moral, clearly points out the necessity of a superior degree of caution, retirement, and reserve. If the author may be allowed to keep up the allusion of the poet, just quoted, she would ask if we do not put the finest vases and the costliest images in places of the greatest security, and most remote from any probability of accident or destruction. By being so situated, they find their protection in their weakness, and their safety in their delicacy. This metaphor is far from being used with a design of placing young ladies in a trivial, unimportant light; it is only introduced to insinuate, that where there is more beauty and more weakness, there should be greater circumspection and superior prudence. Men, on the contrary, are formed for the more public exhibitions on the great theatre of human life. Like the stronger and more substantial wares, they derive no injury, and lose no polish, by being always exposed, and engaged in the constant commerce of the world. It is their proper element, where they respire their natural air, and exert their noblest powers, in situations which call them into action. They were intended by Providence for the bustling scenes of life; to appear terrible in arms, useful in commerce, shining in councils. The author fears it will be hazarding a very bold remark, in the opinion of many ladies, when she adds, that the female mind, in general, does not appear capable of attaining so high a degree of perfection in science as the male. Yet she hopes to be forgiven, when she observes also, that as it does not seem to derive the chief portion of its excellence from extraordinary abilities of this kind, it is not at all lessened by the imputation of not possessing them. It is readily allowed, that the sex have lively imaginations, and those exquisite perceptions of the beautiful and defective, which come under the denomination of taste. But pretensions to that strength of intellect, which is requisite to penetrate into the abstruser walks of literature, it is presumed they will readily relinquish. There are green pastures, and pleasant valleys, where they may wander with safety to themselves and delight to others. They may cultivate the roses of imagination, and the valuable fruits of morals and criticism; but the steeps of Parnassus, few, comparatively, have attempted to scale with success. And when it is considered, that many languages, and many sciences, must contribute to the perfection of poetical composition, it will appear less strange. The lofty epic, the pointed satire, and the more daring and successful flights of the tragic muse, seem reserved for the bold adventurers of the other sex. Nor does this assertion, it is apprehended, at all injure the interests of the women; they have other pretensions on which to value themselves, and other qualities much better calculated to answer their particular purposes. We are enamored of the soft strains of the Sicilian and the Mantuan muse,* while, to the sweet notes of the pastoral reed, they sing the contentions of the shepherds, the blessings of love, or the innocent delights of rural life. Has it ever been ascribed to them as a defect, that their Eclogues do not treat of active scenes, of busy cities, and of wasting war? No; their simplicity is their perfection, and they are only blamed when they have too little of it. On the other hand, the lofty bards who strung their bolder harps to higher measures, and sung the "wrath of Peleus' son," and "man's first disobedience," † have never been censured for want of sweetness and refinement. The sublime, the nervous, and the masculine, characterize their composi tions, as the beautiful, the soft, and the delicate, mark those of the others. Grandeur, dignity, and force, distinguish the one species; ease, simplicity, and purity, the other. Both shine from their native, distinct, unborrowed merits, not from those which are foreign, adventitious, and unnatural. Yet those excellences which make up the essential and constituent parts of poetry, they have in common. Women have generally quicker perceptions; men have juster sentiments. Women consider how things may be prettily said; men, how they may be properly said. In women (young ones at least), speaking accompanies and sometimes precedes reflection; in men, reflection is the antecedent. Women speak to shine or to please; men, to convince or confute. Women admire what is brilliant; men, what is solid. Women prefer an extemporaneous sally of wit, or a sparkling effusion of fancy, before the most accurate reasoning, or the most laborious investigation of facts. In literary composition, women are pleased with point, turn, and antithesis; men, with observation, and a just deduction of effects from their causes. Women are fond of incident; men, of argument. Women admire passionately; men approve cautiously. One sex will think it betrays a want of feeling to be moderate in their applause; the other will be afraid of *Theocritus in his Idyls, and Virgil in his Bucolics. exposing a want of judgment by being in raptures with any thing. Men refuse to give way to the emotions they actually feel, while women sometimes affect to be transported beyond what the occasion will justify. As a further confirmation of what has been advanced on the different bent of the understanding in the sexes, it may be observed, that we have heard of many female wits, but never of one female logician-of many admirable writers of memoirs, but never of one chronologer. In the boundless and aërial regions of romance, and in that fashionable species of composition which succeeded it, and which carries a nearer approximation to the manners of the world, the women cannot be excelled: this imaginary soil they have a peculiar talent for cultivating, because here, Invention labors more, and judgment less. The merit of this kind of writing consists in the vraisemblance to real life as to the events themselves, with a certain elevation in the narrative, which places them, if not above what is natural, yet above what is common. It further consists in the art of interesting the tender feelings by a pathetic representation of those minute, endearing, domestic circumstances, which take captive the soul before it has time to shield itself with the armor of reflection. To amuse, rather than to instruct, or to instruct indirectly by short inferences, drawn from a long concatenation of circumstances, is at once the business of this sort of composition, and one of the characteristics of female genius.