she permitted to give strength and terror to her apprehensions from Mr Greville. Guard, my dear ladies, against these imbecilities of tender minds. In these instances, if in no other, will you give a superiority to our sex, which, in the debate of this morning, my Charlotte would not allow of.

I will begin my next letter with an account of this debate; and if I cannot comprise it in the compass I intend to bring it into, my one more letter may, perhaps, stretch into two.

LETTER CCLVII.

LADY G

[In continuation.]

THE debate I mentioned began on Friday morning at breakfast-time; brought on by some of uncle Selby's good-natured particularities; for he will always have something to say against women. I bespoke my brother's neutrality, and declared I would enter the lists with Mr Selby, and allow all the other men present to be of his side. I had a flow of spirits. Man's usurpation, and woman's natural independency, was the topic. I carried on my argument very triumphantly; now and then a sly hint, popt out by my brother, half disconcerted me; but I called him to order, and he was silent: yet once he had like to have put me out-Wrapping his arms about himself, with inimitable humour-Omy Charlotte, said he, how I love my country! ENGLAND is the only spot in the world, in which this argument can be properly debated!-Very sly-Was it not?

I made nothing of Mr Selby. I called him the tyrant of the family.-And as little of Mr Deane, Lord L, and still less of my own lord, who was as eager in the debate as if it concerned him more than anybody to resist me: and this before my brother; who by his eyes, more than once, seemed to challenge me, because of the sorry creature's earnestness. All those, however, were men of straw with me; and I thought myself very near making Mr Selby ask pardon of his dame for his thirty years' usurpation. In short, I had half established our sex's superiority on the ruin of that of the sorry fellows, when the debate was closed, and referred to Mrs Shirley, as moderatrix; my brother still excluded any share in it.-She, indeed, obliged me to lower my topsails a little.

"I think," said the venerable lady, "C women are generally too much considered as a species apart. To be sure, in the duties and affairs of life, where they have different or opposite shares allotted them by Providence, they ought not to go out of their own sphere, or invade the men's province, any more than the men theirs. Nay,

I am so much of this opinion, that though I think the confidence which some men place in their wives, in committing all their affairs to their care, very flattering to the opinion both of their integrity and capacity; yet I should not choose (without considering trouble) to interfere with the management without doors, which I think more properly the man's province, unless in some particular cases.

"But, in common intercourse and conversation, why are we to be perpetually considering the sex of the person we are talking to? Why must women always be addressed in an appropriated language; and not treated on the common footing of reasonable creatures? And why must they, from a false notion of modesty, be afraid of shewing themselves to be such, and affect a childish ignorance?

"I do not mean, that I would have women enter into learned disputes, for which they are rarely qualified; but I think there is a degree of knowledge very compatible with their duties; therefore not unbecoming them, and necessary to make them fit companions for men of sense; a character in which they will always be found more useful than that of a plaything, the amusement of an idle hour.

"No person of sense, man or woman, will venture to launch out on a subject with which they are not well acquainted. The lesser degree of knowledge will give place to the greater. This will secure subordination enough. For the advantages of education, which men must necessarily have over women, if they have made the proper use of them, will have set them so forward on the race, that we can never overtake them. But then don't let them despise us for this, as if their superiority were entirely founded on a natural difference of capacity; despise us as women, and value themselves merely as men; for it is not the hat or cap which covers the head, that decides the merit of it.

"In the general course of the things of this world, women have not opportunities of sounding the depths of science, or of acquainting themselves perfectly with polite literature: but this want of opportunity is not entirely confined to them. There are professions among the men no more favourable to these studies, than the common avocations of women. For example; Merchants, whose attention is (and, perhaps, with regard to the public, more usefully) chained down to their accounts. Officers, both of land and sea, are seldom much better instructed, though they may, perhaps, pass through a few more forms; and, as for knowledge of the world, women of a certain rank have an equal title to it with some of them. A learned man, as he is called, who should despise a sensible one of these professions, and disdain to converse with him, would pass for a pedant; and why not for despising or undervaluing a woman of sense, who may be put on the same footing? Men, in

common conversation, have laid it down for a rule of good-breeding, not to talk before women of things they don't understand; by which means an opportunity of improvement is lost; a very good one, too; one that has been approved by the ablest persons who have written on the education of children; because it is a means of learning insensibly, without the appearance of a task. Common subjects afford only commonplace, and are soon exhausted; why, then, should conversation be confined to such narrow limits, and be liable to continual repetition; when, if people would start less beaten subjects, many doubts and difficulties concerning them might be cleared up, and they would acquire a more settled opinion of things, (which is what the generality much want, from an indolence that hinders them from examining,) at the same time that they would be better entertained, than with talking of the weather, and such kind of insipidities?"

