ESSAYSforYOUNG LADIES.

[8]TheAuthor begs leave to offer an apology for introducing this Eſſay, which, ſhe fears, may be thought foreign to her purpoſe. But ſhe hopes that her earneſt deſire of exciting a taſte for literature in young ladies, (which encouraged her to hazard the following remarks) will notobstructher general deſign, even if it does not actuallypromoteit.

THE END.

Lately publiſhed by the ſame Author,Ode To Dragon, Mr.Garrick'sHouse-Dog at Hampton. Price 6d.Sir Eldred of the Bower, and theBleeding Rock. LegendaryTales. Price 2s. 6d.Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand.The Sixth Edition ofTheSearchafterHappiness. APastoral Drama. Price 1s. 6d.The Third Edition ofTheInflexible Captive. A Tragedy.Price 1s. 6d.Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand; and J.Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-Yard.

Transcriber's Note:The following version of the book replaces the long s with a regular s.

dedication page 1

dedication page 2

Asfor you, I shall advise you in a few words: aspire only to those virtues that arepeculiar to your sex; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not to be talked of one way or the other.Oration of Pericles to the Athenian Women.

Oration of Pericles to the Athenian Women.

LONDON:Printed forJ. Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-Yard;andT. Cadell, in the Strand.MDCCLXXVII.

MADAM,Ifyou were only one of the finest writers of your time, you would probably have escaped the trouble of this address, which is drawn on you, less by the lustre of your understanding, than by the amiable qualities of your heart.Asthe following pages are written with an humble but earnest wish, to promote the interests of virtue, as far as the very limited abilities of the author allow; there is, I flatter myself, a peculiar propriety in inscribing them to you, Madam, who, while your works convey instruction and delight to the best-informed of the other sex, furnish, by your conduct, an admirable pattern of life and manners to your own. And I can with truth remark, that those graces of conversation, which would be the first praise of almost any other character, constitute but an inferior part of yours.

MADAM,

Ifyou were only one of the finest writers of your time, you would probably have escaped the trouble of this address, which is drawn on you, less by the lustre of your understanding, than by the amiable qualities of your heart.

Asthe following pages are written with an humble but earnest wish, to promote the interests of virtue, as far as the very limited abilities of the author allow; there is, I flatter myself, a peculiar propriety in inscribing them to you, Madam, who, while your works convey instruction and delight to the best-informed of the other sex, furnish, by your conduct, an admirable pattern of life and manners to your own. And I can with truth remark, that those graces of conversation, which would be the first praise of almost any other character, constitute but an inferior part of yours.

I am,Madam,With the highest esteem,Your most obedientHumble Servant,Bristol,Hannah More.May 20, 1777.

I am,Madam,With the highest esteem,Your most obedientHumble Servant,

Bristol,Hannah More.May 20, 1777.

introductionPage 1on dissipation15on conversation37on envy63on sentimental connexions77on true and false meekness107on education123on religion158miscellaneous thoughts on wit178

Itis with the utmost diffidence that the following pages are submitted to the inspection of the Public: yet, however the limited abilities of the author may have prevented her from succeeding to her wish in the execution of her present attempt, she humbly trusts that the uprightness of her intention will procure it a candid and favourable reception. The following little Essays are chiefly calculated for the younger part of her ownsex, who, she flatters herself, will not esteem them the less, because they were written immediately for their service. She by no means pretends to have composed a regular system of morals, or a finished plan of conduct: she has only endeavoured to make a few remarks on such circumstances as seemed to her susceptible of some improvement, and on such subjects as she imagined were particularly interesting to young ladies, on their first introduction into the world. She hopes they will not be offended if she has occasionally pointed out certain qualities, and suggested certain tempers, and dispositions, aspeculiarly feminine, and hazarded some observations which naturally arose from the subject, on the different characters which mark the sexes. And here again she takes the liberty to repeat that these distinctionscannot be too nicely maintained; for besides those important qualities common to both, each sex has its respective, appropriated qualifications, which would cease to be meritorious, the instant they ceased to be appropriated. Nature, propriety, and custom have prescribed certain bounds to each; bounds which the prudent and the candid will never attempt to break down; and indeed it would be highly impolitic to annihilate distinctions from which each acquires excellence, and to attempt innovations, by which both would be losers.

