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 beautics 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, 3 was only given them for the general good of all the human species. 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

levity. Their different qualities balance each other; and it is from that mixture, that happy accord arises, which renders them both more accomplished.

The variety of minds, may be compared to that of voices, which would rather form an agreeable concert, than a grating discord. If men were of a stronger frame, it is the more effectually to contribute to the happiness of those who are more delicate; one sex was not designed to be the oppressor of the other; the intimate connexion-between them is for general advantage, and those ridiculous debates of superiority, are an insult to nature, and an ingratitude for her benefits.

We are born women's friends, not their rivals, much less their tyrants; and that strength which was given us for their defence, is abused, when thereby we enslave them; and to banish from society its sweetest charm, that part of the human species which is most proper to animate it, would render it quite insipid.

The truth of this, hath been proved by the people of the East, who, joining together a sense of their own weakness and brutal passion, have regarded women as dangerous companions, against whom they must be on their guard: therefore they have enslaved that sex to avoid being enslaved by them, and have thought too much love gave them a title to misuse them: but these tyrannic masters have been the first victims of their tyrannic jealousy. Devoted to a lonely, melancholy life, they have sought for tender sensations in vain, amidst their fair slaves. Sensibility, with the delicacy, ever its companion, are only to be found in the reign of freedom, since they both necessarily shun a society, void of those springs whence they might grow.

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

EDUCATION.

ADDISON observes, that a human soul without education, is like marble in a quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental spot and vein that runs through the body of it. Education when it works. upon a noble mind, in the same manner draws out to view, every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such help, are never able to make their appearance.

Whatever you undertake in the course of your education, strive to excel in it. To learn things by halves, is learning to little purpose; and those who do not make a due progress in what they are taught, affront their teachers, disappoint their parents, and, to their own shame, are suspected of idleness, of want of capacity, an imputation they should wish to avoid.

AN ESSAY ON THE

STUDIES PROPER FOR WOMEN.

TO prohibit women entirely from learning, is treating them with the same indignity that Mahomet did, who denied them souls; indeed the greatest part of women act as if they had really adopted a tenet so injurious to the sex.

When we consider the happy talents which women in general possess, and how successfully some have cultivated them, we cannot without indignation observe the little esteem they have for the