Lady W, applauding Mrs Shirley's sentiments, Apropos, said she; let me read you the speech (taking it out of her pocket-book) of an East-India officer to a pedant, who had been displaying his talents, and running over with terms of art, and scraps of Latin, mingled with a profusion of hard words, that hardly any of the company understood; and which, at the same time that it diverted all present, cured the pretended scholar of his affectation for ever after. My lady read it, as follows :

"I am charmed with this opportunity," said the officer," of discoursing with a gentleman of so much wit and learning; and hope I shall have his decision in a point which is pretty nice, and concerns some Eastern manufactures, of ancient and reverend etymology. Modern critics are undetermined about them: but, for my part, I have always maintained, that chints, bullbulls, morees, and ponabaguzzys, are of nobler and more generous uses than doorguzees or nourfourmannys; not but I hold against byrampauts in favour of niccannees and boralchauders. Only I wish, that so accurate a judge would instruct me, why tapzils and sallampores have given place to neganepauts? And why bejatapoutz should be more esteemed than the finer fabric of blue chelloes?"*

A very good rebuke of affectation, said Sir Charles, (and your ladyship hints it was an efficacious one.) It serves to shew, that men, in their different attainments, may be equally useful; in other words, that the knowledge of polite literature leads not to every part of useful science. I remember that my Harriet distinguishes very properly, in some of her letters to her Lucy, between language and science; and that poor Mr Walden (that I think was his name) was pretty much disconcerted, as a pe

dant may sometimes be, when (and he bowed to his Harriet) he has a natural genius to contend with. She blushed, and bowed as she sat.-And I remember, sir, said she, you promised to give me your animadversions on the letters I consented you should see: Will you be pleased to correct me now?

Correct you, my dearest life!-What a word is that? I remember that, in the conversation in which you were obliged, against your will, to bear so considerable a part, you demonstrated, that genius, without deep learning, made a much more shining figure, in conversation, than learning without genius; but, upon the whole, I was a little apprehensive, that true learning might suffer, if languages were too slightly treated. Mr Walden made one good observation, or rather remembered it, for it was long ago made, and will be always of weight, That the knowledge of languages, any more than the advantage of birth, was never thought lightly of by those who had pretensions to either. The knowledge of the Latin language, in particular, let me say, is of a singular use in the mastery of every science.

There are who aver, that men of parts have no occasion for learning; but, surely, our Shakespeare himself, one of the greatest geniuses of any country or age, (who, however, is an adept in the superior learning, the knowledge of nature,) would not have been a sufferer, had he had the greater share of human learning which is denied him by some critics.

But, Sir Charles, said Mr Deane, don't you think that Shakespeare, who lived before the great Milton, has an easier, pleasanter, and more intelligible manner of writing, than Milton? If so, may it not be owing to Milton's greater learning that Shakespeare has the advantage of that immortal poet in perspicuity?

Is the fact certain, my dear Mr Deane, that Milton wants perspicuity? I have been bold enough sometimes to think, that he makes a greater display of his reading, than was quite necessary to his unbounded subject. But the age in which Shakespeare flourished, might be called the age of English learning, as well as of English bravery. The Queen and her Court, the very ladies of it, were more learned than any Court of our English Sovereigns was before, or hath been since. What a prodigy of learning, in the short reign of Edward the VIth, was the Lady Jane Grey !-Greek, as well as Latin, was familiar to her: so it was to Queen Elizabeth. And can it be supposed, that the natural geniuses of those ladies were more confined or limited, for their knowledge of Latin and Greek? Milton, though a little nearer us, lived in harsher and more tumultuous times.

O sir! said Harriet, then I find I was a very

impertinent creature in the conversation to which you refer.

Not so, my dearest love !-Mr Walden, I remember, says, that learning in that assembly was not brought before a fair tribunal. He should have known, that it had not a competent advocate in him.

