish, visionary refinement, the slave of vanity, or of still more criminal and indelicate desires; and which under the pretensions of subliming sentiment, counteracts the visible appointment of provi­dence, and robs the happiest con­nexion in the world, of all its re­ciprocal confidence and sweets. How is it that such a vision has not, long since, disappeared in the cultivation of philosophy, and the progress of civilization? In what future, happy era shall the sun of reason shine, uneclipsed, on the fair inhabitants of this enviable, and delicious, quarter of the globe? When shall a religion, purified from absurdity, whisper with suc­cess, [Page 72]this plain and obvious article of its creed, in their ears, that mar­riage is the providential tie of one man to one woman, for their mu­tual society, comfort and assistance? When their education is more ra­tional. they will know the [...]r true dignity. When they understand their true dignity, they will seek, at once, their happiness and their honour in the sole exclusive friend­ship and attentions of the man, to whom they have already disposed of their hands, and should, at the same time, have given their affec­tion. Their present system of cul­ture and maxims, is absurd in the extreme; an injury to the other sex, a libel upon their own. It is a mortal, grasping at the clouds. Or, in a truer sense, it is Vanity, tissued with indelicacy and with guilt.

In Spain,^* whether the true spirit of philosophy has never yet been [Page 73]able to penetrate, and where the bigotry of a dark and clogging re­ligion still reigns in all its force, we^* are delighted with the sight of many beautiful women, but have no pleasure from contempla­ting their character or education. We view their persons and are charmed; we survey their minds and prejudices, and turn away disgusted and amazed.

On the minds of this people, the ancient rage of Knight Erran­try has, still, left such a wild and romantick enthusiasm, that a wo­man, happening to be left alone with a man, would consider her­self as highly neglected, if a sensi­bility to her charms did not prompt him to such indecent liber­ties with her person, as the females [Page 74]of most other countries would es­teem an indignity, and think them selves obliged to punish with eter­nal resentment.

With such sentiments, how fal­len and how undesirable is Wom­an! In such a country, what can be her culture! Under the tyran­ny of such notions, what the pleasures she is able to bestow! Can they be mixed with confidence, can they be relished by the heart? What sweet flowers perish in such a clime, for want of expansion? What rich and what luxuriant boughs spread around their pos­sessors, only a moping and a mel­ancholy darkness, which, if they were judiciously pruned and direct­ed, might serve to furnish out a most agreeable shade to refresh and enliven all their retirements. From the high soul'd enthusiasm [Page 75]of Spanish Ladies, under proper regulations, what might not be expected?

The great and despotic Freder­ick, a prodigy of talents, bound­less in his genius, and restless in his schemes, in a very long life, that has been still more extended by continual exertions, has done nothing over his extensive domin­ions, that evinces any great atten­tions to the sex. They are much in the same predicament of ignor­ance and frivolity here, as in ma­ny other quarters of the globe: The^* only creatures of his king­dom that have not shared in the benefits of his political greatness, and his wise legislation.

[Page 76] What advantages they have en­joyed, have arisen from pure, physical causes of society and man­ners, unconnected with any mor­al force from religion, or any po­litical edicts from the throne.

Like other great warriors, the King of Prussia has been swallowed up with views, of too immense a nature, to attend, in any great de­gree, to the softness, to the charms and blandishments of woman. Unlike some other heroes, he seems to have experienced little even of the physical instinct, that attaches to the sex; like many other great and insulting Legislators, he has studied more the fecundity of their nature, than the formation of their minds; through his territo­ries, rewards have been offered to women, who were pregnant with an offspring, that matrimony has [Page 77]not legitimated^* with its sacred rites; the interests of morality, he has not scrupled to sacrifice to those of population; and though with a mind, that grasped at uni­versal knowledge, and unlimited fame, his palace at Sans Souci, has been the hospitable retreat of^† literary men, poets and philoso­phers, [Page 78]seems not to have enter­tained one single thought of calling forth the dormant abilities of wo­men. Too little or too frivolous to engage his notice, they have not been so happy as to experi­ence his protection.

The Emperor, bent as he seems on universal reformation, aiming, with an enlightened mind and an enlarged philosophy, to found a powerful and an extensive empire, on the ruins of an absurd and des­olating religion, appears not, any more than his illustrious neighbour, the patron of this sex. Amongst the various projects of his inven­tive fancy, and his restless, ambi­tious mind, female culture has not been dignified with a place; and, if monasteries are no longer to immure in chains and darkness, the weeping or misguided fair, it [Page 79]is not that they may become intel­igent companions, or diffuse a soster charm and lustre on society; but only that they may turn out more prolific mothers, and more robust and healthy nurses of em­bryo heroes, warriors, politicians, subjects and servants, to carry on his vast and complicated schemes. Still their value is placed in their persons; still their milky bosoms are supposed to comprise all their vir­tues and their charms.

Over^* the immense territory of Russia, a darkness and a barbarism have, hitherto, prevailed, which obstruct every idea of female, or indeed any other species of culti­vation. In a country, where the Clergy themselves have been repre­sented [Page 80]as palpably^¶ ignorant, lit­tle information can be supposed to have dawned on the bulk of the people. In an empire of so much savageness, where, not very long ago, even punishments of the^† most indelicate nature were inflicted upon females, where, the, spirit of their religion forbids all enquiry, and the throne rests most securely on the basis of ig­norance, it would be contrary to one of my grand positions, that women should rise into any great de­gree of consequence or notice. And though the present adventuring spirit of the Empress wishes to make Petersburgh the residence of the^‡ [Page 81]arts, civilization and politeness, yet there is little in her character to encourage the hope of any great attention^* to the women of her kingdom. Herself wanting true, female taste, she is not likely to issue forth the laws, which regulate and enforce it. A great and un­common heroine, she seems to know little of those charming graces, timidities and delicacies, which culture should call forth in woman, and encouragements should ripen; her portrait is made up of all the glowing colours, [Page 82]without any softening shades from the mild and the attractive. She may be a great woman, and the wonder of the North; but she is not a Charlotte, more beloved, than feared; a pattern of graces and virtues to her sex, and infinite­ly more distinguished by these, than all the splendors of her throne.

One wonder strikes us on the whole of this investigation. Whilst the Christian religion is professed in these kingdoms, whither is its spir­it fled? Under all its varying forms and ceremonials, what be­comes of its actuating principles, of its spirit and its power?

The truth is, Christianity is the proteus image of every varying country and taste, debased with the impurest mixtures of men; now shackled with superstition, then as falsely sublimed by fanaticism; of­ten [Page 83]forging chains for the person or the conscience: Always made sub­servient to the established polity; seldom enlightened or strong enough to influence the conduct, and as rarely looking to the real happiness or interests of mankind.

I will not shock the reader, or any longer exhaust his patience with the horrid pictures I could draw^* of Danish,^† Polish, or^‡ Swedish women. If I was dispos­ed for it, a rich abundance of ma­terials is at hand, to convince him that in none of the last recited countries, the condition of wom­en is at all less unhappy, or the clouds of their oppression and ig­norance dispersed. Enough has been said to evince their general degradation and neglect. The fact [Page 84]is too notorious to be mistaken, and too strong to be controverted. Even in the most civilized king­doms, women, in the same mo­ment, are courted and despised. With an exquisite organization, lively passions and a happy imagination, that give a dis­position for most talents, and for every virtue, we train them up to be FRIVOLOUS and INSIPID; and, whilst we rob the shade of all its sweetest comforts, are doing injuries to society, that can never be repaired.

^* THAT the passions were implanted in us by the Deity, as the springs of all our actions, and are [Page 86]therefore, in a certain degree, in­nocent and lawful, is too obvious a doctrine, in the theory of mor­als, to need any illustration.

Amongst these passions, the love of the other sex is infinitely the strongest and the most universal; and by operating at a time of life, when the character and habits are most essentially affected, has given rise to the greatest revolutions in society, and to some of the most extraordinary incidents of common life.