* In short, it appears that the mind in each sex has some natural kind of bias, which constitutes a distinction of character, and that the happiness of both depends, in a great measure, on the preservation and observance of this distinction. For where would be the superior pleasure and satis faction resulting from mixed conversation, if this difference were abolished? If the qualities of both were invariably and exactly the same, no benefit or entertainment would arise from the tedious and insipid uniformity of such an intercourse; whereas, considerable advantages are reaped from a * The author does not apprehend it makes against her GENERAL position, that this nation can boast a female critic, poet, historian, linguist, philosopher, and moralist, equal to most of the other sex. To these particular instances, others might be adduced; but it is presumed, that they only stand as exceptions against the rule, without tending to invalidate the rule itself. [The ladies here indirectly complimented appear to be Mrs. Montagu; Miss Aikin, afterwards Mrs. Barbauld'; Mrs. Macaulay; Mrs. Elizabeth Carter Mrs. Chapone; and perhaps Mrs. Lennox.]-ED. select society of both sexes. The rough angles and asperities of male manners are imperceptibly filed, and gradually worn smooth, by the polishing of female conversation, and the refining of female taste; while the ideas of women acquire strength and solidity, by their associating with sensible, intelligent, and judicious men. On the whole (even if fame be the object of pursuit), is it not better to succeed as women, than to fail as men? to shine, by walking honorably in the road which nature, custom, and education seem to have marked out, rather than to counteract them all, by moving awkwardly in a path diametrically opposite? to be good originals, rather than bad imitators?-in a word, to be excellent women, rather than indifferent men? ON DISSIPATION. DOGLIE CERTE, ALLEGREZZE INCERTE!-Petrarca. As an argument in favor of modern manners, it has been pleaded, that the softer vices of luxury and dissipation belong rather to gentle and yielding tempers, than to such as are rugged and ferocious; that they are vices which increase civilization, and tend to promote refinement, and the cultivation of humanity. But this is an assertion, the truth of which the experience of all ages contradicts. Nero was not less a tyrant for being a fiddler he who wished the whole Roman people had but one neck, that he might despatch them at a blow, was himself the most debauched man in Rome; and Sydney and Russel were condemned to bleed under the most barbarous, though most dissipated and voluptuous reign, that ever disgraced the annals of Britain. The love of dissipation is, I believe, allowed to be the reigning evil of the present day. It is an evil which many content themselves with regretting, without seeking to redress. A dissipated life is censured in the very act of dissipation; and prodigality of time is as gravely declaimed against at the card-table as in the pulpit. The lover of dancing censures the amusements of the theatre for their dulness, and the gamester blames them both for their levity. She, whose whole soul is swallowed up in "opera ecstasies," is astonished that her acquaintance can spend whole nights in preying, like harpies, on the fortunes of their fellow-creatures; while the grave, sober sinner, who passes her pale and anxious vigils in this fashionable sort of pillaging, is no less surprised how the other can waste her precious time in hearing sounds for which she has no taste, in a language she does not understand. In short, every one seems convinced, that the evil so much complained of does really exist somewhere, though all are inwardly persuaded that it is not with themselves. All desire a general reformation, but few will listen to proposals of particular amendment; the body must be restored, but each limb begs to remain as it is; and accusations which concern all, will be likely to affect none. They think that sin, like matter, is divisible, and that what is scattered among so many, cannot materially affect any one; and thus individuals contribute separately to that evil which they in general lament. The prevailing manners of an age depend, more than we are aware, or are willing to allow, on the conduct of the women: this is one of the principal hinges on which the great machine of human society turns. Those who allow the influence which female graces have, in contributing to polish the manners of men, would do well to reflect how great an influence female morals must also have on their conduct. How much, then, is it to be regretted, that the British ladies should ever sit down contented to polish, when they are able to reform, to entertain, when they might instruct, and to dazzle for an hour, when they are candidates for eternity! Under the dispensation of Mahomet's law, indeed, these mental excellences cannot be expected, because the women are shut out from all opportunities of instruction, and excluded from the endearing pleasures of a delightful and equal society; and, as a charming poet sings, are taught to believe, that |