observers of fasts, and of all forms and ordinances imposed by a church, to which, as much from a point of honour as of faith, they rigidly submit. How many of the idle forms of church discipline will fall into desuetude, with that feeling of sympathy for the persecuted faith that imposed them! a feeling which catholic emancipation will cool down, and obliterate.

VIRAGOS.

WOMEN of strong tempers always govern their husbands; women of strong minds influence them. A man's sole refuge against an ill-tempered wife is to run away from her, which he generally does when he can. The influence of a clever woman lies in the power she has of hiding it. Still the virago, I believe, has the best of it: for if the man, in affecting to submit, very frequently only conceals, still he endures. The key to the government of all men is their passions; and after these—but this is shewing up the mystery of the craft;

"Plague on it, that rogues can't be true to themselves.” VOL. II.

L

FEMALE PERSEVERANCE.

"Nous n'avons point de diable, assez diable, pour tenir tête à une méchante femme."*

La Descente de Mezzeten en Enfers.

WHY are women so much more pertinacious than men? Voyons un peu! A woman is like a mastiff; once she seizes on an idea, she never lets go, till she has fairly worried out her end. She has no physical strength; no force of reason comparable with man's; but she has a stronger volition. The toughness of her will is a set-off against the fragility of her means; and she substitutes perseverance for power. Man yields, after a struggle, to her concentrated weakness, because he hates whatever interferes with his enjoyment. Like Falstaff, he loves above all things, "To take mine ease in mine inn;" and to avoid a domestic bore, will

* "There is no devil, sufficiently a devil, to make head against a wicked woman."

assent to much, even when he does not approve. Man is essentially an epicurean; and woman, from necessity, a stoic. In public affairs the mere force of volition often supplies the place of talent and resources; while its absence neutralizes and renders inefficient intellects of the finest and highest quality. To this may be referred much of the success of female intrigue, under the governments which have permitted its operation. It was doubtless to the reiterated attacks of Madame du Barri, that Louis the Fifteenth yielded, when he abandoned the most estimable and enlightened of his ministers, De Choiseul; and a similar obstinacy in the unfortunate Marie Antoinette goaded her reluctant husband into that course of duplicity and vacillation, which brought them both to a scaffold

OPINION.

INTOLERANCE is the offspring of conceit: we push an opinion, because it is our own, and resent contradiction as a personal insult. Very few persons, however, have any lawful right of property in their own ideas. The greatest number of our opinions are corporate, and belong to the age and country in which we happen to be born. No inconsiderable quantity belong to that venerable and respectable personage, our old nurse. Even the few notions which strong thinkers develope for themselves, depend very closely on habits of thought, impressed by tutors and parents, modified by external circumstances, equally uncontrollable. If some of our worthy anti-catholic, anti-reforming, corn-trade-fettering aristocrats, could be made sensible of the very vulgar origin of many of their favourite ideas, they would as soon shake hands with a chimney-sweeper as entertain them.

WIVES OF FOOLS.

OH! ye women, who have the good, or ill luck (selon) to be married to fools, attempt not to reason with your dears-expect not to seduce, and despair of persuading. Wit, grace, and understanding, are only influential with men of feeling and intellect: to such arms the sensible and the clever never fail to yield. But the fool "bears a charmed life." Remember the maxim of your great law-giver: "On ne séduit pas un sot; on le dompte." A fool is incapable of giving quarter, and unworthy of receiving it. The worst of a fool is not that he is a fool, but that he is so selfsufficient and self-conceited; just as obscure people become burthensome, when they imagine themselves important; and as those who live out of the world are unmanageable, from a fancy that all the

* "Fools are not to be seduced; they must be overpowered."