To touch upon the subject of love, is gliding with an electrick force and quickness, into every bosom. The description of it ne­ver fails to create an universal in­terest, or to arrest the general at­tention, [Page 87]whether we read its prog­ress, its adventures and its revolu­tions in the sublime and dignified language of history, in the pather­ick tragedy, in the visionary novel, or hear it only glanced at in the casy and familiar play of social conversation. To the old, it re­calls, in an agreeable manner, ear­ly glowing fondnesses, and early scenes, which the chilliness of years, only, now, permits Imagin­ation to enjoy; whilst younger people with a rapture, that thrills on all their finest sensibilities, apply the picture, thus gratefully exhib­ited, to the nearest and the dearest favourite of their hearts.

Love, like all other passions, has suffered in the wrong opinions, and the perverse representations of different men. Libertines have degraded it into downright bru­tality, [Page 88]forgetting that sentiment is a part of our frame, and that we are something raised above the grovel­ing nature of the beasts that per­ish.^§ Platonists, on the other hand, have refined it into an ab­stracted [Page 89]union of souls, independ­ent of matter, as if we were pure, disembodied spirits, or as if the physical instinct, for the propaga­tion of the species, had not been implanted in us by a Being, who never errs; whilst a gloomy re­ligion, ever intent on its own pow­er, emoluments and grandeur, has exalted vows of continence and perpetual virginity into an high degree of sanctity, and esteemed it meritorious to triumph over feel­ings which a God of purity and perfection had ordained.

I need not enter on a serious re­futation of opinions which carry their own absurdity on their fore­head. The creed of libertines is contrary to every dictate of reason, conscience, religion and to every principle of sound policy and wise legislation. It militates, in the [Page 90]strongest manner, against that wise appointment of providence, which, obviously, from the near equality of numbers, designed to appropriate one woman to one man. It strikes at the root of a sacred connexion, which is the parent of every social and tender relation­ship, the replenisher of private families, and the storehouse of the state. It would destroy, at least, the happiness of an union, whose ve­ry essence is reciprocal confidence, and reciprocal esteem; a train of children to be rationally and relig­iously educated by those, who dis­cern in their features, and would impress upon their manners, a resemblance of their own. And it would, ultimately, be subversive of that increase of population, which the commerce of the sexes was designed to promote.

[Page 91] The second opinion is too vision­ary too be noticed; an attempt at being angels in this tabernacle of clay, and an attempt, which has generally sunk its abettors as much below the point of their real dignity and excellence, as they had raised themselves above it in airy speculation. These purest of the pure have betrayed frailties, which the pride of their philoso­phy forbad them to confess; their^* spirit has wonderfully amalga­mated with matter, and a friendship formed, seemingly, in heaven, (by what they have called a sym­pathy of souls,) has been impurely consummated on earth, whilst na­ture has asserted her trampled rights over the devotees of a par­ticular [Page 92]church by telling all the world in the anecdotes of history, that they have only substituted the stolen debaucheries and exces­ses of a convent, for the pure and hallowed pleasures of the marriage bed.

Nothing but a sound and com­prehensive philosophy, grounded on the principles of nature and of truth, will ever stand the test of experience, or of a critical inves­tigation. All other notions of this passion, not founded in such philosophy, will quickly disappear with the authors, who abet them. The frothy bubble bursts, as soon as it is handled. The cobweb system is deranged by the touch of life. Love is a passion, not to be cradi­cated, but only to be properly reg­ulated and controuled. And it will always rage with a violence in [Page 93] private, proportioned to the unnat­ural restraint laid on it before the public eye. Priestcraft and fa­naticism may appear to have total­ly extinguished the flame; but the embers will revive with the first gale of opportunity, and the fire will consume happiness and morals.

This passion of love will always receive its particular form and modification from the peculiar cir­cumstances of rudeness or civil­ization, from the particular cli­mate, government, religion and temperament of the people, a­mongst whom it is found. The mode, in which love is considered, will always prescribe the method of treating women, who are the objects of it. The light, in which females are viewed, whether of respectability or degradation, will [Page 94]produce their particular kind of education. Their education will principally form their character and manners; and, if we consider the strong and universal force of this passion, the manners and characters of women will have the strongest reciprocal influence on the pursuits and habits, on the complexion and the taste, on the private and the publick happiness of any people.

This sympathy for the other sex is then in its proper state of vig­our and perfection, when, to that ardour of passion, which is direct­ed to their persons, we join a ten­derness of sentiment, which es­teems them as companions, as formed to soften the sorrows and misfortunes, and to communicate a zest, an elevation and a poignan­cy to all the real pleasures and [Page 95]enjoyments of life. The first of these causes multiplies the species and extends population; the lat­ter tissues animal with rational, sentiment with sensation, and makes the knowledge and under­standing of the man rise above the g [...]ossness and stupidity of the brute.

Such a rational and proper sen­timent of women will not be the produce of every age, or of every situation. Many happy circum­stances must concur to produce and cherish it. The first and latest stages of society, in any country, will not be propitious to its growth. It is but in a certain state of man­ners, that it will vegetate or spring Rudeness is a frost, which nips it in the bud, and, under the scorch­ing sun of extreme refinement, it gradually dies. It is very late in [Page 96]making its appearance, and, like other of the sweetest flowers of mortality, it is but for an hour. It wholly depends upon the state of kingdoms; and kingdoms never long "continue in one stay."

It has occurred, in the course of the former essay, how savages treat women. Love, with them, is mere animal instinct. It has nothing of sentiment in its grove­ling composition; and they grati­fy it with as little ceremony, as their hunger or their thirst.

Women, in such places, and such aeras of society, are the mere involuntary slaves^* of their des­pots. [Page 97]Their charms do not ap­pear of sufficient consequence to instigate the desire of an exclusive appropriation. Every comer is admitted to their bosoms; and a bosom, struggling with indiscrimi­nate violence, feels no preference, and can know no distinction.

As society emerges from the infancy of rudeness into some de­gree of form, the idea of property [Page 98]of every species will begin to pre­vail, and women will be included in the estimation. That desire, which has lavished on the sex at large, will be confined to a few. Considering females, as a species of treasure, a man will wish to be­come the sole, exclusive proprietor of one or more of them, as of any other object, according to the laws and circumstances of his country. The same taste, which appropriates a fine garden or an estate, will prompt him to fill his little ser [...]glio with the fairest of the fair.

When any people have arrived to a certain degree of knowledge, civilization and politeness, women will have all that rational conse­quence, which I have described. The finest feelings of the soul will vibrate to their charms, their del­icacy [Page 99]will inspire attention; their weakness will be the strongest claim to protection. Love and friendship will bow at their shrine, and offer them that ming­led tribute of sentiment and of de­sire, which is alone worth their acceptance. The virtue of such an era will both produce and pre­serve the purity of their morals, and the purity of their morals will be reflected back on the hon­our, the existence, and prosperity of such a state. This will be the golden age of the sex. It will be the epoch of their triumphs, and their conquests.

I know not whether this idea may be overstrained, and drawn beyond the line of human imper­fection; but, in revolving over the history of the world, I feel my­self inclined to doubt, whether [Page 100]a period has ever existed, it does not appear in the annals of^* antiquity. It is not visible in the present face of Europe. Has it been in the past?

As prosperity and riches increase in a kingdom, the morals of the women, like those of the other sex will not fail to suffer in the gener­al corruption. Passions, heated by excesses, and unrestrained by religious principles, will be violent and ungovernable; and that lux­ury, which seeks every other sen­sual pleasure, will not fail to dis­solve in that, which is confessedly the highest species of animal grat­ification. Licentious writings, (the produce of so rank an era) [Page 101]Romances Novels, Pictures, and the varied, indelicate representa­tions of the stage^* will accelerate [Page 102]the last convulsions of virtue, and smother the just expiring embers of female reserve. An enervated body in the sex cannot long resist this extraordinary ferment. An enfeebled mind will not have vig­our to struggle with temptation. Marriage will be a burthensome, and intolerable restraint on a rov­ing inclination. Inconstancy will [Page 103]be frequent, and divorces sued for as the only resource, however poor, and however disgraceful, from an unhappy connexion. A vagrant, ever restless appetite will pant for variety. Libertinism will erect its desolating standard on the ruins of delicacy; and, in the general per­version of taste, chastity will be­come an unfashionable virtue. Such have been most nations of antiq­uity in a certain stage and progres­sion of their empire. Such were Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Athens, Rome, in the accumulation of suc­cesses; and (not to mention other invidious instances) such in some degree, at the present moment, is the prosperous and opulent island of Greatbritain.

