Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Those fair philosophers who are not ambitious te share the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," may rival their male competitors in the softer arts of peace, such as navigation and agriculture. How characteristic of the delicacy of the sex must it be, to see a lovely woman steering a ship in à storm, and vociferating through a speaking trumpet to the sailors, while the tempest howls

"With deaf'ning clamour in the slipp'ry shrouds !"

Or in husbandry, how delightful must the charming farmer appear, while guiding the plough through the stubborn fallows, or directing her labourers in their daily task.

We have reason to apprehend that the works of Bacon, Newton, Locke, and Boyle, will be neglected for the elegant conceptions of our fair writers. in this " age of reason. How puerile are the

* Lavater defines the characteristic difference between the sexes with great precision "The female," says he, "thinks not profoundly; profound thought is the power of man. Women feel more; sensibility is the power of woman: men most embrace the whole; women remark individually. Man hears the bursting thunder, views the de structive bolt with serene aspect, and stands erect amidst the fearful majesty of the streaming clouds; woman trembles at the lightning and the voice of distant thunder; and shrinks into herself, or sinks into the arms of man. A ray of light is singly received by man; woman delights to view it through a prism, in all its dazzling colours: she contemplates the rainbow as the promise of peace; he extends his enquiring eye over the whole horizon. Woman laughs, man smiles: woman weeps, man remains silent. Woman is in anguish when man weeps, and in despair when man is, in anguish yet she has often more faith than man."

poetic flights of Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, and Pope, to the inspiring melody, and chaste sentiments of our modern poetesses! How vapid the productions of Swift, Butler, and Sterne, when compared with the effervescence of female genius! And how inconclusive the morality of Addison, Steele, and Johnson, when opposed to those perspicuous emanations of mind so liberally diffused by our female philosophers for the improvement of their disciples!

The virtuous woman, who in conformity to the wise institutions of her ancestors is obedient to her husband, and presides with maternal solicitude over her children, inculcating the purest principles of morality, must appear an insipid being, compared with those spirited dames who share with their male friends the pleasurable indulgences which sct propriety and religion at defiance.

Among the improvements of this enlightened age, may be reckoned the general practice of mothers, in the higher classes, intrusting their infants to the care of hircling nurses. This fashionable violation of maternal duty generally proceeds from indolence, and a desire to be disencumbered in the pursuit of favourite amusements; but surely every mother, endued with that exquisite sensibility which is the ornament of a virtuous woman, will suckle her child, unless prevented by indisposition.

That the female votaries of Minerva, however, should be exempted, not only from this, but every other domatic duty, is a privilege to which they are entitled by their super or endowments. Would

it not be prejudicial to the interests of science, were ‘a fair astrononter pedesrinted to descend from the

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

contemplation of the heavens to chaunt a lullaby? What an irreparable injury would it be to public morals, if the female translators of chaste and elegant German dramas were obliged to attend to the nursery! Nor could it rationally be expected, that such of our fair philosophers as were engaged in metaphysical, or ethical researches, could, amid their abstraction, recollect that such beings as children existed. Indeed, these literary ladies are fully entitled to commit their offspring to the protection of others, and thus act in conformity to their other innovations.

This immoral deviation is not confined to high life, for even tradesmen's wives, nay, the wives of mechanics, resign their infants without scruple to the care of strangers; and the natural consequence is that estrangement, and negligence in the fulfilment of the filial duties, at present so observable inboth sexes.

One of the most egregious follies of the present age is, that affected politeness by which coxcombs cherish the ridiculous assumption of equality in the other sex. Alas, ye lovely young women! your obsequious and enlightened beaux, who would raise you to a fantastic pre-eminence by the depreciation of man, aim only at your destruction. They first, through the medium of flattery, insinuate themselves into your favour; they extol the superior beauties, finer sensibilities, and nobler virtues, of woman; they expatiate on the happiness arising from an unlimited freedom of thought and action; and while they assert the equality, effect the seduction of the credulous fair. They hold the Circean cup of philosophic sophistry to your lips, you drink,

« AnteriorContinuar »