Chapter 4

The question concerning the equality of the sexes which was discussed so warmly some thirty years ago in Magazines and Debating Societies, was one upon which it was not easy to collect the Doctor's real opinion. His manner indeed was frequently sportive when his meaning was most serious, and as frequently the thoughts and speculations with which he merely played, and which were sports or exercitations of intellect and humour, were advanced with apparent gravity. The propensity however was always restrained within due bounds, for he had treasured up his father's lessons in his heart, and would have regarded it as a crime ever to have trifled with his principles or feelings. But this question concerning the sexes was a subject which he was fond of introducing before his female acquaintance; it was like hitting the right note for a dog when you play the flute, he said. The sort of half anger, and the indignation, and the astonishment and the merriment withal which he excited when he enlarged upon this fertile theme, amused him greatly, and moreover he had a secret pleasure in observing the invincible good humour of his wife, even when she thought it necessary for the honour of her sex to put on a semblance of wrath at the notions which he repeated, and the comments with which he accompanied them.

He used to rest his opinion of male superiority upon divinity, law, grammar, natural history, and the universal consent of nations. Noting also by the way, that in the noble science of heraldry, it is laid down as a rule “that amongst things sensitive the males are of more worthy bearing than the females.”1

1GWILLIM.

The Salic law he looked upon as in this respect the Law of Nature. And therefore he thought it was wisely appointed in France, that the royal Midwife should receive a fee of five hundred crowns upon the birth of a boy and only three hundred if it were a female child. This the famous Louise Bourgeois has stated to be the custom, who for the edification of posterity, the advancement of her own science, and the use of French historians published aRecit veritable de la naissance de Messieurs et Dames les enfans de France, containing minute details of every royal parturition at which she had officiated.

But he dwelt with more force on the theological grounds of his position. “The wife is the weaker vessel. Wives submit yourselves to your husbands: be in subjection to them. The Husband is the head. Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.” And here he had recourse to the authority of Daniel Rogers (whom he liked the better for his name's sake) who in his Treatise of Matrimonial Honour teaches that the duty of subjection, is woman's chief commandment; and that she is properly made subject by the Law of Creation and by the Law of Penalty. As thus. All other creatures were created male and female at the same time; man and woman were not so, for the Man was first created—as a perfect creature, and afterwards the woman was thought of. Moreover she was not made of the same matter, equally, with man,—but of him, of a rib taken from him, and thirdly, she was made for his use and benefit as a meet help-mate, “three weighty reasons and grounds of the woman's subjection to the man, and that from the purpose of the Creator; who might have done otherwise, that is, have yielded to the Woman co-equal beginning, sameness of generation, or relation of usefulness; for he might have made her without any such precedency of matter, without any dependency upon him, and equally for her good as for his. All shew at ennobling the Man as the Head and more excellent, not that the Man might upbraid her, but that she might in all these read her lesson of subjection. And doubtless, as Malachi speaks, herein is wisdom, for God hath left nothing to be bettered by our invention.

“The woman, being so created by God in the integrity of Nature had a most divine honour and partnership of his image, put upon her in her creation; yea, such as (without prejudice of those three respects) might have held full and sweet correspondence with her husband. But her sin still augmented her inequality, and brought her lower and lower in her prerogative. For since she would take upon her, as a woman, without respect to the order, dependence and use of her creation, to enterprize so sad a business, as to jangle and demur with the Devil about so weighty a point as her husband's freehold, and of her own brain to lay him and it under foot, without the least parley and consent of his, obeying Satan before him,—so that till she had put all beyond question and past amendment, and eaten, she brought not the fruit to him, therefore the Lord stript her of this robe of her honour, and smote into the heart of Eve an instinct of inferiority, a confessed yielding up of her insufficient self to depend wholly upon her husband.”

This being a favourite commentary with the Doctor upon the first transgression, what would he have said if he had lived to read an Apology for Eve by one of her daughters, yes, an Apology for her and a Defence, showing that she acted meritoriously in eating the Apple. It is a choice passage and the reader shall have it from Miss Hatfield's Letters on the Importance of the Female Sex.