The absurd and romantick spirit of Chivalry never yet totally ex­tinguished, which pays unmean­ing compliments, where it feels no esteem, in conjunction with the other causes, which have been e­numerated, [Page 104]composes that motley mixture of attention and neglect, of flattery and contempt, of hom­age and of insult which we extend to the fair. For in fact, whatever a cold hearted politeness says, or the affectation of sensibility may pretend to feel, women in this country, by the majority of men, are considered but as instruments of vanity and pleasure. Our love is chiefly fashion, mixed with a con­siderable portion of ingredient, which it would be improper and indelicate to name. The latter we gratify with those unhappy crea­tures, whose ruined character re­quires no reparation; and for the first, we shift attentions, in an end­less rotation, with those more il­lustrious names, whose fashiona­bleness can give eclat and dignity to our choice, and whose fortune has propitiously placed them in a rank to resent our seductions. Our eulogies have no sincerity; our at­tachments [Page 105]have no ardour, no con­stancy, no zest; we seek a pleasure from the sex, but we do not find it, because it is not sought in the qual­ities of the heart.

What but this strange opinion of women, sanctified by fashion, and connived at by our penal laws, could have emboldened the worth­less and puny libertine to boast of his triumphs over the innocence of a credulous and tender sex, whose honour it is certainly his business to guard, and whose delicacy to protect? What but the idea of a fashionable consequence annexed to intrigue, and of credit resulting from a multiplicity of amours, could have qualified, with any ac­commodating softness, the natur­al horrors, indecency and guilt of violating the marriage bed? What other cause could have effectually skreened either of these characters from the universal odium and in­famy they deserve? And what else [Page 106]could have induced an injured and insulted sex particularly to caress these assassins of their peace, and to consider the number of seduc­tions in a man, as so many scar [...] of glory, gained in the field of love, which entitled him to superior notice and distinction.

I need not stop, a moment, to en­umerate the evils (for they occur­red in the beginning of this essay) resulting from such a taste. An absolute dissolution, a weakening, or a total prevention of that union which is the very bond and cement of society; suspicion substituted in­to the room of confidence, incon­stancy of attachment; vague and criminal pleasures, which commu­nicate disease, which hinder prop­agation, and suppose a total absence of sentiment and esteem; a youth emaciated from early excesses, without principles, without consti­tutions and without love, leave a nation nothing to expect but a race [Page 107]of puny, spiritless creatures, ill pre­pared to become the defenders of their country, and bearing, on their very characters and faces, every foreboding symptom of its ap­proaching dissolution.

With this sentiment of women, we are cautious to give them a cor­responding education. It is wholly turned on vanity and trifles, calcu­lated only to embellish those per­sons, which we wish to enjoy; to feed that vanity, over which we mean to triumph, and to observe that abjectness and inferiority of mind, which are favourable to op­pression. Person and manner are the great object in the education of this sex. To render the one beau­tiful, and the other enchanting, are our highest care. This in gen­eral, is the employment of the gov­erness. To this are devoted all the labours of the toilet. To this are consecrated their mornings, and their days. The consequence is, [Page 108]that they dazzle or inflame the sen­ses, but convey no joy or relish to the heart. The artificial flower has no smell or essence! The paint­ed statue has no soul or animation.

The company of women, what­ever may be their taste, will always, in a greater or less degree, be court­ed by the other sex. With the vain and fashionable, it has passed into a system, to devote a very consider­able portion of his hours to the fair, and it is generally esteemed a nec­essary step to politeness and the graces.

I shall not stop a moment to ex­amine the truth or fallacy of this opinion. Suffice it to remark, that in this intercourse all young men indiscriminately, will endeavour to please. In order to be agreeable, they must have such qualities, as captivate the sex and converse up­on subjects, in which they are in­terested. What is this conversa­tion? [Page 109]The^* little anecdotes of the day; the last intrigue or amour which publick fame has glanced at, or some well informed friend has confidentially whispered; the brilliance of a birth night; the adventures of a ball; or which is most to be preferred in colours, lilach or peagreen. The man who attempted to change the ton of such a conversation, and substitute in its stead, any thing of science, or any thing of taste, would be es­teemed an horrid boor,^‡ unfit for [Page 110] polite or rational society, to be ex­posed with ridicule, and branded with contempt.

In this career of gallantry, much time must be spent, and, in that precious and important sea­son of life, when the foundations of every thing great should be laid, when activity should be rous­ed, when talents should be ripened, and when the thirst of glory should be felt, as the grand and stimulating movement of the foul. With men of finished gaiety, scarcely is a little life sufficient for the purpose. Attention and attachment must be varied and multiplied in an endless succession. This fair one must be forsaken, and another must be addressed. [Page 111]It were horrid to be constant, where variety is the fashion, where fashion only gives the laurel of distinction, and adjudge [...] it to sit most gracefully, upon the brow [...] of those, who can make their rav­ages amongst the sex, diffusive as their connexions.

Nor is the loss of time the only disadvantage, arising from this system. The propensities it gives are unfavourable to every great and magnanimous exertion.

Young men become insensibly assimilated to the frivolousness they address, and affect to admire; and that frivolousness extends itself to all their habits and modes of thinking, to all their designs and all their undertakings, to all their actions and intercourse with the world. They get modes of levity, effeminacy and dissipation, which [Page 112]are equally incompatible with the acquirement of science, or the laborious efforts of virtue. Their pursuits of every kind will be mark­ed with this frivolity. The youth, which should be the glory of a nation, will become its reproach. Instead of climbing, with arduous labour, the sacred hill of virtue or of learning, they will endeavour to transform and remodify their nature, and take up with such im­perfect fragments of both, as they are able to find in the bosom of pleasure, or the inglorious vale of indulgence. Such a revolution this age has experienced. This expedient has been ridiculously at­tempted. Phisosophy has resign­ed its usual sternness, and dropped in, abstracted language to please the Ladies. Authors, in general, affect to lie upon the toilet. They [Page 113]skim the surface, and publish the beauties of fine writers. Morality assumes the matricious dress of novels to captivate the taste. We have very pretty preachers; we have amiable Senators; we have ve­ry polite officers, and few great men. Consequences so malignant, and so comprehensive in their effects, deserve consideration. A disease, so interwoven with the vitals of the constitution, should not be neglected.

I have not enumerated half the evils of this fashion. If it pre­vents many marriages, it robs those, which do exist, of all their sweetness and all their joys.

It is in retirement, that sensi­ble minds look for real, heartfelt satisfaction. It is in women, as the friend and companion of that retirement, that selfish is exalted [Page 114]into social enjoyment, and that the sweets of friendship and the luxury of confidence leave us nothing to desire but their stabil­ity and their duration. How does the most distant prospect of such a state, amidst the toils of la­bour, the wrinkles of care, and the agonies of disappointment, charm the most elevated and pen­etrating mind! How often has it administered courage to the hero, eloquence to the senator, and how equally do the monarch and the peasant court it, as a relaxation from their toils! The tender inter­view of Hector with Andromache, immortalized by Homer, and the modest, timid shrinking Asty­anax from his helmet, are plea­sures which the purest virtue may acknowledge for her own, and which the greatest Scholars, Gen­erals [Page 115]or Politicians need not blush to accept as a recompence for their fatigues! How pleasing to resign the sceptre and the laurel for the softnesses of such an inti­macy, the caresses of such a friend; and to forget, in the affection of a virtuous woman, tumults, con­flicts, disappointment and the world!

But let not fancy dream over all the bliss of such a scene, to be awakened only in disappointment. The present education of women blasts this prospect, and destroys such an hope. Sensible men, if they be determined to form this connexion, must do it often to a disadvantage. They must, in gen­eral, marry females merely. They must not always expect in them, associates or friends. The union of knowledge and talents witl [...] [Page 116]frivolousness and insipidity, can­not be agreeable. What is not agreeable, will not be lasting. The heart can feel no durable attach­ment, where it knows no esteem. Without the secret concurrence of the heart, there cannot be en­joyment. Marriage is nothing more than a bare, ceremonious union of hands. This seeming paradise of sweets, will roughen, as we approach it, into a wilder­ness of thorns. The senses are soon palled. Disgust succeeds to satiety, quarrels to disgust, where the soul has no fresh graces to ex­pand, and there remain no new and unexplored treasures in the understanding.