Womentherefore never understand their own interests so little, as when they affect those qualities and accomplishments, from the want of which they derive their highest merit. "Theporcelainclay of human kind," saysan admired writer, speaking of the sex. Greater delicacy evidently implies greater fragility; and this weakness, natural and moral, clearly points out the necessity of a superior degree of caution, retirement, and reserve.

Ifthe author may be allowed to keep up the allusion of the poet, just quoted, she would ask if we do not put the finest vases, and the costliest images in places of the greatest security, and most remote from any probability of accident, or destruction? By being so situated, they find their protection in their weakness, and their safety in their delicacy. This metaphor is far from being used with a design of placing young ladies in a trivial, unimportant light; it is only introduced to insinuate, that where there is more beauty, and more weakness, there should be greater circumspection, and superior prudence.

Men, on the contrary, are formed for the more public exhibitions on the great theatre of human life. Like the stronger and more substantial wares, they derive no injury, and lose no polish by being always exposed, and engaged in the constant commerce of the world. It is their proper element, where they respire their natural air, and exert their noblest powers, in situations which call them into action. They were intended by Providence for the bustling scenes of life; to appear terrible in arms, useful in commerce, shining in counsels.

TheAuthor fears it will be hazarding a very bold remark, in the opinion of many ladies, when she adds,that the female mind, in general, does not appear capable of attaining so high a degree of perfection in science as the male. Yet she hopes to be forgiven when she observes also, that as it does not seem to derive the chief portion of its excellence from extraordinary abilities of this kind, it is not at all lessened by the imputation of not possessing them. It is readily allowed, that the sex have lively imaginations, and those exquisite perceptions of the beautiful and defective, which come under the denomination of Taste. But pretensions to that strength of intellect, which is requisite to penetrate into the abstruser walks of literature, it is presumed they will readily relinquish. There are green pastures, and pleasant vallies, where they may wander with safety to themselves, and delight to others. They may cultivate the roses of imagination, and the valuable fruits of morals and criticism; but the steeps of Parnassus few, comparatively, have attempted to scale with success. And when it is considered, that many languages, and many sciences, must contribute to the perfection of poetical composition, it will appear less strange. The lofty Epic, the pointed Satire, and the more daring and successful flights of the Tragic Muse, seem reserved for the bold adventurers of the other sex.

Nordoes this assertion, it is apprehended, at all injure the interests of the women; they have other pretensions, on which to value themselves, and other qualities much better calculated to answer their particular purposes. We are enamoured of the soft strains of the Sicilian and the MantuanMuse, while, to the sweet notes of the pastoral reed, they sing the Contentions of the Shepherds, the Blessings of Love, or the innocent Delights of rural Life. Has it ever been ascribed to them as a defect, that their Eclogues do not treat of active scenes, of busy cities, and of wasting war? No: their simplicity is their perfection, and they are only blamed when they have too little of it.

Onthe other hand, the lofty bards who strung their bolder harps to higher measures, and sung theWrathofPeleus' Son, andMan's first Disobedience, have never been censured for want of sweetness and refinement. The sublime, the nervous, and the masculine, characterise their compositions; as the beautiful, the soft, and the delicate, mark those of the others. Grandeur,dignity, and force, distinguish the one species; ease, simplicity, and purity, the other. Both shine from their native, distinct, unborrowed merits, not from those which are foreign, adventitious, and unnatural. Yet those excellencies, which make up the essential and constituent parts of poetry, they have in common.

