pect of them? What pleasure can they diffuse over the life of a husband? Shall we see them descend from the height of their genius to watch, over their children and their domestic affairs? All those relations so delicate, which form the charm and which ensure the happiness of woman, exist no longer then: in wishing to extend her empire, she destroys it. In a word, the nature of things and experience equally prove, that, if the feebleness of the muscles in woman forbid her to descend into the gymnasium and the hippodrome, the qualities of her mind and the part which she ought to play in life, forbid her, perhaps more imperiously still, to make a spectacle of herself in the lyceum and the portico."

- A learned and philosophical lady is indeed not less out of character, nor less ridiculous, than are those beings originally of opposite sex who lose the characteristics of men to grace an Italian stage. Those are alike monstrous who possess more or less, either physically or morally, than nature prescribes.

It is, indeed, as fortunate as it is true, that women are incapable of such pretended attain

ments.

How much more beautiful and attractive it is to behold a woman excelling in those languages which are of easy attainment, in the general knowledge which these present, in drawing, in music,

and in the dance, in scrupulous attention to personal propriety, in simple elegance of costume, and in all the lighter domestic arts. Their most charming study is the modest, the winning display of those accomplishments that increase the magic of their charms; their dearest employment is gracefully to fit through all the mazes of the labyrinth of love; and the noblest aim of their existence is to generate beings who, as women, may tread the footsteps of their mothers, or, as men may excel in the higher virtues which these, to them softer and sweeter occupations, render it impossible that they themselves should attain.

In short, the employment of the mind in investigations remote from life,-from procreation, gestation, delivery, nursing and care of children, cooking and clothing appears to be but limitedly allowed to woman.

So natural are these, and so unnatural are mental pursuits to woman, that Mrs. Wolstonecraft does not hesitate to say, that "If we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex." When a woman, indeed, is notorious for her mind, she is in general frightfully ugly; and it is certain that great fecundity of the brain in women usually accompanies sterility or disorder of the matrix.

The reader is now able to appreciate Mrs. Wol

stonecraft's assertion that "In tracing the causes that have degraded woman... it appears clear that they all spring from want of understanding. Whether this arises from a physical or accidental weakness of faculties, time alone can determine. [It has long since done so.] Denying her genius and judgment, it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect." The reader has seen that, in woman, the sensitive faculties are great and the reasoning ones small; that instinct moreover takes sometimes the place of both; and that on these depend the characteristics of the female mind-its acuteness, its mobility, the quickness and facility of its operations, its tact, its fickleness, its lightness, its graces.

We are boldly told, however, that these are the mere results of education-of the education which men bestow upon them. This is already answered in the surest and best way, by shewing that they spring from organization. I add, however, Rousseau's admirable reply.-" Women cease not to cry out that we bring them up to be vain and coquets, that we amuse them perpetually with puerilities in order to remain more easily their masters: they tax us with their faults. What folly! Since when is it that men have interfered with the education of girls? What prevents mothers from bringing them up as they please?-There are no colleges for them: great misfortune! Oh! Would to

God that there were none for boys! they would be more sensibly and more honestly brought up. Do we force your daughters to waste their time in sillinesses? Do we compel them, in spite of themselves, to pass half their lives at their toilet after your example? Do we prevent you from instructing them and causing them to be instructed according to your own will? Is it our fault if they please us when they are beautiful, if their affectations seduce us, if the art which they learn from you attracts and flatters us, if we love to see them dressed with taste, if we permit them at leisure to sharpen the arms with which they subjugate us?—Well, adopt the plan of bringing them up like men; they will consent to it with all their hearts. But the more they would resemble them, the less they will govern them.

"To cultivate, then, in woman, the qualities of men, and to neglect those which are proper to them, is evidently to labour to their disadvantage. The cunning ones see this too well to be its dupes; in trying to usurp our advantages, they do not abandon their own; but thence arises that, not being able to manage both, because they are incompatible, they remain below their own capacity, without reaching ours, and lose half their value. Trust to me, judicious mother, do not make of your daughter an honest man, as if to give the lie to nature; make her an honest woman; and be as

şured that she will be of more worth both to herself and to us.

And it is after all this, that Mrs. Wolstonecraft says, "I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree!"

Other qualities, indeed, contribute as much to woman's happiness as wisdom; and, therefore, I do not dislike the following answer of the beautiful, accomplished and unfortunate Queen Mary to the agent of the ugly, malignant and vicious Elizabeth.

-When one of the Cecil family, a minister from England to Scotland in Mary's reign, was speaking of the wisdom of his sovereign, Elizabeth, Mary stopped him short, by saying "Seigneur Chevalier, ne me parlez jamais de la sagesse d'une femme; je connois bien mon sexe, la plus sage de nous toutes n'est qu'un peu moins sotte que les autres."

Nay, we may venture to assert, that a high degree of intellect would ensure the misery of woman. It would be easy to show, says Dr. Brigham, "that efforts to make females excel in certain qualities of mind, which in men are considered most desirable, to make them as capable as men of long-continued attention to abstract truths, would be to act contrary to the dictates of nature, as manifested in their organization, and would tend to suppress all those finer sensibilities, which render them, in every thing that relates to senti