remarkably dark in the complexion of his own private character. But MEZENTIUS, not fatisfied with being vitious, has at length determined to be ridiculous; and after having wretchedly fquandered his youth and his patrimony in riot and diffoluteness, is contemptibly mis-spending his old agein meafuring impotent fyllables, and dealing out pointless abuse. I am, &c.

HAT haughty Sachariffa has put you

WHE out of humour with her whole fex;

for it is some disappointment, I suspect, of the tender kind, that has thus fharpened the edge of your fatire, and pointed its invective against the fairer half of our fpecies? You were not mistaken, however, when you fuppofed I should prove no convert to your doctrine; but rise up as an advocate, where I profefs myself an admirer. I am not, 'tis true, altogether of old Montaigne's opinion, that the fouls of both fexes

font

font jettez (as he expreffes it) en mefme moules t 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 fhould be allowed that they are effentially different. Nature, it is certain, has traced out a separate course of action for the two sexes; and as they are appointed to distinct 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 fex in the very foul.

I CANNOT therefore but wonder, that Plato should have thought it reaíonable to admit them into an equal fhare of the dignities and offices of his imaginary commonwealth; and that the wisdom of the antient Egyptians fhould have fo ftrangely inverted the evident intentions of Providence, as to confine the men to domestic affairs, whilst the women, it is faid, were engaged abroad in the active and laborious fcenes of bufinefs. Hiftory, it must be owned, will supply some few female inftances of all the most masculine virtues: but appearances of that extraordinary kind are too uncom

mon,

mon to fupport the notion of a general equality in the natural powers of their minds.

THUS much, however, feems evident, that there are certain moral boundaries which nature has drawn between the two sexes, and that neither of them can pass 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 fexes, it is no derogation from female excellency, that it differs in kind from that which distinguishes the male part of our species. And if in general it fhall be found (what, upon an impartial enquiry, 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 beft difcovered by a chearful refignation to the measures of Providence, we

hall

fhall 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 conftitution, pass thro' one continued scene of suffering, from their cradles to their graves, with a firmness of refolution that would deserve so many statues. to be erected to their memories, if heroifm were not estimated more by the fplendor than the merit of actions.

BUT whatever real difference there may be between the moral or intellectual powers of the male and female mind; nature does not feem to have marked the diftinction fo ftrongly as our vanity is willing to imagine: and after all, perhaps, education will be found to constitute the principal fuperiority. It must be acknowledged, at leaft, that in this article we have every advantage over the fofter fex, that art and industry can poffibly fecure to us. The moft animating examples of Greece and Rome are set before us, as early as we are capable of any obfervation; and the nobleft compofitions of the antients are given into our hands, alwe have ftrength to hold O 2

moft as foon as

them:

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 uninftructed fuggeftions, than to lead it into false pursuits, and contract its views, by turning them upon the lowest and most trifling objects. We seem, indeed, by the manner in which we suffer the youth of that sex to be trained, to confider women agreeably to the opinion of certain Mahometan doctors, and treat them as if we believed they have no fouls: why elfe are they

Bred only and completed to the tafte
Of luftful appetence, to fing, to dance;
To drefs, and troule the tongue, and roule the
eye?

MILT.

THIS ftrange neglect of cultivating the female mind, can hardly be allowed as good policy, when it is confidered how much the interest of society is concerned in the rectitude of their understandings. That season

of