Womenhave generally quicker perceptions; men have juster sentiments.—Women consider how things may be prettily said; men how they may be properly said.—In women, (young ones at least) speaking accompanies, and sometimes precedes reflection; in men, reflection is the antecedent.—Women speak to shine or to please; men, to convince or confute.—Women admire what is brilliant; men what is solid.—Women prefer an extemporaneous sally of wit, or a sparkling effusion of fancy, before the most accurate reasoning, or the most laborious investigation of facts. In literary composition, women are pleased with point, turn, and antithesis; men with observation, and a just deduction of effects from their causes.—Women are fond of incident, men of argument.—Women admire passionately, men approve cautiously.—One sex will think it betrays a want of feeling to be moderate in their applause, the other will be afraid of exposing a want of judgment by being in raptures with any thing.—Men refuse to give way to the emotions they actually feel, while women sometimes affect to be transported beyond what the occasion will justify.

Asa farther confirmation of what has been advanced on the different bent of the understanding in the sexes, it may be observed, that we have heard of many female wits, but never of one female logician—of many admirable writers of memoirs, but never of one chronologer.—In the boundless and aërial regions of romance, and in that fashionable species of composition which succeeded it, and which carries a nearer approximation to the manners of the world, the women cannot be excelled: this imaginary soil they have a peculiar talent for cultivating, because here,

Invention labours more, and judgment less.

Themerit of this kind of writing consists in thevraisemblanceto real life as to the events themselves, witha certain elevation in the narrative, which places them, if not above what is natural, yet above what is common. It farther consists in the art of interesting the tender feelings by a pathetic representation of those minute, endearing, domestic circumstances, which take captive the soul before it has time to shield itself with the armour of reflection. To amuse, rather than to instruct, or to instruct indirectly by short inferences, drawn from a long concatenation of circumstances, is at once the business of this sort of composition, and one of the characteristics of female genius[1].

Inshort, it appears that the mind in each sex has some natural kind of bias, which constitutes a distinction of character, and that the happiness of both depends, in a great measure, on the preservation and observance of this distinction. For where would be the superior pleasure and satisfaction resulting from mixed conversation, if this difference were abolished? If the qualities of both were invariably and exactly the same, no benefit or entertainment would arise from the tedious and insipid uniformity of such an intercourse; whereas considerable advantages are reaped from a select society of both sexes. The rough angles and asperities of male manners are imperceptibly filed, and gradually worn smooth, by the polishing of female conversation, and the refining of female taste; while the ideas of women acquire strength and solidity, by their associating with sensible, intelligent, and judicious men.

Onthe whole, (even if fame be the object of pursuit) is it not better to succeed as women, than to fail as men? To shine, by walking honourably in the road which nature, custom, and education seem to have marked out, rather than to counteract them all, by moving awkwardly in a path diametrically opposite? To be good originals, rather than bad imitators? In a word, to be excellent women, rather than indifferent men?

[1]Theauthor does not apprehend it makes against hergeneralposition, that this nation can boast a female critic, poet, historian, linguist, philosopher, and moralist, equal to most of the other sex. To these particular instances others might be adduced; but it is presumed, that they only stand as exceptions against the rule, without tending to invalidate the rule itself.

DOGLIE CERTE, ALLEGREZZE INCERTE!PETRARCA.

Asan argument in favour of modern manners, it has been pleaded, that the softer vices of Luxury and Dissipation, belong rather to gentle and yielding tempers, than to such as are rugged and ferocious: that they are vices which increase civilization, and tend to promote refinement, and the cultivation of humanity.

Butthis is an assertion, the truth of which the experience of all ages contradicts. Nero was not less a tyrant for being a fiddler: He[2]who wished the whole Roman people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them at a blow, was himself the most debauched man in Rome; and Sydney and Russel were condemned to bleed under the most barbarous, though most dissipated and voluptuous, reign that ever disgraced the annals of Britain.

Thelove of dissipation is, I believe, allowed to be the reigning evil of the present day. It is an evil which manycontent themselves with regretting, without seeking to redress. A dissipated life is censured in the very act of dissipation, and prodigality of time is as gravely declaimed against at the card table, as in the pulpit.

Thelover of dancing censures the amusements of the theatre for their dulness, and the gamester blames them both for their levity. She, whose whole soul is swallowed up in "opera extacies" is astonished, that her acquaintance can spend whole nights in preying, like harpies, on the fortunes of their fellow-creatures; while the grave sober sinner, who passes her pale and anxious vigils, in this fashionable sort of pillaging, is no less surprised how the other can waste her precious time in hearing sounds for which she hasno taste, in a language she does not understand.

