remarkably dark in the complexion of his own private character. But MÉZENTIUS, not fatisfied with being vitious, has at length determined to be ridiculous; and after having wretchedly squandred his youth and his patrimony in riot and dissoluteness, is contemptibly mif-fpending his old age in meafuring impotent fyllables, and dealing out pointless abuse. I am, &c. W LETTER XLI. TO ORONTES. HAT haughty Sacharissa has put you out of humor with her whole fex? for it is some disappointment, I fufpect, of the tender kind, that has thus sharpened the edge of your fatire, and pointed its invective against the fairer half of our species. You were not mistaken, however, when you supposed I should prove no convert to your doctrine; but rise up as an advocate, where I profess myself an admirer. I am not, 'tis true, altogether of old Montaigne's opinion, that the fouls of both fexes font 3 : font jettez (as he expresses it) en mesme moules: on the contrary, I am willing enough to join with you in thinking, that they may be wrought off from different models. Yet the cafts may be equally perfect, tho it should be allowed that they are effentially different. Nature, it is certain, has traced out a feparate course of action for the two fexes; and as they are appointed to diftinct offices of life, it is not improbable that there may be fomething diftinct likewife in the frame of their minds; that there may be a kind of sex in the very foul. L I CANNOT therefore but wonder, that Plato should have thought it reasonable to admit them into an equal share of the dignities and offices of his imaginary commonwealth; and that the wisdom of the antient Egyptians should have so strangely inverted the evident intentions of Providence, as to confine the men to domeftic affairs, whilft the women, it is said, were engaged abroad in the active and laborious scenes of business. History, it must be owned, will fupply some few female instances of all the most masculine virtues: but appearances of that extraordinary kind are too uncom 0 mon, mon, to support the notion of a general equa lity in the natural powers of their minds. THUS much, however, seems, evident, that there are certain moral boundaries which nature has drawn between the two sexes, and that neither of them can pafs over the limits of the other, without equally deviating from the beauty and decorum of their respective characters: Boadicea in armor is, to me at least, as extravagant a fight, as Achilles in petticoats. In determining, therefore, the comparative merit of the two sexes, it is no derogation from female excellency, that it differs in kind from that which diftinguishes the male part of our species. And if in general it shall be found (what, upon an impartial inquiry, I believe, will most certainly be found) that women fill up their appointed circle of action with greater regularity and dignity, than men; the claim of preference cannot justly be decided in our favor. In the prudential and economical parts of life, I think it undeniable that they rife far above us. And if true fortitude of mind is best discovered by a chearful resignation to the measures of Providence, we shall Thall not find reason, perhaps, to claim that most fingular of the human virtues as our peculiar privilege. There are numbers of the other fex, who, from the natural delicacy of their constitution, pass thro one continued scene of fuffering, from their cradles to their graves, with a firmness of resolution that would deferve so many ftatues to be erected to their memories, if heroism were not estimated more by the fplendor than the merit of actions. Bur whatever real difference there may be between the moral or intellectual powers of the male and female mind; nature does not seem to have marked the distinction fo strongly as our vanity is willing to imagine : and after all, perhaps, education will be found to conftitute the principal fuperiority. It must be acknowledged, at least, that in this article we have every advantage over the softer sex, that art and industry can poffibly fecure to us. The most animating examples of Greece and Rome are fet before us, as early as we are capable of any observation; and the noblest compofitions of the antients are given into our hands, almost as foon as we have strength to hold them: Ο A them: while the employments of the other fex, at the fame period of life, are generally the reverse of every thing that can open and enlarge their minds, or fill them with just and rational notions. The truth of it is, female education is so much worse than none, as it is better to leave the mind to its natural and uninstructed suggestions, than to lead it into false pursuits, and contract its views, by turning them upon the lowest and most trifling objects. We feem, indeed, by the manner in which we fuffer the youth of that sex to be trained, to confider women agreably to the opinion of certain Mahometan doctors, and treat them as if we believed they have no fouls: why else are they Bred only and completed to the taste eye ? MILT. THIS strange neglect of cultivating the female mind, can hardly be allowed as good policy, when it is confidered how much the interest of fociety is concerned in the recti tude of their understandings. That season of |