Though this subject is of so immense a magnitude, and so in­timately connected with the first and dearest interests of society, as [Page 117]to deserve the attention of any monarch or legislator in the world, yet, in a free and opulent coun­try like our own, where education cannot be made a publick concern, and where any particular edicts of a prince would be esteemed a gross infringement on the liberty of the subject, it is only in the power of parents or guardians to remove or palliate so malignant an evil. If there be a specifick, it is a better and a more rational education of women; and, if that education is to be better and more rational, it must not be left to a vain, a su­perficial or mercenary governess, but planned by the wisdom, and executed by the zeal and affection of those mothers, who under prov­idence, have given them existence.

If we consider the exquisite plea­sure, which Nature has annexed, in every creature, to an early care [Page 118]and protection of his offspring, it is amazing that they, who are dig­nified with the human form and the privilege of understanding, should form the only melancholy exception, by appearing wholly insensible to, or not shiving to enjoy it; that woman who lays claim to an exquisite sensibility, can tamely give her child, from the moment of its birth, into the bosom of an illiberal, low, or per­haps, a diseased nurse, to imbibe at once in her corrupted milk, the unhappy peculiarities of her mind and constitution! But how much more wonderful is it, and melancholy still, that she can be contented with barely affording existence to a girl, and afterwards resign her to the frippery, the pride and nonsense of a publick school, regardless of her early mor­als [Page 119]and impressions, whilst she is seeking for herself an artificial en­joyment in the glitter of gaiety, in the tumult of pleasure, or the in­toxicating fumes of publick admi­ration.

Though fashion may sanctify such a scandalous inattention, and she may limit the horizon of good and evil, of virtue and of vice by the applauses or the censures, by the customs and extravagancies of a licentious age, yet the moment is at hand, when she must think that a daughter, stepping into a world of seduction and of snares, needed every salutary caution, and every prudent admonition; that a woman formed to be the mistress of a family, should have had her accomplishments mixed with sub­stantial qualities and domestick at­tention; that a woman exposed, [Page 120]from the nature of her sex, to fre­quent sicknesses, sorrows and mis­fortunes, would have wanted a powerful balm of religion to alle­viate and heal; that woman form­ed to be a help meet for the man, the partaker of his fortune, as the sharer of his bed, should have cul­tivated an ability for rational knowledge and amusing conver­sation; and (what is the highest consideration of all) that a woman, born for an eternal existence, born for the society of glorified spirits, and the enjoyments of God in a future existence, should certainly have received some more interest­ing lectures than the graces of manner, the fluctuations of fash­ion, or the trifling, and empty study of elegance or admiration.

If a mother can think that there is not only an unnatural indecen­cy, [Page 121]but even the highest criminal­ity in the neglect of such instruc­tion, she has yet to learn what are the first, initiatory principles of nature and of virtue, and perhaps her awakened conscience may teach them at a time, when, her beauty being shrivelled with the wrinkles of age, there is no syren voice of flattery to bewitch, and repetition has made all the circle of her pleasures too stale to amuse!

Why indeed had woman her existence but to dignify and enno­ble it by such superior employ­ments? When doe [...] she appear to so much advantage, as when, sur­rounded, in her nursery, by a train of pratlers, she is holding forth the moral page for the in­struction of one, and pouring out the milk of health to invigorate the frame and constitution of [Page 122]another? When is her snowy bos­om half so serence, or when thrills it with such an innocent and pleas­ing rapture, as in these silent mo­ments of domestick attention, or these attitudes of undissembled love? What painter, wandering, with a creative fancy over all the exhaustless riches of nature, can give us so enchanting and delight­ful a picture in so elegant a frame? What pleasures of the Levee, the Drawing Room, or masquerade can vie, in flavour with these more retired, maternal satisfactions? And when can woman ever be said to consult the real dignity and happiness of her sex, but when she is thus conscientiously discharging her duty to the man, to whom she has plighted, at the altar of her God, her vows and her affections?

[Page 123] Such maternal culture, such a revolution in the sentiments and conduct of that sex, would be at­tended with the happiest advanta­ges. An alteration would soon be visible on the face of society.

If the minds of women were placed upon solid objects, by a ju­dicious and early culture, they would become at once the orna­ment and blessing, as now there is but too much reason to apprehend, that they are only the bane and corrupters of society. Their charms would be the stimulating prize of valour, merit, and un­derstanding. Their conversation would be a soft, but powerful spur to every noble action; and, in the intervals, which would be then de­voted to their company, the soul would be acquiring an elasticity [Page 124]and a vigour for every great and dignified undertaking.

Little do women know of their own real interests, if they do not think themselves essentially inter­ested in such a revolution. They would then be approached with es­teem and veneration. The froth­iness of compliment would, grad­ually, be changed into the language of truth. Their empire over our hearts, then, founded on the im­mutable qualities of the mind, would be glorious and permanent, not subject to expire in the wrin­kles of age, or wither with the transient roses of beauty. Their conversation would give chearful­ness and delicacy of sentiment; and ours would give instruction. There would be a gentle conflict and emulation of talents, and both parties would be mutually [Page 125]improved by the mutual collision. Their friendship would be courted, and our morals would be improved. In the refinement of our taste, we should disdain to stoop for pleas­ure to an harlot; we should look for real enjoyment with women, who had sentiment and understand­ing.

We should dare to converse up­on rational subjects, and they would listen with attention. They would not expect that extrava­gant homage, which steals our time, as well as our attention from elevated pursuits. They would incite us to great and noble at­chievments in the senate or the camp, in science and the arts; and their glory would consist (as it always should) in sharing our distinctions. The petit maitre would dwindle into his native in­significance. [Page 126]Without qualities to procure the esteem of one sex, this poor, amphibious animal would justly become the derision of the other. Marriage would be more frequent, inviolate and sacred, not checked by extravagance, not dis­graced with infidelity or poisoned with dissipation. Unimpaired con­stitutions would produce a race of hardy and of healthy children, who, in time, might become the defenders of their country, and the pillars of a declining state. Women would attain to that gold­en age, which I have been de­scribing; and men, though not in paradise, would have delicious pleasures spread round their re­tirements.

THE nature of my undertaking calls for some reflec­tions on the quality, the degree [Page 128]and extent of female talents. And this will involve me in the hack­neyed comparison, which has so frequently been made, betwixt the natural endowments and under­standing of the different sexes—an enquiry, which though it has ag­itated the curiosity, and employed the pens of so many ingenious writers, does not seem to have been pursued with that disinterestedness and candour, which had so much in contemplation the discovery of truth, as the supporting of a sys­tem.

The talents of women have been degraded by some to an un­reasonable ebb of feebleness and frivolity, and exalted by others to as unnatural an eminence of bril­liancy and distinction. In the ages immediately succeeding those of Chivalry, it was fashionable to [Page 129]speak of women, as of prodigies in science, and to decorate, with equally lavish encomiums, their understanding, and their charms. Nor was this taste confined merely to individuals. Even nations have been as^§ proud of producing a list of literary heroines, as of tracing their antiquity from the remotest ages or their origin from kings.

Interest, policy, or fashion have continued what enthusiasm thus began.

Authors, who have wished to stand well with the sex, to lie up­on the toilet, to be distinguished with their favours, and to acquire the reputation of gallantry and [Page 130]taste, have supported the same fulsome panygericks. A rational enquirer has only to observe, that, if such extraordinary women ever did exist, they were only a kind of phenomena in their horizon, and neither prove the general state of female talents nor the general su­periority of female understanding. From the foot of an Hercules, there is no deducing the usual stat­ure and proportions of a man. The Alps would give a most im­proper idea of the common moun­tains and scenery of nature.