But, Sir Charles, said Mr Beauchamp, I cannot but observe, that too much stress is laid upon learning, as it is called, by those who have pretensions to it. You will not always find, that a scholar is a more happy man than an unlearned one. He has not generally more prudence, more wisdom, in the management of his affairs. What, my dear Beauchamp, is this but saying, that there is great difference between theory and practice? This observation comes very generously, and, with regard to the ladies, very gallantly, from you, who are a learned man: but as you are also a very prudent man, let me ask you, Do you think have the less pruyou dence for your learning? If not, Is not learning a valuable addition?

But pray, Sir Charles, said Mrs Selby, let me ask your opinion: Do you think, that if women had the same opportunities, the same education, as men, they would not equal them in their at tainments?

Women, my dear Mrs Selby, are women sooner than men are men. They have not, therefore, generally, the learning-time, that men have, if they had equal geniuses.

66

If they had equal geniuses," brother! Very well. My dear sister Harriet, you see you have given your hand to one of the lords of the creation-Vassal! bow to your sovereign.

Sir Ch. My dearest love, take not the advice without the example.

Lady G. Your servant, sir. Well, but let me ask you, Do you think that there is a natural inferiority in the faculties of the one sex? A natural superiority in those of the other?

Sir C. Who will answer this question for

me?

Not I, said Lord L. Not I, said Mr Deane. Not I, said Mr Beauchamp.

Then I have fairly taken you in-You would, if you could, answer it in the ladies' favour. This is the same as a confession. I may therefore the more boldly pronounce, that, generally speaking, I have no doubt but there is.

Help me, dear ladies, said I, to fight this battle out. You say, sir, you have no doubt that there is a natural inferiority in the faculties of us, poor women; a natural superiority in you, imperial men.

Generally speaking, Charlotte. Not individually you, ladies, and us, men: I believe all we who are present, shall be ready to subscribe to your superiority, ladies.

I believe, brother, you fib: but let that pass. "Thank you, madam. It is for my advantage that it should ; and, perhaps, for yours, smiling.

-There is a difference,-pardon me, ladies, we are speaking generally,-in the constitution, in the temperament, of the two sexes, that gives to the one advantages which it denies to the other: but we may not too closely pursue this subject, though the result, I am apt to believe, would put the matter out of dispute. Let us be more at large: Why has nature made a difference in the beauty, proportion, and symmetry, in the persons of the two sexes? Why gave it delicacy, softness, grace, to that of the woman—as in the ladies before me; strength, firmness, to men; a capacity to bear labour and fatigue; and courage, to protect the other? Why gave it a distinction, both in qualities and plumage, to the different sexes of the feathered race? Why in the courage of the male and female animals? -The surly bull, the meek, the beneficent cow, for one instance?

We looked upon one another.

There are exceptions to general rules, proceeded he. Mrs Shirley surpasses all the men I ever knew, in wisdom-Mrs Selby and Lady G

What of us, brother! What of us--to the advantage of your argument?

Heroic Charlotte!-You are both very hap pily married-The men the women, the women the men, you can mutually assist and improve each other. But still

Your servant, brother, interrupted I.-Your servant, Sir Charles, said Mrs Selby.-And I say, Your servant, too, said Mr Selby.

Who sees not that my sister Charlotte is ready to disclaim the competition in fact, though not in words? Can there be characters more odious than those of a masculine woman, and an effeminate man? What are the distinguishing characteristics of the two sexes? And whence this odiousness? There are, indeed, men, whose minds, if I may be allowed the expression, seem to be cast in a female mould; whence the fops, foplings, and pretty fellows, who buz about your sex at public places; women, whose minds seem to be cast in a masculine one; whence your Barnevelts, my dear, and most of the women who, at such places, give the men stare for stare, swing their arms, look jolly; and those married women who are so kind as to take the reins out of their husbands' hands, in order to save the honest men trouble.

Your servant, sir-Your servant, sir-And some of them looked as if they had said, You cannot mean me, I hope; and those who spoke not, bowed and smiled thanks for his compli ment to one fourth of the sex.

My lord insultingly rubbed his hands for joy; Mr Selby crowed; the other men slyly smiled; though they were afraid of giving a more open approbation.

O my sister! said I, taking Harriet's hand, we women are mere nothings-We are nothing at all!