“By the creation of woman, the great design was accomplished,—the universal system was harmonized. Happiness and innocence reigned together. But unacquainted with the nature or existence of evil,—conscious only of good and imagining that all were of that essence around her; without the advantages of the tradition of forefathers to relate, or of ancient records to hand down, Eve was fatally and necessarily ignorant of the rebellious disobedience of the fallen Angels, and of their invisible vigilance and combination to accomplish the destruction of the new favourites of Heaven.

“In so momentous an event as that which has ever been exclusively imputed to her, neither her virtue nor her prudence ought to be suspected; and there is little reason to doubt, that if the same temptations had been offered to her husband under the same appearances, but he also would have acquiesced in the commission of this act of disobedience.

“Eve's attention was attracted by the manner in which the Serpent first made his attack: he had the gift of speech, which she must have observed to be a faculty peculiar to themselves. This appeared an evidence of something supernatural. The wily tempter chose also the form of the serpent to assist his design, as not only in wisdom and sagacity that creature surpassed all others, but his figure was also erect and beautiful, for it was not until the offended justice of God denounced the curse, that the Serpent's crest was humbled to the dust.

“During this extraordinary interview, it is evident that Eve felt a full impression of the divine command, which she repeated to the tempter at the time of his solicitations. She told him they were not to eat ofthatTree.—But the Serpent opposed her arguments with sophistry and promises. He said unto the Woman, ye shall not surely die—but shall be as Gods. What an idea to a mortal!—Such an image astonished her!—It was not the gross impulses of greedy appetite that urged her, but a nobler motive that induced her to examine the consequences of the act.—She was to be better and happier;—to exchange a mortal for an angelic nature. Her motive was great,—virtuous,—irresistible. Might she not have felt herself awed and inspired with a belief of a divine order?—Upon examination she found it was to produce a greater good than as mortals they could enjoy; this impression excited a desire to possess that good; and that desire determined her will and the future destiny of a World!”

It must be allowed that this Lady Authoress has succeeded in what might have been supposed the most difficult of all attempts, that of starting a new heresy,—her followers in which may aptly be denominated Eveites.

The novelty consists not in excusing the mother of mankind, but in representing her transgression as a great and meritorious act. An excuse has been advanced for her in Lodovico Domenichi's Dialogue upon the nobleness of Women. It is there pleaded that the fruit of the fatal tree had not been forbidden to Eve, because she was not created when the prohibition was laid on. Adam it was who sinned in eating it, not Eve, and it is in Adam that we have all sinned, and all die. Her offence was in tempting him to eat,et questo anchora senza intention cattiva, essendo stata tentata dal Diavolo. L'huomo adunque peccò per certa scientia, et la Donna ignorantemente, et ingannata.

I know not whether this special pleading be Domenichi's own; but he must have been conscious that there is a flaw in it, and could not have been in earnest, as Miss Hatfield is. The Veronese lady Isotta Nogarola thought differently;essendo studiosa molto di Theologia et di Philosophia, she composed a Dialogue wherein the question whether Adam or Eve in the primal transgression had committed the greater sin. How she determined it I cannot say, never having seen her works.

Domenichi makes another assertion in honour of womankind which Miss Hatfield would undoubtedly consider it an honour for herself to have disproved in her own person,—that no heresy, or error in the faith ever originated with a woman.

Had this Lady, most ambitious of Eve's daughters, been contemporary with Doctor Dove, how pleasant it would have been to have witnessed a debate between them upon the subject! He would have wound her up to the highest pitch of indignation, and she would have opened the flood-gates of female oratory upon his head.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.—OPINIONS OF THE RABBIS.—ANECDOTE OF LADY JEKYLL AND A TART REPLY OF WILLIAM WHISTON'S.—JEAN D'ESPAGNE.—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF THE QUORUM QUARUM QUORUM GENDER.—THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN AGREE WITH MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS, BUT ARE OF OPINION THAT THE DEVIL IS AN HERMAPHRODITE.

Sing of the nature of women; and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: it shall be humourous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all and all in one.

MARSTON.

The Doctor had other theological arguments in aid of the opinion which he was pleased to support. The remark has been made which is curious, or in the language of Jeremy Taylor's age,considerable, that we read in Genesis how when God saw every thing else which he had made he pronounced that it was very good, but he did not say this of the woman.

There are indeed certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out of Adam's side: but that Adam had originally been created with a tail (herein agreeing with the well-known theory of Lord Monboddo) and that among the various experiments and improvements which were made in his form and organization before he was finished, the tail was removed as an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or superfluous part which was then lopt off, the Woman was formed.