Though I am privately convinc­ed of the absurdity of this com­parison betwixt talents of the sex­es; though I conceive it to be more a matter of curiosity than use, more calculated to amuse or display ingenuity than to serve the cause of science or of truth, yet [Page 131]philosophers have condescended to enter into it with so much mi­nuteness, and to enlarge upon it with so nice a discrimination, as to have rendered it a plausible, and to the general design of this work, something of a necessary and an essential investigation. They have dissected the peculiar organization of women to discov­er the most latent stamina of tal­ents, or the physical, unhappy causes which obstructed their ex­istence. From the size, formation, temperature and quality of their brain,^* Aristotle, Almaricus, Malabranche, and many others have reasoned to their particular degree of capacity and understand­ing; but whoever has read their observations must allow, that such [Page 132]a species of research is but labo­rious trifling, from which no certain inferences can be drawn, and no solid or rational improve­ments can be reaped.

It may be supposed with great probability and fairness, that their very outward frame is marked with a physical inferiority. It ap­pears not to be calculated for such efforts of thinking, as the more abstracted sciences require, and which entail on the most ro­bust constitution even of men, languor and disease. The delica­cy of the everlasting pea, which so happily unites elegance with sweetness, would be easily oppress­ed. The tender plant, which is refreshed with gentle gales, would be entirely overwhelmed or exter­minated by a whirlwind. Provi­dence always wise, and always be­nevolent, [Page 133]has adapted the frame and organization, to their bur­dens.—Where robustess is deni­ed, vigorous, and athletick exer­cises are not expected.

Principles of analogy are favour­able to my argument. Observa­tions on the brute creation con­firm it.

^* Amongst birds, beasts, in­sects, animals in general, the males are observed to have greater strength, courage, vigour, and en­terprize; females, superior beau­ty of plumage, form, proportion, more delicacy and softness, but withal an higher degree of timidi­ty and weakness. The great God of nature is thus uniform in all his plans and in all his operations. Superiority, for the sake of order [Page 134]and protection, must be lodged somewhere. And it seems providen­tially lodged in the males. But let us not take up with this presump­tive reasoning. Let us rather have recourse to experience and facts.

There are but two points of view, from which we can see this subject, or pursue the comparison with fairness and precision. Cul­ture makes so great a difference in favour of our sex, that, to discover the precise bounties of nature to each, we must compare a boy and girl at the age of six or seven; or we must look into some savage countries, where both are in their primitive state of rudeness without knowledge or instruction. At this age, in point of quickness, do­cility and imitation, females may be pronounced to have the advan­tage. [Page 135]But this is, by no means, any adequate proof of their general superiority. Possibly the profoun­der thoughtfulness of the boy may obstruct the more brilliant and shewy exertions. It is not the most solid bodies, that sparkle most in collision. Gold does not glitter half so much as tinsel. The lour­ing, heavy cloud involves more moisture, than is contained in the glistening dew drops of the morn­ing.

The conceptions of a girl, in­stantaneous as lightning, astonish and surprize. She interests us by the liveliness, with which she en­ters into all our instructions. Her fancy gives a pleasing hue to every image she receives, and reflects it with advantage; nor does human life afford a more agreeable em­ployment, than carefully to tend [Page 136]the beauties of this opening flow­er, and shew them in perfection. Pitiable is the mother, who knows not that such an office has sweets beyond the giddiness of pleasure, the incense of admiration and the essence of perfumes.

At the same time, the very na­ture of these qualities precludes that superiority of strong judg­ment and of nice discrimination, which are the more peculiar pre­rogative of men. Vivacity is un­favourable to profound thinking and accurate investigation. And yet it is profound thinking and accurate investigation, which car­ry all knowledge and all literary improvements to their zenith of perfection. Even men, who are gisted with a fine imagination, and the more lively talents, are fre­quently observed to be, propor­tionably, [Page 137]defective in the substan­tial. Whilst they cultivate the charms of poetry, or the polite arts, they have not extension, sub­tility, or comprehensiveness of mind enough for more severe and abstracted speculations.^§ The [Page 138]union of a warm and a vigorous imagination, with a very sound and discriminating judgment, is rare indeed. Nature has confer­red so rich a fortune on few of her children. Her favours are, in general, dispensed with a nicer equality, and with a seeming parsi­mony, to individuals, that has [Page 139]generously had in contemplation, the portioning of all. In some in­stances, indeed, they have been blended. and they have worked miracles. The fire of Aetna has boiled up in the cold and chilling regions of the North.

^* Savage countries do not inval­idate, but strengthen this opinion. There, in general, women appear to have the advantage over the other sex, because nature displays the lively, and because the substan­tial endowments of the mind are not unfolded by culture, or rous­ed by emulation.

But there seems to be an error and absurdity in making the com­parison. The sexes were provi­dentially formed as counterparts of one another. They have each of them abilities suited to the [Page 140]sphere in which an all wise provi­dence intended them to move; but, as that differs essentially in the two sexes, so^* likewise does the nature of their faculties and the texture of their understanding. Who would think of contrasting the oak with the willow, or a myr­tle with the delicate and almost transparent balsam? Who would compare the abilities of an Arch­imedes with those of an^† Addi­son? [Page 141]Their merits were wholly opposite in their cast; yet merits they both had, which have chal­lenged the universal admiration of the world, and to which the very latest posterity must bear an am­ple tribute of applause.

Let us, however, look more nearly at the contrast. Women then have a more brilliant fancy, a quicker apprehension, and a more exquisite taste. When they apply these faculties to their pro­per [Page 142]studies, how wonderfully do they charm and how poignantly do they delight! In works, that require the efforts of Imagination only, how animated and descrip­tive is a woman's pen! What pictures does the exhibit! How soft are the tints, how glowing are the colours, and how impas­sioned the touches of her pencil!

But whether it arises from an original defect in their frame and constitution, whether it is that an unquiet imagination and ever restless sensibility afford not op­portunity or leisure enough for deep meditation, it is very certain, that they cannot, like the men, arrange, combine, abstract, pursue diversi­fy a long train of ideas, and in every thing, that requires the more substantial talents, must sub­mit to a strong and a marked in­feriority. [Page 143]The truth is, that restlessness of sensibility, and that inquietude of imagination, which debar the possibility of great at­tainments, were providentially designed to compose the very life and essence of their graces. They are the very medium by which they please. If they were consti­tuted to have our firmness and our depth, they would want their na­tive and their strongest attractions. They would cease to be women, and they would cease to charm.

It may be said, that judgment is principally formed by compar­ison and observation; and that the weakness of theirs arises from their want of opportunities to improve it; the reserve of their sex, their domestick duties, and sedentary life chiefly confining them to a very narrow circle, [Page 144]whilst business, ambition, curiosi­ty or pleasure, lead us into the world, to see various countries, manners, customs; to hear in different coffee houses, clubs and societies the sentiments of all ranks and denominations of people, and to witness characters of every kind and magnitude, of every different shade and every opposite complex­ion. This is all in some measure, true. Still it does not account for that original difference betwixt the intellects of man and woman, which is discoverable at an early period of life, for that palpable opposition of the thoughtful to the lively, of the firm to the delicate and of the profound to the chear­ing, which nature seems industrious­ly, to have made characteristick of [...]

[Page 145] I would ask the warmest pane­gyrist of women, whether he can fancy that there ever existed one in the world, who, with the utmost stretch and cultivation of her mind, could have pursued such a train of thinking as a Locke, could have combined with a Montes­quieu, arranged like an Euclid, or scrutinized the secrets of nature like a Newton. It is true I have mentioned only prodigies of men. It is true that nature, by extraor­dinary efforts in the production of such characters, seems to have exhausted, for a considerable time, all her riches and her powers. The question, likewise, it may be urged, will always be unfair, till women have enjoyed equal advantages, and been called forth, by similar encour­agements, into literary greatness. But dropping all the subtil ties of [Page 146]argument, and reasoning only from what appear the original stamina in the minds of both, I conceive it to be a question, which every man's convictions and private ob­servations will answer in the nega­tive, whatever tenderness to the sex may lead him to affect, or del­icacy to conceal.