How, my Charlotte! Make you no difference between being everything and nothing?

Were it not, my dear ladies, proceeded he, for male protectors, to what insults, to what outrages, would not your sex be subject? Pardon me, my dearest love, if I strengthen my argument by your excellencies, bowing to his Harriet. Is not the dear creature, our good Mrs Shirley's own daughter? All the feminine graces are hers. She is, in my notion, what all women should be-But wants she not a protector? Even a dream, a reverie

O sir, spare me, spare me! sweetly blushing said the lovely Harriet. I own I should have made a very silly, a very pusillanimous man! It is not long since, you know, Lady Gthat I brought this very argument in favour of

Hush, Harriet! You will give up the female

cause.

That is not fair, Charlotte, rejoined my brother; you should not intercept the convictions of an ingenuous mind-But I will spare my Harriet, if she will endeavour, for her own sake, to let nothing disturb her for the future but realities, and not any of those long, if they are inevitable ones.

But pray, sir, said I, proceed in your argument, if you have any more to say.

O Charlotte! I have enough to say, to silence all your opposition, were I to give this subject its due weight. But we are only, for pleasantrysake, skimming over the surface of the argument. Weaker powers are given generally for weaker purposes, in the economy of Providence. I, for my part, however, disapprove not of our venerable Mrs Shirley's observation; That we are apt to consider the sex too much as a species apart: yet it is my opinion, that both God and nature have designed a very apparent difference in the minds of both, as well as in the peculiar beauties of their persons. Were it not so, their offices would be confounded, and the women would not, perhaps, so readily submit to those domestic ones in which it is their province to shine; and the men would be allotted the distaff, or the needle; and you yourselves, ladies, would be the first to despise such. I, for my part, would only contend, that we men should haye power and right given us to protect and serve your sex; that we should purchase and build for them; travel and toil for them; run through, at the call of Providence, or of our king and country, dangers and difficulties; and, at last, lay all our trophies, all our acquirements, at your feet; enough rewarded in the consciousness of duty done, and your favourable accept

ance.

We were all of us again his humble servants. It was in vain to argue the tyranny of some hus

bands, when he could turn upon us the follies of some wives; and that wives and daughters were never more faulty, more undomestic, than at present; and when we were before a judge, who, though he could not be absolutely unpolite, would not flatter us, nor spare our foibles.

However, it stuck a little with Harriet, that she had given cause to Sir Charles, in the dispute which she formerly bore a part in, relating to learning and languages,* to think her more lively than she ought to be, and had spoken too lightly of languages. She, sweetly blushing, like a young wife solicitous for the good opinion of the beloved of her heart, revived that cause.

He spoke very highly in her praise, upon the occasion: owned, that the letters he had been favoured with the sight of, had given him deeper impressions in her favour, than even her beauty: hoped for farther communications; applauded her for her principles, and her inoffensive vivacity-That sweet, that innocent vivacity, and noble frankness of heart, said he, taking her hand, which I hope you will never think of restraining.

As to the conversation you speak of, proceeded he, I repeat, that I was apprehensive, when I read it, that languages were spoken of in it slightly; and yet, perhaps, I am mistaken. You, my Beauchamp, I think, if my dearest life will oblige us both by the communication, and chooses to do so, (for that must be the condition on which all her goodness to us must be expected,) shall be judge between us: you know, better than I, what stores of inexhausted knowledge lie in the works of those great ancients, which suffered in the hands of poor Mr Walden: you know what the past and present ages have owed, and what all future will owe, to Homer, Aristotle, Virgil, Cicero: you can take in the necessity there is of restraining innovation, and preserving old rules and institutions, and of employing the youth of our sex, who would otherwise be much worse employed, (as we see in those who neglect their studies,) in the attainment of languages that can convey to them such lights in every science: though it were to be wished, that morals should take up more of the learner's attention than they generally do. You know, that the truest parts of learning are to be found in the Roman and Greek writers; and you know, that translation (were everything worthy our notice translated) cannot convey those beauties which scholars only can relish; and which learned foreigners, if a man travels, will expect should not have escaped his observation. As to the ladies, Mrs Shirley has admirably observed, that there is a degree of knowledge very compatible with their duties, (condescending excellence! bowing to Mrs Shirley,) and highly becoming them; such as will make

them rejoice, and, I will add, improve a man of sense, sweeten his manners, and render him a much more sociable, a much more amiable creature, and, of consequence, greatly more happy in himself, than otherwise he would be from books and solitude.