We are not bound to believe the Rabbis in every thing, the Doctor would say; and yet it cannot be denied that they have preserved some valuable traditions which ought to be regarded with much respect. And then by a gentle inclination of the head—and a peculiar glance of the eye, he let it be understood that this was one of those traditions which were entitled to consideration. It was not impossible he said, but that a different reading in the original text might support such an interpretation: the same word in Hebrew frequently signified different things, and rib and tail might in that language be as near each other in sound or as easily miswritten by a hasty hand, or misread by an inaccurate eye ascostaandcaudain Latin. He did not pretend that this was the case—but that it might be so. And by a like corruption (for to such corruptions all written and even all printed books are liable) the text may have represented that Eve was taken from the side of her husband instead of from that part of the back where the tail grew. The dropping of a syllable might occasion it.

And this view of the question he said, derived strong support from that well known and indubitable text wherein the Husband is called the Head; for although that expression is in itself most clear and significative in its own substantive meaning, it becomes still more beautifully and emphatically appropriate when considered as referring to this interpretation and tradition, and implying as a direct and necessary converse that the Wife is the Tail.

There is another legend relating to a like but even less worthy formation of the first helpmate, and this also is ascribed to the Rabbis. According to this mythos the rib which had been taken from Adam was for a moment laid down, and in that moment a monkey stole it and ran off with it full speed. An Angel pursued, and though not in league with the Monkey he could have been no good Angel; for overtaking him, he caught him by the Tail, brought it maliciously back instead of the Rib, and of that Tail, was Woman made. What became of the Rib, with which the Monkey got clear off, “was never to mortal known.”

However the Doctor admitted that on the whole the received opinion was the more probable. And after making this admission he related an anecdote of Lady Jekyll who was fond of puzzling herself and others with such questions as had been common enough a generation before her, in the days of the Athenian Oracle. She asked William Whiston of berhymed name and eccentric memory, one day at her husband's table to resolve a difficulty which occurred to her in the Mosaic account of the creation. “Since it pleased God, Sir,” said she, “to create the Woman out of the Man, why did he form her out of the rib rather than any other part.” Whiston scratched his head and answered. “Indeed Madam I do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked part of the body.” “There!” said her husband, “you have it now: I hope you are satisfied!”

He had found in the writings of the Huguenot divine, Jean D'Espagne, that Women have never had either the gift of tongues, or of miracle; the latter gift according to this theologian being withheld from them because it properly accompanies preaching, and women are forbidden to be preachers. A reason for the former exception the Doctor supplied; he said it was because one tongue was quite enough for them: and he entirely agreed with the Frenchman that it must be so, because there could have been no peace on earth had it been otherwise. But whether the sex worked miracles or not, was a point which he left the Catholics to contend. Female Saints there certainly had been,—“the Lord,” as Daniel Rogers said, “had gifted and graced many women above some men especially with holy affections; I know not,” says that divine, “why he should do it else (for he is wise and not superfluous in needless things) save that as a Pearl shining through a chrystal glass, so her excellency shining through her weakness of sex, might show the glory of the workman.” He quoted also what the biographer of one of the St. Catharines says, “that such a woman ought not to be called a woman, but rather an earthly Angel, or a heavenly homo:hæc fœmina, sed potius Angelus terrestris, vel si malueris, homo cælestis dicenda erat, quam fœmina.” In like manner the Hungarians thinking it infamous for a nation to be governed by a woman—and yet perceiving the great advantage of preserving the succession, when the crown fell to a female, they called her King Mary, instead of Queen.

And Queen Elizabeth rather than be accounted of the feminine gender, claimed it as her prerogative to be of all three. “A prime officer with a White Staff coming into her presence” she willed him to bestow a place then vacant upon a person whom she named. “May it please your Highness Madam,” said the Lord, “the disposal of that place pertaineth to me by virtue of this White Staff.” “True,” replied the Queen, “yet I never gave you your office so absolutely, but that I still reserved myself of theQuorum.” “Of theQuarum, Madam,” returned the Lord, presuming, somewhat too far, upon her favour.—Whereat she snatched the staff in some anger out of his hand, and told him “he should acknowledge her of theQuorum, Quorum, Quorumbefore he had it again.”

