ther last week against a certain seditious volume, published by a female incendiary, called the Rights of Woman, tending most notoriously to inflame the minds of the sex with opinions dangerous to the permanence of the female empire, calculated to destroy all that power and ascendancy which they have hitherto owed to their gentleness of character, and to embroil them in a contest with a superior force, that must inevitably terminate in a most disgraceful defeat. An unanimous vote of thanks to my mother was immediately concluded upon. The paper that now was produced, was of a very extraordinary kind; and as it was the first they had received from any of our sex, there was a debate of some continuance, whether or not it ought to be admitted. At length, however, they decided in the affirmative, after having entered a clause in their journals against its becoming a precedent. It was a petition from a gentleman who stated himself to have turned the corner of thirty, without ever having had the felicity to be really in love, though this had been the leading object of his ambition since he had entered into his fifteenth year. He represented himself to be precisely in the predicament described in a sensible maxim of La Bruyere : 66 Les hommes souvent veulent aimer, & ne sauroient y reussir; ils cherchent leur défaite, sans pouvoir la rencontrer; & si j'ose ainsi parler, ils sont contraints de demeurer libres." He begged to be indulged with an opportunity of explaining himself more at large to the society, that they might judge whether the fault was in himself or in the sex, and furnish him accordingly with their advice and assistance. He furthermore stated, that for this last fortnight he had felt some unusual pains about the diaphragm and præcordia: butt hat he was somewhat in the case of the King in 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. 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. 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, Verba. Solæcismum liceat fecisse marito." I was desired to read the translation of this passage 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; Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits; She has so far th' ascendant of the board, The prating pedant puts not in a word. |