Inshort, every one seems convinced, that the evil so much complained of does really exist somewhere, though all are inwardly persuaded that it is not with themselves. All desire a general reformation, but few will listen to proposals of particular amendment; the body must be restored, but each limb begs to remain as it is; and accusations which concern all, will be likely to affect none. They think that sin, like matter, is divisible, and that what is scattered among so many, cannot materially affect any one; and thus individuals contribute separately to that evil which they in general lament.

Theprevailing manners of an age depend more than we are aware, orare willing to allow, on the conduct of the women; this is one of the principal hinges on which the great machine of human society turns. Those who allow the influence which female graces have, in contributing to polish the manners of men, would do well to reflect how great an influence female morals must also have on their conduct. How much then is it to be regretted, that the British ladies should ever sit down contented to polish, when they are able to reform, to entertain, when they might instruct, and to dazzle for an hour, when they are candidates for eternity!

Underthe dispensation of Mahomet's law, indeed, these mental excellencies cannot be expected, because the women are shut out from all opportunities of instruction, and excludedfrom the endearing pleasures of a delightful and equal society; and, as a charming poet sings, are taught to believe, that

For their inferior naturesForm'd to delight, and happy by delighting,Heav'n has reserv'd no future paradise,But bids them rove the paths of bliss, secureOf total death, and careless of hereafter.Irene.

For their inferior naturesForm'd to delight, and happy by delighting,Heav'n has reserv'd no future paradise,But bids them rove the paths of bliss, secureOf total death, and careless of hereafter.

Irene.

Theseact consistently in studying none but exterior graces, in cultivating only personal attractions, and in trying to lighten the intolerable burden of time, by the most frivolous and vain amusements. They act in consequence of their own blind belief, and the tyranny of their despotic masters; for they have neither the freedom of a present choice, nor the prospect of a future being.

Butin this land of civil and religious liberty, where there is as little despotism exercised over the minds, as over the persons of women, they have every liberty of choice, and every opportunity of improvement; and how greatly does this increase their obligation to be exemplary in their general conduct, attentive to the government of their families, and instrumental to the good order of society!

Shewho is at a loss to find amusements at home, can no longer apologize for her dissipation abroad, by saying she is deprived of the benefit and the pleasure of books; and she who regrets being doomed to a state of dark and gloomy ignorance, by the injustice, or tyranny of the men, complains of an evil which does not exist.

Itis a question frequently in the mouths of illiterate and dissipated females—"What good is there in reading? To what end does it conduce?" It is, however, too obvious to need insisting on, that unless perverted, as the best things may be, reading answers many excellent purposes beside the great leading one, and is perhaps the safest remedy for dissipation. She who dedicates a portion of her leisure to useful reading, feels her mind in a constant progressive state of improvement, whilst the mind of a dissipated woman is continually losing ground. An active spirit rejoiceth, like the sun, to run his daily course, while indolence, like the dial of Ahaz, goes backwards. The advantages which the understanding receives from polite literature, it is not here necessary to enumerate; its effects on the moraltemper is the present object of consideration. The remark may perhaps be thought too strong, but I believe it is true, that next to religious influences, an habit of study is the most probable preservative of the virtue of young persons. Those who cultivate letters have rarely a strong passion for promiscuous visiting, or dissipated society; study therefore induces a relish for domestic life, the most desirable temper in the world for women. Study, as it rescues the mind from an inordinate fondness for gaming, dress, and public amusements, is an [oe]conomical propensity; for a lady may read at much less expence than she can play at cards; as it requires some application, it gives the mind an habit of industry; as it is a relief against that mental disease, which the French emphatically callennui, it cannot failof being beneficial to the temper and spirits, I mean in the moderate degree in which ladies are supposed to use it; as an enemy to indolence, it becomes a social virtue; as it demands the full exertion of our talents, it grows a rational duty; and when directed to the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and his laws, it rises into an act of religion.

