REASONS AGAINST READING THE

GENERALITY OF MODERN NOVELS.

THE more extravagant, absurd and ridiculous the novel is, the greater is the probability of its pleasing youthful minds.

As love is the foundation, so it is the superstructure of most novels. But what is that kind of love which is there taught? Not that tender sympathy of two mutual hearts, whose love is founded on reason, prudence and virtue; but a blind, violent and impetuous passion which hurries its unhappy victims into endless woes, teaches children disobedience to their parents, inspires them with notions of self sufficiency, and encourages them to commence wanderers at an age in which infant punishment ought to be applied, to bring them to their senses. Hence it is, perhaps, we may account for this miscondect of many personsho, even in the last stage of their lives, act

onformity to the ideas they imbibed in their early days from novels and romances. Can it then reasonably be expected, that young ladies who have imbibed such principles, should make good wives, prudent mothers, or even agreeable companions?

RICHARDSON.

AN ESSAY ON WOMEN.

THOSE who consider women, only as pretty figures, placed here for ornament, have but a very imperfect idea of the sex. They perpetually

say that women are lovely flowers, designed to heighten the complexion of nature. This is very true; but, at the same time, women should not let themselves be perverted by such trifling discourse, but take care, not to be content, with these superficial advantages. There are too many who, satisfied with that partition, seem to have renounced any other accomplishment but that of charming the eye. Women have quite another destination, and were created for more noble ends, than that of being a vain spectacle: their beauties are only heralds of more touching qualities; to reduce all to beauty, is to degrade them, and pat them almost on a level with their pictures. Those who are only handsome, may make a pretty figure in an arm-chair, or may decorate a drawing-room: they are literally fit to be seen; but to find in their acquaintance all the advantages we have a right to expect, woman must have more than beauty.

Among intelligent beings, society should not be bounded by a cold exhibition of their person or a dull conversation of lies and vanity. Whatever doth not tend to make us better, corrupts us; but, if women, who are the ornaments of society, would strive to join justness of thought, and uprightness of heart, to the graces of the body, the taste we have for them would unfold excellent qualities in us: let them then raise their souls to noble objects, and they will ripen the seeds of every virtue in men.

The empire which women owe to beauty, was only given them for the general good of all the human specics. Men, destined to great actions, have a certain fierceness which only women can correct; there is in their manners, more than their features, a sweetness capable of bending that

natural ferocity, which, unattempted, would soon degenerate into brutality.

We may well say, that if we were destitute of women, we should be all different from what we are. Our endeavours to be agreeable to them, polish and soften that rough strain so natural to us; their cheerfulness is a counter-balance to our rough austere humours. In a word, if men did not converse with women, they would be less perfect, and less happy than they are.

That man who is insensible to the sweetness of female conversation, is rarely the friend to mankind: such cherish an insensibility, which renders even their virtues dangerous.

If men require the tender application of women to render them more tractable, those, on the other hand, equally want the conversation of men to awaken their vivacity, and draw them from a negligence into which, if they were not stimulated by a desire of pleasing, they would certainly fall.That desire produces the allurements of the face, the grace of air, and the sweetness of voice: for whether they speak, move, or smile, they think of rendering themselves agreeable. Whence. we may conclude, that it is the men who, in some degree, give charms to the women, who, without them, would fall into a sour, or indolent temper. Besides, female minds, overwhelmed with trifles, would languish in ignorance, if men, recalling them to more elevated objects, did not communicate dignity and vigour.

"Tis thus, that the two sexes ought to be perfected by one another. The manly courage of the one is tempered by the softness of the other, which, in its turn, borrows from the same courage. The one acquires, in women's company, a milder tincture, while the other lose their female

PREFATORY ADDRESS.

THE education of women has been at all times, an object of the most sedulous attention among the more enlightened nations of Europe. It is pleasing to remark, as it exhibits the least dubious proof of our progress in refinement, that this very important subject has, of late, excited scarcely an inferiour degree of interest in our own country. All our large cities can now claim a seminary for the instruction of fem es, in which the system of education is no longe rowed by puritanical illiberality, or vitiated by the interference of any vulgar prejudices. It may be truly affirmed, that the women of the present age, in the United States, are not excelled by those of any country, whether we look to purity of morals, delicacy of deportment, or those delightful embellishments which give splendour to the face of society.

The only cardinal defect in the education of our females, which strikes us, is, perhaps, an undue appropriation of time to the acquisition of those light accomplishments, which serve - well to enliven and decorate the early season of

life, but which are attended with no durable ad- " vantages. The arts of painting, of music, of dancing, are expensively and most tediously taught in our schools, but how seldom are they practised, after the lapse of a few years, even by those who have reached the greatest proficiency.

We mean not however to detract from the value of personal accomplishments-they are, on the contrary, in our estimation, very essential features to every scheme of liberal and polite education. But there are other objects to which, we think, they ought to be subordinate, and, especially, that they should never be allowed to encroach on the more important cultivation of the intellectual powers. As we elevate the mind, we enlarge the sphere both of female utility and female happiness-with ́an intect invigorated by discipline, and properly abued with the love of letters, a woman has resources on which she may perpetually draw in every emergency, or vicissitude of fortune.

Thus accomplished, she moreover becomes better fitted to discharge, with success, the various complicated, and interesting duties incident to her condition, and the pilgrimage of her existence is rendered not only smooth and easy, but dignified and useful.

Convinced, therefore, of the importance of encouraging a fondness for elegant literature, in the period of childhood, and not less of the necessity of guiding the immature judgment of