It was well known indeed to Philosophers, he said, that the female is an imperfection or default in nature, whose constant design is to form a male; but where strength and temperament are wanting—a defective production is the result. Aristotle therefore calls Woman a Monster, and Plato makes it a question whether she ought not to be ranked among irrational creatures. There were Greek Philosophers, who (rightly in his judgment) derived the name ofἈθηνῆfromΘῆλυςandalpha privativa, as implying that the Goddess of wisdom, though Goddess, was nevertheless no female, having nothing of female imperfection. And a book unjustly ascribed to the learned Acidalius was published in Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women were not reasonable creatures, but distinguished from men by this specific difference, as well as in sex.

Mahomet too was not the only person who has supposed that women have no souls. In this Christian and reformed country, the question was propounded to the British Apollo whether there is now, or will be at the resurrection any females in Heaven—since, says the questioner, there seems to be no need of them there! The Society of Gentlemen who, (in imitation of John Dunton, his brother-in-law the elder Wesley, and their coadjutors,) had undertaken in this Journal to answer all questions, returned a grave reply, that sexes being corporeal distinctions there could be no such distinction among the souls which are now in bliss; neither could it exist after the resurrection, for they who partook of eternal life neither marry nor are given in marriage.

That same Society supposed the Devil to be an Hermaphrodite, for though by his roughness they said he might be thought of the masculine gender, they were led to that opinion because he appeared so often in petticoats.

FRACAS WITH THE GENDER FEMININE.—THE DOCTOR'S DEFENCE.

If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be—as they are.

TIMON OFATHENS.

“Papp-paah!” says my daughter.

“You intolerable man!” says my wife.

“You abominable creature!” says my wife's eldest sister, “you wicked wretch!”

“Oh Mr. Author,” says Miss Graveairs, “I did not expect this from you.”

“Very well, Sir, very well! This is like you!” says the Bow-Begum.

“Was there ever such an atrocious libel upon the sex,” says the Lady President of the Celestial Blues.

The Ladies of the Stocking unanimously agree in the sentence of condemnation.

Let me see, who do I know among them. There is Mrs. Lapis Lazuli and her daughter Miss Ultramarine,—there is Mrs. Bluestone, the most caustic of female critics, and her friend Miss Gentian,—Heaven protect me from the bitterness of her remarks,—there is Lady Turquoise, Lady Celestina Sky, the widow Bluebeard, Miss Mazarine, and that pretty creature Serena Cerulean, it does me good to look at her, she is the blue-bell of the party. There is Miss Sapphire, Miss Priscilla Prussian, Mrs. Indigo, and the Widow Woad. And Heaven knows who beside. Mercy on me—it were better to be detected at the mysteries of the Bona Dea, than be found here! Hear them how they open in succession—

Infamous!

Shameful!

Intolerable!

This is too bad.

He has heaped together all the slanderous and odious things that could be collected from musty books.

Talk of his Wife and Daughter. I do not believe any one who had wife and daughter would have composed such a Chapter as that. An old batchelor I warrant him, and mustier than his books.

Pedant!

Satirist!

Libeller!

Wretch!

Monster!

And Miss Virginia Vinegar compleats the climax by exclaiming with peculiar emphasis, Man!

All Indigo-land is in commotion; and Urgand the Unknown would be in as much dangerproh-Jupiter!from the Stockingers, if he fell into their hands, as Orpheus from the Mænades.Tantæne animis cælestibus iræ?

Why Ladies! dear Ladies! good Ladies! gentle Ladies! merciful Ladies! hear me,—hear me! In justice, in compassion, in charity hear me! For your own sakes, and for the honour of feminality hear me!

What has the wretch to say?

Whatcanhe say?

What indeedcan be said?Nevertheless let us hear him, so bad a case must always be made worse by any attempt at defending it.

Hear him! hear him!

Englishwomen, countrywomen, and lovelies,—lovelies I certainly may call you, if it be not lawful for me to say lovers,—hear me for your honour, and have respect to your honour that you may believe, censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may be better judges. Who is here so unfeminine that would be a male creature? if any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so coarse that would not be a woman! if any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love her sex? if any speak; for her have I offended. I can have offended none but those who are ashamed of their womanhood, if any such there be, which I am far from thinking.