But here again comes in false panegyrick. Women have been described with every talent, that does honour to humanity. Illus­trious^§ Queens, Politicians, He­roines, [Page 147]glitter in the historick page. Some women have en­countered the abstruseness^‖ of [Page 148]mathematicks. Others have lov­ed to wander in the labyrinths of metaphysicks. But what progress have they made? What great feats have they atchieved? Let cool ex­perience answer the question.

[Page 149] If we admit that such descrip­tions have not been exaggerated; if we could suppose that we were not treading upon fairy ground (and yet who must not have his [Page 150]doubts?) have any of these female efforts pleased, or have any of these unnatural labours gained im­mortality? Either they never ex­isted at all, or they have been raised infinitely beyond the bounds of probability and truth.

As to politicks, what were they, at any of the periods, when wo­men [Page 151]have been celebrated for their political attainments? Were they not the petty interests of as petty a territory, whose views and wants terminated chiefly in itself, with­out looking into any other quar­ter of the globe? Did they ever require that universal penetration, that comprehensiveness of research, that stretch and vigour of thought, that wonderful combination of schemes and ideas, that retrospec­tion and anticipation, that bringing past and present into one common point of view, which the immense, diffusive, complicated concerns of large, extended kingdoms, at the present period, and in the modern cir­cumstances of Europe, absolutely demand? It will follow from the observations, likewise, that have been already made in this essay, that women are not calculated to [Page 152]preside over kingdoms. They were not formed to hold the reins of empire, to penetrate into the views and wants, or adjust the various and complicated interests of conflicting states. The reign of queens has generally, been a burlesque upon government, the tyranny of some capricious fa­vourite, whom they have espoused, and whose sentiments they have adopted, in proportion as they have admired his person or address. On him have devolved all the bur­dens of the state, and to him has been allotted the more enviable of­fice of apportioning the royal smiles.^* He has been the real [Page 153]pilot of the vessel, whilst the wom­an he has governed by his policy or his attractions, has sat, in osten­sible majesty, at the helm. Besides the political greatness of these La­dies is equivocal from the pecu­liar circumstances of their age. Amidst a race of pigmies, a person of ordinary stature is a giant. When times are ignorant and barbarous, common knowledge is considered as a prodigy. The Rustick, who can spell a newspaper, is at once the scholar and the oracle of his village. The star, that twinkles in a dark and gloomy night, is welcomed as a sun.

Nor let the sex suppose me their accuser or their foe. If I have not wholly mistaken the method, I mean to be their advocate and friend. I have left them the seeds of every thing, that pleases and [Page 154]captivates in woman. Their brows were not intended to be plough­ed with wrinkles, nor their inno­cent gaiety damped by abstraction. They were perpetually to please, and perpetually to enliven. If we were to plan the edifice, they were to furnish the embellishments. If we were to lay out and cultivate the garden, they were beautifully to fringe its borders with flowers, and fill it with perfume. If we were destined to superintend the man­agement of kingdoms, they were to be the fairest ornaments of those kingdoms, the embellishers of so­ciety, and the sweeteners of life.

If we consult scripture, we shall discover, that such was the origin­al intention of heaven in the for­mation of the sexes. The sen­tence of subordination obviously [Page 155]implies, that man should have the preeminence on subjects, that re­quire extensive knowledge, cour­age, strength, activity, talents or laborious application. Women were not formed for political em­inence or literary refinement. The softness of their nature, the delicacy of their frame, the timid­ity of their disposition and the modesty of their sex, absolutely disqualify them for such difficul­ties and exertions. Their destiny of bearing and nursing children, the necessity of superintending do­mestick concerns, and the pecu­liar diseases, to which they are li­able, leave them little time for such publick undertakings, whilst the humble offices in which they are engaged, confer a blessing and a benefit upon society, that are in­finitely beyond the coldness of [Page 156]knowledge, and the apathy of spec­ulation. The wife, the mother and the oeconomist of a family would unfortunately, be lost in the literary pedant; the order of nature would be totally reversed, and the population of the globe preposterously sacrificed to the cold, forbidding pride of a studious virginity. The woman of the cloister would grant the graces of a citizen of the world. In that ardour of understanding, which rouses emulation, she would lose that soothing manner, which con­ciliates and endears. The world would be deprived of its fairest or­naments, life of its highest zest, and man of that gentle bosom, on which he can recline amidst the toils of labour, and the agonies of disappointment.

[Page 157] So far as the qualities of the heart are concerned (and this has, sometimes formed a part of the question) I think the sexes will not bear a comparison. Wom­en, in this respect, have every claim to a marked superiority. If their retired, domestick life did not, of itself, lead to more inno­cence and contemplation, their natural dispositions are certainly more favourable to piety and vir­tue. Their strong sense of weak­ness prompts them to supplicate the protection and assistance of a superiour, invisible powe [...], whilst their exquisite sensibility power­fully disposes them for all the en­ergy and ardours of devotion.

In the list, which Scripture has given us of converts to Christian­ity, in the very early ages, we meet with holy women, not a few, [Page 158]The fathers of the Romish church maintained an opinion, which was borrowed, no doubt, from close observation, that the number of glorified females in heaven, would exceed that of men; and monas­teries can produce their thousands of this sex, who, impelled by a holy, though misguided zeal, have sacrificed beauty, fortune, friends; every thing that could charm and every thing that could engage, for the loneliness of a convent and the rigid austerities of a perpetual de­votion!

It has been said that women are more artful, and fond of subter­fuge than the men, and perhaps there may be some degree of jus­tice and authenticity in the obser­vation. But does not this arise from the just and necessary jeal­ousy [Page 159]they entertain of the other sex, and from the cruel task we impose upon them, of not know­ing whether in the guise of a friend they may not meet with a betray­er and a foe? If a woman has not reserve upon many occasions, we criminate and despise her; if she has, we load it with the odious name of artifice and dissimulation. In so rigorous a system, we do not leave her the possibility of escaping without censure. Either she is called a prudish hypocrite, or she is called indiscreet.

If we carry our researches through the whole creation, we shall find, that, as any creature is deficient in strength, it is always furnished with a proportionate share of art and contrivance; and a little more reflection will serve to convince us, that such is the [Page 160]all wise appointment of the Deity, and that these inferior qualities are absolutely necessary to its ex­istence and preservation.

In the intercourse of Love, which forms an essential part in the history of this sex, how pow­erfully do they eclipse our own, and wrest the palm of triumph from the men! If a woman has once a proper confidence in a man's sincerity, how generous is her breast! How noble is her conduct! How undisguised and unbosom­ed her soul! How tender is her friendship! How ardent and how immoveable is her affection! The love of man, in general, has many foreign ingredients of selfishness or vanity in its composition. He af­fects to love (perhaps, persuades himself he loves) a woman, whose connexions, beauty, fashionable­ness, [Page 161] e [...]lat, do honour to his choice, or whose fortune gives the widest range to his hopes, or opens the most unlimited prospects to his ambition. If a woman loves, it is the men himself. She has but this one object in view, and it en­grosses her soul. Pride, ambition, vanity, dissolve into tenderness, and are humbled by the passion. She risks friends, character, for­tune, ease, for the sake of her idol. In privacy, she broods over the be­loved image, and if mentioned in publick, she tinges it with blushes. This man is become her Universe; for him alone she lives; with him she would die!

Let this favourite be called by business or pleasure into some for­eign country, her days are melan­choly, her nights without sleep! [Page 162]Life is insipid, and her soul has no joy! Her fancy conjures up a thousand apprehensions. In her few, slumbering moments she dreams of his danger, and she starts, at once from thought and repose! Every billow is his grave! Every traveller is besmeared with the blood of the endeared absent! How despicable is the villain, who can betray so much fondness; how insensible is the soul, that can laugh at so much tenderness; and how execrable is that fash­ion, which substitutes, in its place, the windings of art and the cold­ness of affectation!

At the same time, if the merit of virtue is to be estimated (as it always should) from the strength or the weakness of the determin­ing motives, how much superior is [Page 163]woman's! The love of fame, rich­es, honour, consequence, give birth to almost all great atchievements that distinguish our own sex. If a man be celebrated for valour, science, enterprize, he is received into all companies with eulogies. His Sovereign applauds. Theatres welcome him with bursts of admi­ration. In the countenance of his admiring friends, he continu­ally reads his glory and his great­ness; and, when he dies, history sheds over his unperishable mem­ory, an immortal perfume.