Well, but, brother, you said just now, that we were only, for pleasantry-sake, skimming over the surface of the argument; and that you had enough to say to silence all my opposition, were you to give the subject its due weight. I do assure you, that, to silence all my opposition, you must have a vast deal more to say, than you have said hitherto ; and yet you have thrown in some hints which stick with me, though you have concluded with some magnificent intimations of superiority over us-Power and right to protect, travel, toil for us, and lay your trophies at our feet, and so forth-Surely, surely, this is diminishing us, and exalting yourselves, by laying us under high obligations to your generosity. Pray, sir, let us have, if you please, one or two intimations of those weightier arguments, that could, as you fancy, silence your Charlotte's opposition. I say, that we women, were our education the same-You know what I would be at-Your weightier arguments, you please or a specimen only en passant.

if

Supposing, my Charlotte, that all human souls are, in themselves, equal; yet the very design of the different machines in which they are enclosed, is to superinduce a temporary difference on their original equality; a difference adapted to the different purposes for which they are designed by Providence in the present transitory state. When those purposes are at an end, this difference will be at an end too. When sex ceases, inequality of souls will cease; and women will certainly be on a foot with men, as to intellectuals, in heaven. There, indeed, will you no longer have lords over you; neither will you have admirers: which, in your present estimate of things, will, perhaps, balance the account. In the meantime, if you can see any occasions that may call for stronger understand ings in male life, than in your own; you, at the same time, see an argument to acquiesce in a persuasion of a present inequality between the two sexes. You know, I have allowed exceptions. Will you, Charlotte, compliment yourself with being one?

Now, brother, I feel, methinks, that you are a little hard upon Charlotte; but, ladies, you see how the matter stands.-You are all silent. -But, sir, you graciously allow, that there is a degree of knowledge which is very compatible with the DUTIES of us women, and highly becoming us: Will you have the goodness to point out to us what this compatible learning is, that we may not mistake-and so become eccentric, as I may say, burst our orb, and do more mischief than ever we could do good?

Could I point out the boundaries, Charlotte,

it might not to some spirits be so proper; the limit might be treated as the one prohibited tree in the garden. But let me say, That genius, whether in man or woman, will push itself into light. If it has a laudable tendency, let it, as a ray of the Divinity, be encouraged, as well in the one sex as the other: I would not, by any means, have it limited: a little knowledge leads to vanity and conceit. I would only, methinks, have a parent, a governor, a preceptor, bend his strength to restrain his foibles; but not throw so much cold water upon the sacred flame as should quench it; since, if he did, stupidity, at least dejection, might take place of the emanation, and the person might be miserable for life.

Well, then, we must compromise, I think, said I. But, on recollection, I thought I had enjoined you, Sir Charles, to the observance of a neutrality. Harriet, whispered I, we are only, after all, to be allowed, as far as I can find, in this temporary state, like tame doves, to go about house, and so forth, as Biddy says, in the play.

Harriet, could she have found time, (but, by mutual consent, they are hardly ever asunder,) would have given you a better account of this conversation than I have done; so would Lucy: but take it, as it offers, from Your ever-affectionate

CHARLOTTE G

LETTER CCLVIII.

MISS LUCY SELBY TO LADY L

Sunday, Nov. 19. My dear Lady G insists upon my writing to your ladyship an account of the appearance which the loveliest couple in England made this day at church.

We all thought nothing could have added to the charms of our Harriet's person; but yet her dress and jewels did. I sighed, from pride for the honour of female beauty, to think they did. Can my dear Harriet, thought I, exquisitely lovely as she is in any dress, be ornamented by richer silks than common, by costly laces, by jewels? Can dress add grace to that admirable proportion, and those fine features, to which no painter yet has ever done justice, though every family related to her has a picture of her, drawn by a different hand of eminence?

We admired the bridegroom as much as we did her, when (before we could have thought he had been half ready) he joined Mrs Shirley, my aunt Selby, and me, in the great parlour, completely dressed. But what we most admired in him was, that native dignity and ease, and that inattentiveness to his own figure and appearance, which demonstrate the truly fine gentleman, accustomed, as he is, to be always ele gant.