Therage for reformation commonly shews itself in a violent zeal for suppressing what is wrong, rather than in a prudent attention to establish what is right; but we shall never obtain a fair garden merely by rooting up weeds, we must also plant flowers; for the natural richness of the soil we have been clearing will not suffer it to lie barren, but whether it shall be vainly or beneficially prolific, depends on theculture. What the present age has gained on one side, by a more enlarged and liberal way of thinking, seems to be lost on the other, by excessive freedom and unbounded indulgence. Knowledge is not, as heretofore, confined to the dull cloyster, or the gloomy college, but disseminated, to a certain degree, among both sexes and almost all ranks. The only misfortune is, that these opportunities do not seem to be so wisely improved, or turned to so good an account as might be wished. Books of a pernicious, idle, and frivolous sort, are too much multiplied, and it is from the very redundancy of them that true knowledge is so scarce, and the habit of dissipation so much increased.

Ithas been remarked, that the prevailing character of the present age isnot that of gross immorality: but if this is meant of those in the higher walks of life, it is easy to discern, that there can be but little merit in abstaining from crimes which there is but little temptation to commit. It is however to be feared, that a gradual defection from piety, will in time draw after it all the bad consequences of more active vice; for whether mounds and fences are suddenly destroyed by a sweeping torrent, or worn away through gradual neglect, the effect is equally destructive. As a rapid fever and a consuming hectic are alike fatal to our natural health, so are flagrant immorality and torpid indolence to our moral well-being.

Thephilosophical doctrine of the slow recession of bodies from the sun, is a lively image of the reluctance withwhich we first abandon the light of virtue. The beginning of folly, and the first entrance on a dissipated life cost some pangs to a well-disposed heart; but it is surprising to see how soon the progress ceases to be impeded by reflection, or slackened by remorse. For it is in moral as in natural things, the motion in minds as well as bodies is accelerated by a nearer approach to the centre to which they are tending. If we recede slowly at first setting out, we advance rapidly in our future course; and to have begun to be wrong, is already to have made a great progress.

A constanthabit of amusement relaxes the tone of the mind, and renders it totally incapable of application, study, or virtue. Dissipation not only indisposes its votaries to every thinguseful and excellent, but disqualifies them for the enjoyment of pleasure itself. It softens the soul so much, that the most superficial employment becomes a labour, and the slightest inconvenience an agony. The luxurious Sybarite must have lost all sense of real enjoyment, and all relish for true gratification, before he complained that he could not sleep, because the rose leaves lay double under him.

Luxuryand dissipation, soft and gentle as their approaches are, and silently as they throw their silken chains about the heart, enslave it more than the most active and turbulent vices. The mightiest conquerors have been conquered by these unarmed foes: the flowery setters are fastened, before they are felt. The blandishments of Circe were more fatal to the mariners ofUlysses, than the strength of Polypheme, or the brutality of the Læstrigons. Hercules, after he had cleansed the Augean stable, and performed all the other labours enjoined him by Euristheus, found himself a slave to the softnesses of the heart; and he, who wore a club and a lion's skin in the cause of virtue, condescended to the most effeminate employments to gratify a criminal weakness. Hannibal, who vanquished mighty nations, was himself overcome by the love of pleasure; and he who despised cold, and want, and danger, and death on the Alps, was conquered and undone by the dissolute indulgences of Capua.

Beforethe hero of the most beautiful and virtuous romance that ever was written, I mean Telemachus,landed on the island of Cyprus, he unfortunately lost his prudent companion, Mentor, in whom wisdom is so finely personified. At first he beheld with horror the wanton and dissolute manners of the voluptuous inhabitants; the ill effects of their example were not immediate: he did not fall into the commission of glaring enormities; but his virtue was secretly and imperceptibly undermined, his heart was softened by their pernicious society; and the nerve of resolution was slackened: he every day beheld with diminished indignation the worship which was offered to Venus; the disorders of luxury and prophaneness became less and less terrible, and the infectious air of the country enfeebled his courage, and relaxed his principles. In short, he had ceased to love virtue long before he thought of committingactual vice; and the duties of a manly piety were burdensome to him, before he was so debased as to offer perfumes, and burn incense on the altar of the licentious goddess[3].