Not so with women. Their virtues, exercised in solitude and springing purely from the heart, make no noise, and court no obser­vation. Lavished chiefly on their children and their friends, they blaze not on the world, nor are [Page 164]they thought of dignity or conse­quence enough to embellish the recording page.

Still let not these degrading fair ones despond. Let them not com­plain of their humiliating lot. Whilst virtue, taste, sensibility or discernment remain in the world, they will always have a high de­gree of influence and respect. Their rank, though subordinate, is not unimportant. The services they do to society, though not trumpeted by fame, are recorded by gratitude, and graven on the heart; and they share in the hon­our and distinctions of the men. Their influence often lends con­siderable aids in the formation of those characters, which history distinguishes with its undying honours. Many are the heroes [Page 165]they have roused into glory. Innu­merable are the statesmen they have raised, by their secret mag­ick, into fame; and whenever they are tempted to repine at the appearance of insignificance and inferiority, it becomes them to re­member that their greatest strength lies in their weakness, their com­mands in their^* tears; that their softness has frequently disarmed the rage of emperor's and tyrants, that their blandishments have a soothing and persuasive energy, which great and generous souls are seldom able to resist; that charms have worked miracles in [Page 166]every age and nation, and brought about the most important revolu­tions of the world.

HOW far a publick or a private education is most to be preferred, is an enquiry, that has [Page 168]agitated the curiosity, and employ­ed the pens of many distinguished writers both of ancient and mod­ern times. From the days of Quintilian to the present moment, plausible things have been frequent­ly advanced in favour of both, and attacked with as many and forcible objections. Some, indeed, seem to have undertaken the sub­ject only from a partial, selfish principle of recommending the plan, which was best accommoda­ted to their own private interests or peculiar situation, and notwith­standing the various theories, that have prevailed, the general opin­ion seems considerably unfixed; at least, both schemes are indiscrimi­nately adopted, as other, collateral circumstances of fortune, conve­nience, connexion or accident in­fluence and direct.

[Page 169] Without entering at all into the detail of the argument, or attempt­ing to appreciate the separate mer­its of the different reasoners, a sensible mind forms this conclu­sion, that a private education is more favourable to morals, that young people at least, should nev­er be trusted to the dangerous in­fection of publick schools, till principles and even habits of vir­tue have had time to take ro [...]t, but that neither a private, nor publick, but an education uniting, in some degree, the advantages of both, is most eligible for those, who wish their children to be, at once, pos­sessed of talents and of virtues.

But every thing, in fact, that can be offered on this subject, will be only vain or amusing speculation, till the nation is disposed to be [Page 170]liberal in rewarding the Instruc­tors of our youth.

Whilst an exorbitant profusion, and extravagance of expense, in almost all other cases, characterize the kingdom, the education of children, though an object of the highest, private and national im­portance, is an article, which we treat with the most abject and ill judged parsimony, except only, in those circumstances which re­late to frivolousness, accomplishments or conceit, to a dancing, a musick, or a fencing master, who are to teach them^* graces, and initiate [Page 171]them in all the petits trifles of fash­ionable life.

Circumstanced as we are, pub­lick schools are the only possible, general receptable for the educa­tion of youth; and, as we pay the teachers, in order that a person may not starve by his profession, these seminaries must contain such numbers of young people, as it is impossible for him to tend with [Page 172]any adequate vigilance, so as either to know their dispositions or their talents, their virtues or their vices.

Hence men of any liberal sen­timents, or any decent fortune will not submit to the humiliating task. Hence (excepting in a few publick schools, endowed by the munificence of our more virtuous ancestors, and requiring a gradu­ate from the universities) masters, in general, are but poorly quali­fied for the office they assume; and hence an employment, in itself the most elevated and honourable of all others, in its tendency the most useful and important to the state, in the eye of religion and of en­lightened reason, requiring the strongest union of goodness and of talents, and, in the sounder policy of the ancients, devolving only on the most distinguished and [Page 173]unexceptionable characters, is sunk amongst the frivolous and dissipated moderns, into considera­ble disrepute, whilst its professors intitled to the publick gratitude, generally meet with little but the publick contempt.

Let it not be said, that their manners have deserved it. Let it not be urged that their ignorance of life and customs, their rudeness, their pedantry, their carrying in­to society the imperiousness of a school, and expecting indiscrim­inately from the people they con­verse with, the homage paid by pupils to their despotick throne, have been the real cause of such an odious stigma thrown upon their order. Though the con­ducting of a school is not favour­able to the temper or manners, yet a person of real education and [Page 174]good sense, will generally rise, in his intervals of relaxation, above such little disadvantages; but, if our avarice forces others, and of a lower cast, into this department it is our avarice, chiefly, that should be blamed for their foibles and defects.

With regard to women, I do not know that this famous ques­tion about a publick or private education has ever been agitated. Indeed it is not necessary. Though such parents, as think of being generous and liberal, seldom fail to give them the first, yet the lat­ter, in the estimate of sober reason, is certainly to be preferred; and, whatever elegant or high sounding schools may be sought out for a girl, yet a mother seems the only governess, intended by nature.

[Page 175] Three principal advantages of publick schools for boys are; 1st. That they cure a timid bashfulness, and establish a confidence, so nec­essary for any publick character or employment; 2dly. That they ex­cite a proper emulation by the collision of talents; and 3dly. That they foster early, lasting friend­ships, sometimes of a powerful kind, which frequently lead the way to worldly honour and ad­vancement.

The first of these effects will not, by a judicious friend, be recom­mended to women. Confidence, in them, "is a horrid bore;" and let a silly fashion suggest what it will, their sweetest graces are the crimsoning blush and the retiring timidity.

As to emulation, there are often children enough in their own fam­ily, [Page 176]or in the circle of their near­est acquaintance to communicate the spirit, so far as it is necessary or useful amongst those, who are not to hold the reins of govern­ment, the offices of state, or the post of a commander, and who cannot aspire to sacred greatness in the honours of the purple.

The last effect is superseded, likewise, by the nature of their sex; as the grand promotion, of which they are capable, is a dig­nified marriage, which their sister acquaintance are not capable of conferring; which a publick life is not likely to ensure, and which they will always have the greatest chance of forming to advantage, of they rather court the shade of a meritorious retirement, than the intoxicating notice of the publick eye.

[Page 177] So far, therefore, from their receiving any solid advantages from this method of exposure, I conceive that it often subjects girls to numerous inconveniencies, dan­gers and temptations, which their early age, and yet unripened vir­tue are not always found sufficient to resist.

Thrown together in shoals, in­to one common reservoir, at a dan­gerous age, when nature bids an unusual fervour rise in their blood, when they feel themselves sprung into a new epoch of existence, ac­tuated with similar feelings and similar desires, and when a restless leisure awakens all the powers of imagination and the senses, they insensibly convey an infection to each other by tales of sentiment, sympathy and friendship, and by various communications, schemes [Page 178]and artifices, which the vigilance of no governess is able to discover, nor her power to suppress. In the heat of imagination, her res­traints are considered as but a prudish bar to the only solid hap­piness in life; a connexion with the other sex. In the taste of a licen­tious age, viewing passion, as a business; in the fervour of nature, feeling it as an instinct; and, in the inexperience of youth, fancy­ing it a paradise, in which are no thorns, a country, whose land­scapes are all real, as they are beau­tiful, they behold an enemy in the woman, who restrains them, and have recourse to every private me­thod of breaking through the chains, the despotism and formal­ities of their temporary convents.

Hence, from so many offensive breaths all pent up together, pro­ceeds [Page 179]a total putrefaction of the moral air. Hence swarms of no­vels to inflame their fancy, and effectually to pave the way for their future seduction. Hence private correspondences, assigna­tions and intrigue. Hence levity, giddiness and a total forfeiture of that delicacy and softness, with­out which it is impossible for any woman to be lovely, or to secure the esteem, whilst she engages the partiality of an impassioned be­holder.

If I have exaggerated in the des­cription, let experience contradict me. If I have said the truth, the prejudices or the interests of par­ticular individuals should not be regarded.

