Tom Thumb, who was unable to tell whether it was love or the wind cholic that tormented him. That he has had also many other little equivocal symptoms, which he is unable to pronounce upon until he has taken the sense of this female synod. Some sensations too, which he has sometimes felt in a morning before breakfast, and in the afternoon after a pint of wine, have looked so like what he conceives of this passion, as to raise in him some hopes that he may yet arrive at the accomplishment of his wishes. The petitioner concluded with requesting to be informed if the society had any apothecary belonging to them, whom they could instruct to compose a philtre that might remedy this radical deficiency in his mind ---for in his mind alone he felt this deficiency to exist.

The senate decreed that the case of this poor gentleman was without remedy, as there was no possibility of imparting a tenderness of soul where nature had denied it; but that he was right in suspecting that these paroxysms were no true symptoms of love, however they might explain a part of our nature that was common through all animated existence.

Some proposals were now brought forward, which the press of weightier business made it necessary to adjourn to a future day, and some notices were given of intended motions. A vote of censure was passed on a staymaker's widow, who advertised to carry on her husband's business with the same workmen; it being judged inconsistent with female delicacy to admit any but females to a privacy so close. A motion was made for a declaratory act respecting the proclamation of Harry the VIIIth, against female gossipping

A paper was next heard, exhibiting some severe strictures on the practice among fashionable mothers,

of committing their children to the care of French mesdemoiselles. The letter contained advices of several instances wherein the principles of a young family had been poisoned under such tuition; and stated, in terms of great indignation, that they were nothing but a kind of higglers, that brought over the veriest trumpery, the merest shreds and rags of a wretched Epicurean philosophy, which had long ago found its way among all orders and degrees in their native country. It ended with a passage out of the play called the Provoked Wife, which paints admirably well the lax opinions of this sect of female philosophers.

Lady Fan. Rendezvous? what, rendezvous with a man, mademoiselle?

Madem. Eh, pourquoi non?

Lady F. What! and a man I never saw before in my life?

Madem. Tant mieux; c'est donc quelque chose de

nouveau.

Lady F. Oh, but my reputation, mademoiselle, my dear reputation!

Madem. Madame, quand on l'a une fois perdue, on n'en est plus embarrassé.

Lady F. Fie, mademoiselle! reputation is a jewel.

Madem. Qui coûte bien chère, madame.

Lady. F. Why, sure you would not sacrifice your honour to your pleasure?

Madem. Je suis philosophe.

Lady F. Bless me, how you talk! what, if honour be a burden, must it not be borne ?

Madem. Chacun a son façon : quand quelque chose m'incommode moi, je m'en défais vîte.

Lady. F. Get you gone, you naughty woman. I

vow and swear I must turn you out of doors if you talk thus.

Madem. Turn me out of doors!-turn yourself out of doors, and go see what de gentleman have to say to you. Tenez: voilà votre escarpe, voilà votre quoife, voilà tout. Allons, madame, dépêchez-vous donc. Mon Dieu! quelles scrupules!

Lady F. Well, for once, mademoiselle, I'll follow your advice, out of the intemperate desire I have to see who this ill-bred fellow is; but I have too much délicatesse to make a practice of it.

-

Madem. Belle chose vraiment que la délicatesse, lorsqu'il s'agit de se divertir!-ah, ça-vous voilà équippée-partons-Eh bien! qu'avez-vous donc ? Lady F. J'ai peur.

Madem. Je n'en ai point, moi.
Lady F. I dare not go.

Madem. Demeurez donc.
Lady F. Je suis poltrone.
Madem. Tant pis pour vous.
Lady F. Curiosity is a wicked devil.
Madem. C'est une charmante sainte.
Ludy F. It ruined our first parents.
Madem. Il a bien diverti leurs enfans.
Lady F. L'honneur est contre.
Madem. Le plaisir est pour.

Lady F. Must I then
go?

Madem. Must you go? must you eat? must you sleep? must you live? De nature bid you do one, de nature bid you do toder; vous me ferez enrager. Lady F. But when reason corrects nature, mademoiselle?

Madem. Elle est donc bien insolente.
Lady F. Ah! la méchante Françoise!
Madem. Ah! la belle Angloise!

A letter from a learned lady was read, praying for the sentence of the synod, against a passage in the sixth Satire of Juvenal, which bore shamefully hard upon that class of female doctors to which she belonged. The lines complained of, run as follows:

"Illa tamen gravior quæ cum discumbere cœpit,
Laudat Virgilium, perituræ ignoscit Elisæ:
Committit vates, et comparat inde Maronem,
Atque aliâ parte in trutinâ suspendit Homerum.
Cedunt grammatici, vincuntur rhetores, omnis
Turba tacet, nec Causidicus, nec præco loquatur,
Altera nec mulier: verborum tanta cadit vis.
Tot pariter pelves, et tintinnabula dicas
Pulsari. Jam nemo tubas atque æra fatiget:
Una laboranti poterit succurrere lunæ.
Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis:
Nam quæ docta nimis cupit, et facunda videri,
Crure tenus medio tunicas succingere debet,
Cædere sylvano porcum, quadrante lavari.
Non habeat matrona, tibi quæ juncta recumbit,
Dicendi genus, aut curtum sermone rotato
Torqueat enthymema, nec historias sciat omnes;
Sed quædam ex libris et non intelligat; odi
Hanc ego, quæ repetit volvitque Palæmonis artem,
Servata semper lege, et ratione loquendi,
Ignotosque mihi tenet antiquaria versus,
Nec curanda viris opicæ castigat amica
Verba. Solæcismum liceat fecisse marito."

pas

I was desired to read the translation of this sage which Dryden has given us; a request I did not comply with without some compunction.

"But of all plagues, the greatest is untold;

The book-learn'd wife, in Greek and Latin bold;
The critic dame, who at her table sits,

Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits;
And pities Dido's agonizing fits.

She has so far th' ascendant of the board,

The prating pedant puts not in a word,

The man of law is non-plus'd in his suit;
Nay, every other female tongue is mute.
Hammers and beating anvils, you would swear,
And Vulcan with his whole militia there.
Tabors and trumpets cease; for she alone
Is able to redeem the lab'ring moon.

Even wit's a burden, when it talks too long;
But she who has no continence of tongue,

Should walk in breeches, and should wear a beard,
And mix among the philosophic herd.

Oh! what a midnight curse has he, whose side
Is pester'd with a mood and figure bride!

Let mine, ye gods! (if such must be my fate),
No logic learn, or history translate;

But rather be a quiet humble fool;

I hate a wife to whom I go to school;

Who climbs the grammar tree, distinctly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country neighbour; and, abed,

For breaking Priscian's, breaks her husband's head."

The assembly decreed that the satire was not unjust as it was directed, and that therefore there was no reasonable ground of complaint: but that, if it be the tendency of learning in the main to derogate from female softness, so much the larger share of glory awaits those paragons of the sex, who haply have found out the way of combining these vigorous attainments with their more appropriate excellencies, and of brightening, by severer attrition, the polish of the mind, without wearing its enamel, or corroding its substance.

The last subject which came before them was occasioned by a letter which the secretary had received from one of those outrageously virtuous ladies who repine at the necessity of breathing the same atmosphere with their sinful sisters, that have drawn such a quantity of common-place satire, and proverbial ridicule, upon the sex in general. There was