"Letus crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered," said Solomon's libertine. Alas! he did not reflect that they withered in the very gathering. The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the browof him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.

Theheathen poets often pressed on their readers the necessity of considering the shortness of life, as an incentive to pleasure and voluptuousness; lest the season for indulging in them should pass unimproved. The dark and uncertain notions, not to say the absolute disbelief, which they entertained of a future state, is the only apology that can be offered for this reasoning. But while we censure their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. Itwere well if we availed ourselves of that portion of their precept, which inculcates the improvement of every moment of our time, but not like them to dedicate the moments so redeemed to the pursuit of sensual and perishable pleasures, but to the securing of those which are spiritual in their nature, and eternal in their duration.

If, indeed, like the miserable[4]beings imagined by Swift, with a view to cure us of the irrational desire after immoderate length of days, we were condemned to a wretched earthly immortality, we should have an excuse for spending some portion of our time in dissipation, as we might then pretend, with some colour of reason, that we proposed, at a distant period, toenter on a better course of action. Or if we never formed any such resolution, it would make no material difference to beings, whose state was already unalterably fixed. But of the scanty portion of days assigned to our lot, not one should be lost in weak and irresolute procrastination.

Thosewho have not yet determined on the side of vanity, who, like Hercules, (before he knew the queen of Lydia, and had learnt to spin) have not resolved on their choice betweenvirtueandpleasure, may reflect, that it is still in their power to imitate that hero in his noble choice, and in his virtuous rejection. They may also reflect with grateful triumph, that Christianity furnishes them with a better guide than the tutor of Alcides,and with a surer light than the doctrines of pagan philosophy.

Itis far from my design severely to condemn the innocent pleasures of life: I would only beg leave to observe, that those which are criminal should never be allowed; and that even the most innocent will, by immoderate use, soon cease to be so.

Thewomen of this country were not sent into the world to shun society, but to embellish it; they were not designed for wilds and solitudes, but for the amiable and endearing offices of social life. They have useful stations to fill, and important characters to sustain. They are of a religion which does not impose penances, but enjoins duties; a religion of perfect purity, but of perfect benevolence also. A religion which does not condemn its followers to indolent seclusion from the world, but assigns them the more dangerous, though more honourable province, of living uncorrupted in it. In fine, a religion, which does not direct them to fly from the multitude, that they may do nothing, but which positively forbids them to follow a multitude to do evil.

[2]The Emperor Caligula.

[3]Nothingcan be more admirable than the manner in which this allegory is conducted; and the whole work, not to mention its images, machinery, and other poetical beauties, is written in the very finest strain of morality. In this latter respect it is evidently superior to the works of the ancients, the moral of which is frequently tainted by the grossness of their mythology. Something of the purity of the Christian religion may be discovered even in Fenelon's heathens, and they catch a tincture of piety in passing through the hands of that amiable prelate.

[4]The Struldbrugs. See Voyage to Laputa.

Ithas been advised, and by very respectable authorities too, that in conversation women should carefully conceal any knowledge or learning they may happen to possess. I own, with submission, that I do not see either the necessity or propriety of thisadvice. For if a young lady has that discretion and modesty, without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more, than on displaying what she has.

I amat a loss to know why a young female is instructed to exhibit, in the most advantageous point of view, her skill in music, her singing, dancing, taste in dress, and her acquaintance with the most fashionable games and amusements, while her piety is to be anxiously concealed, and her knowledge affectedly disavowed, lest the former should draw on her the appellation of an enthusiast, or the latter that of a pedant.

Inregard to knowledge, why should she for ever affect to be on her guard, lest she should be found guilty of a small portion of it? She need be the less solicitous about it, as it seldom proves to be so very considerable as to excite astonishment or admiration: for, after all the acquisitions which her talents and her studies have enabled her to make, she will, generally speaking, be found to have less of what is calledlearning, than a common school-boy.