The qualities, which every man of real taste and sense wishes, par­ticularly, to find in a woman, are [Page 180]innocence, simplicity and domes­tick worth. To these he would sacrifice all the fanciful accom­plishments. They are to soothe his sorrows, they are to bless his mar­riage and sweeten his retirement.

Boarding schools wholly coun­teract these dispositions. They trample upon nature, and give us artificial creatures, artificial looks and artificial smiles. In their formal walls, airs, gestures, sylla­bles, articulation, all are studied, and are sure to disgust. Like hot beds, they give a forwardness to fruits, but deprive them of their natural healthiness and flavour; and the fine ladies they send into the world, feel themselves ridicu­lous [...]y exalted above (what they conceive to be) the groveling offi­ces of family economy, or domes­tick attentions.

[Page 181] If women wish to please, they should consider that nothing can please long, but the simplicity of nature; at the same time, it be­hoves them to remember, that they were certainly born for some­thing more important, and that when the short reign of their charms, shall expire, they will be able to procure a durable esteem by nothing but the solid qualities, and the domestick virtues. The mistress of a family is no longer a girl; and, if men are to distin­guish themselves by business, or letters, by enterprize, or valour, females are surely called on, in their turn, by motives of gratitude and a dignified ambition, to im­mortalize themselves, if possible, within their own walls, and to tend, with unremitting care and vigilance, the little tender pledges [Page 182]of their mutual affection. What says the wise man? "A good wo­man looketh well to the ways of her household, and all her family is clothed in scarlet."

Whatever undomesticates a wo­man, so far unmakes her, as to all the valuable purposes of her exist­ence, and is at once the bane of her usefulness, her happiness and virtue. It rifles her of her ten­derness, sensibility, delicacy and of all the sweetest of her vir­tues and of her graces. It is un­domesticated women, that poison the sources of our sweetest com­forts. It is undomesticated women, that have houses without any order or arrangement, servants without discipline, and children, without instruction; that are friends, with­out friendship, w [...] without con­stancy, and parents, without af­fection. And it is, I conceive, a [Page 183]publick education, which first in­spires the rage for pleasure and dissi­pation.

Almost every thing in and about these seminaries, has a tendency to corrupt the heart. What is it these fair pupils are taught to pant for? Admiration. What is proposed as the highest object, the ne plus ultra of all their endeav­ours? Admiration. What are considered as the steps to it? El­egant dress, appearance, equipage, wit, smartness, dancing, singing. In the mean time what becomes of the love of God, which Christian­ity represents, as the first of duties? How little do they study the ex­ample of their saviour, who was meek and lowly in heart? Where, all this while, is the mortification, and religious government of their passions, indifference to the world, [Page 184]the discipline of their heart, thoughts, and imagination, mod­esty, humility, heavenly minded­ness, and all the lovely train of christian and evangelical graces? With such impressions, how vain and groveling must be the heart! How full of petty jealousies, and paltry competitions! How closed to all the nobler sentiments and affections, and how great a stran­ger to any solid, or any perma­nent repose!

Without unreasonably suspect­ing the abilities of a governess, it is impossible she should attend to the prodigious number of young people she receives, so as to discov­er their infinite varieties of talents or dispositions; and it may be presumed, from the nature of things, that she will not be often equal to the arduous undertaking.

[Page 185] It will be allowed me without controversy, that, in every educa­tion, principles of religion and virtue should form the great and primary consideration. Without these, all other qualities and all other accomplishments are but a specious structure, raised on the sand, which must totter in the moment of sorrow and of trial. But, to instil these in the best and most effectual manner; to illus­trate them with the most proper images and embellishments; to diversify her efforts according to the endless variety and taste of her fair pupils; to communicate her knowledge and virtue, in such a manner as to make them, al­ways, seem a rose without a thorn, requires no ordinary talents and exertions.

[Page 186] To accomplish such an end, a governess, in the first place, should be a prodigy of virtue. Like char­ity, "she should suffer long and be kind." She should deny herself pleasure, ease, slumber, ev­ery thing for the sake of her ten­der flock. She should love them, as her daughters, and consider herself engaged in the noble em­ployment of training up so many angels for the skies.

She should have great know­ledge, and that knowledge should be embellished with taste. It should appear, like the fair ones, to whom it is recommended, al­ways lovely, and always inviting. She should know the best books, and she should be able to discrim­inate and select the most striking and interesting passages for their instruction.

[Page 187] Her address, likewise, should be conspicuous above all her other qualities. She should be able to see the heart in all its foldings and recesses. She should know how to multiply and variegate herself, as exigencies require; here she should sooth, and there she should expostulate; here she should en­deavour to affect by the spirited, and there by the pathetick; in one place, she should be gentle like the dew, in another, thunder, lightning and storms.

It would display a great igno­rance of human nature to suppose, that such a combination of great talents is frequently to be met with in any female; and it would argue a still higher degree of ab­surdity and inexperience to expect them concentred in the character of such a one, as generally un­dertakes [Page 188]this particular employ­ment.

So little is the esteem, in which the character of Governess, like that of Schoolmaster, is held, and so inadequate are the rewards, conferred on these people, that the office, in the best point of view, will, very frequently, devolve upon those, who, having once seen bet­ter days, but now fallen from their dignity, have contracted not a little of that despondency and sourness, which attend degradation; and, in the worst, will, as often be undertaken, as a last resource, by many, who are not famous for the liberality of their sentiments, as they have not been distinguished by that of their education. To expect that such women should be patterns, either of the graces or the virtues, would be hoping a­gainst [Page 189]all the probabilities of things, and amusing ourselves with an airy and romantick shadow, that vanishes on the touch of experi­ence and fact.

Nor do I conceive that Board­ing Schools have such a tendency, as has generally been imagined, to give the so much valued excel­lence of politeness.

Without ease, there can be no grace. Without grace, there can­not be politeness. But these semi­naries nurse a formality and stiff­ness, and their seclusion and re­straints like those of a college, are unfavourable to these attain­ments. Whence springs polite­ness, but from collision with a great variety of characters; from living in habits of genteel and mix­ed society; from being frequent­ly in the company of those, whom [Page 190]we look up to with a degree of deference, and feel ourselves in­spired with the ambition to please? None of these circumstances gen­erally exist in schools; and, if there was no other reason, either of the sexes living aloof, and sep­arated from the other will always contract a number of peculiarities, ungraceful and unpleasing. But the great consideration, after all, is virtue. And female virtue ap­pears a plant of too delicate a na­ture, to bear this scorching meth­od of exposure.

It will appear from the general complexion of these remarks, that they are designed, principally, to apply to people in the higher ranks of life. Amongst others, cases, doubtless, will occur, in which a publick school may have [Page 191]its advantages, and be the best re­source.

In a flourishing, commercial country, like Great Britain, some parents will attain, from very low beginnings to so ample a fortune, as to wish their children a much better education, than they them­selves have enjoyed, or are capable of imparting. And it will occur to every reflecting person, from the nature of the case, that, under their roofs, daughters might imbibe only a set of illiberal no­tions, or a system of vulgar, purse­proud superciliousness. To such, these seminaries, defective as they are, may have their uses and ad­vantage.

The sentiments of such girls, as well as their manners, may here receive an elevation and refine­ment. They may feel themselves [Page 192]levelled, nay usefully humbled by the company of their superiors. Little mortifications beget humil­ity, and little superiorities produce subordination. The Queen of the village may be stripped of her u­surped plumes, and insensibly taught to treat those with respect, whom once she considered with scorn and aversion. But where mothers are themselves equal to the task (if a task it must be deem­ed) there cannot be a doubt a­bout the difference of advantage, as a matter of duty, if all the cas­uists of Europe were consulted, they could not bring the shadow of an argument against it. No; reason, religion, the thrillings of affection, the voice of nature, and the voice of God, the interests of society, the happiness of private life, the honour, the dignity and [Page 193] true policy of woman—all say, that a mother should be the preceptress of her children, and that such children would stand a chance of the happiest instruction. ‘If well nurtured sons grow up as young plants, such daughters would be as polished corners of the temple.’