Itwould be to the last degree presumptuous and absurd, for a young woman to pretend to give thetonto the company; to interrupt the pleasure of others, and her own opportunity of improvement, by talking when she ought to listen; or to introduce subjects out of the common road, in order to shew her own wit, or expose the want of it in others: but were the sex to be totally silent when any topic of literature happens to be discussed in their presence, conversation would lose much of its vivacity, and society would be robbed of one of its most interesting charms.

Howeasily and effectually may a well-bred woman promote the most useful and elegant conversation, almost without speaking a word! for the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence. The silence of listless ignorance, and the silence of sparkling intelligence, are perhaps as separately marked, and as distinctly expressed, as the same feelings could have been by the most unequivocal language. A woman, in a company where she has the least influence, maypromote any subject by a profound and invariable attention, which shews that she is pleased with it, and by an illuminated countenance, which proves she understands it. This obliging attention is the most flattering encouragement in the world to men of sense and letters, to continue any topic of instruction or entertainment they happen to be engaged in: it owed its introduction perhaps to accident, the best introduction in the world for a subject of ingenuity, which, though it could not have been formally proposed without pedantry, may be continued with ease and good humour; but which will be frequently and effectually stopped by the listlessness, inattention, or whispering of silly girls, whose weariness betrays their ignorance, and whose impatience exposes their ill-breeding. A polite man, however deeply interested in the subject on which he is conversing, catches at the slightest hint to have done: a look is a sufficient intimation, and if a pretty simpleton, who sits near him, seemsdistraite, he puts an end to his remarks, to the great regret of the reasonable part of the company, who perhaps might have gained more improvement by the continuance of such a conversation, than a week's reading would have yielded them; for it is such company as this, that give an edge to each other's wit, "as iron sharpeneth iron."

Thatsilence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art but even an eloquence in it. And this opinion is confirmed by a great modern[5], in the following little anecdote from one of the ancients.

Whenmany Grecian philosophers had a solemn meeting before the ambassador of a foreign prince, each endeavoured to shew his parts by the brilliancy of his conversation, that the ambassador might have something to relate of the Grecian wisdom. One of them, offended, no doubt, at the loquacity of his companions, observed a profound silence; when the ambassador, turning to him, asked, "But what have you to say, that I may report it?" He made this laconic, but very pointed reply: "Tell your king, that you have found one among the Greeks who knew how to be silent."

Thereis a quality infinitely more intoxicating to the female mind than knowledge—this is Wit, the most captivating, but the most dreaded of all talents: the most dangerous to thosewho have it, and the most feared by those who have it not. Though it is against all the rules, yet I cannot find in my heart to abuse this charming quality. He who is grown rich without it, in safe and sober dulness, shuns it as a disease, and looks upon poverty as its invariable concomitant. The moralist declaims against it as the source of irregularity, and the frugal citizen dreads it more than bankruptcy itself, for he considers it as the parent of extravagance and beggary. The Cynic will ask of what use it is? Of very little perhaps: no more is a flower garden, and yet it is allowed as an object of innocent amusement and delightful recreation. A woman, who possesses this quality, has received a most dangerous present, perhaps not less so than beauty itself: especially if it be not sheathed in a temper peculiarly inoffensive, chastised by a most correct judgment, and restrained by more prudence than falls to the common lot.

Thistalent is more likely to make a woman vain than knowledge; for as Wit is the immediate property of its possessor, and learning is only an acquaintance with the knowledge of other people, there is much more danger, that we should be vain of what is our own, than of what we borrow.

ButWit, like learning, is not near so common a thing as is imagined. Let not therefore a young lady be alarmed at the acuteness of her own wit, any more than at the abundance of her own knowledge. The great danger is, lest she should mistake pertness, flippancy, or imprudence, for thisbrilliant quality, or imagine she is witty, only because she is indiscreet. This is very frequently the case, and this makes the name of wit so cheap, while its real existence is so rare.

Lestthe flattery of her acquaintance, or an over-weening opinion of her own qualifications, should lead some vain and petulant girl into a false notion that she has a great deal of wit, when she has only a redundancy of animal spirits, she may not find it useless to attend to the definition of this quality, by one who had as large a portion of it, as most individuals could ever boast:

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