Gentle Ladies do you in your conscience believe that any reasonable person could possibly think the worse of womankind, for any of the strange and preposterous opinions which my lamented and excellent friend used to repeat in the playfulness of an eccentric fancy? Do you suppose that he was more in earnest when he brought forward these learned fooleries, than the Devil's Advocate when pleading against a suit for canonization in the Papal Court?

questo negro inchiostro, ch'io dispenzoNon fu per dare, o donne, a i vostri nasi,Ingrato odore, o d'altro che d'incenzo.1

1MAURO.

Hear but to the end, and I promise you on the faith of a true man a Red Letter Chapter in your praise; not a mere panegyric in the manner of those who flatter while they despise you, but such an honest estimate as will bear a scrutiny,—and which you will not like the worse because it may perhaps be found profitable as well as pleasing.

Forgive me, sacred sex of woman, that,In thought or syllable, I have declaim'dAgainst your goodness; and I will redeem itWith such religious honouring your names,That when I die, some never thought-stain'd virginShall make a relic of my dust, and throwMy ashes, like a charm, upon those menWhose faiths they hold suspected.2

2SHIRLEY.

VALUE OF WOMEN AMONG THE AFGHAUNS.—LIGON'S HISTORY OF BARBADOES, AND A FAVORITE STORY OF THE DOCTOR'S THEREFROM.—CLAUDE SEISSEL, AND THE SALIC LAW.—JEWISH THANKSGIVING.—ETYMOLOGY OF MULIER, WOMAN, AND LASS;—FROM WHICH IT MAY BE GUESSED HOW MUCH IS CONTAINED IN THE LIMBO OF ETYMOLOGY.

If thy name were known that writest in this sort,By womankind, unnaturally, giving evil report,Whom all men ought, both young and old, defend with all their might,Considering what they do deserve of every living wight,I wish thou should exiled be from women more and less,And not without just cause thou must thyself confess.EDWARDMORE.

It would have pleased the Doctor when he was upon this topic if he had known how exactly the value of women was fixed among the Afghauns, by whose laws twelve young women are given as a compensation for the slaughter of one man, six for cutting off a hand, an ear, or a nose; three for breaking a tooth, and one for a wound of the scalp.

By the laws of the Venetians as well as of certain Oriental people, the testimony of two women was made equivalent to that of one man. And in those of the Welsh King Hywel Dda, or Howel Dha, “the satisfaction for the murder of a woman, whether she be married or not, is half that of her brother,” which is upon the same standard of relative value. By the same laws a woman was not to be admitted as bail for a man, nor as witness against him.

He knew that a French Antiquarian (Claude Seissel) had derived the name of the Salic law from the Latin wordSal, comme une loy pleine de sel, c'est a dire pleine de sapience,1and this the Doctor thought a far more rational etymology than what some one proposed either seriously or in sport, that the law was calledSaliquebecause the wordsSi aliquisandSi aliquawere of such frequent occurrence in it. “To be born a manchild,” says that learned author who first composed an Art of Rhetoric in the English tongue, “declares a courage, gravity and constancy. To be born a woman, declares weakness of spirit, neshenes of body and fickleness of mind.”2Justin Martyr, after saying that the Demons by whom according to him the system of heathen mythology was composed, spake of Minerva as the first Intelligence and the daughter of Jupiter, makes this observation; “now this we consider most absurd, to carry about the image of Intelligence in a female form!” The Father said this as thinking with the great French comic poet that a woman never could be any thing more than a woman.

Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître,Un certain animal difficile à connoître,Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal;Et comme un animal est toujours animal.Et ne sera jamais qu' animal, quand sa vieDureroit cent mille ans; aussi, sans repartie,La femme est toujours femme, et jamais ne seraQue femme, tant qu'entier le monde durera.

1BRANTÔME.

2WILSON.

A favourite anecdote with our Philosopher was of the Barbadoes Planters, one of whom agreed to exchange an English maid servant with the other for a bacon pig, weight for weight, four-pence per pound to be paid for the overplus, if the balance should be in favour of the pig, sixpence if it were on the Maid's side. But when they were weighed in the scales, Honour who was “extreme fat, lazy and good for nothing,” so far outweighed the pig, that the pig's owner repented of his improvident bargain, and refused to stand to it. Such a case Ligon observes, when he records this notable story, seldom happened; but the Doctor cited it as shewing what had been the relative value of women and pork in the West Indies. And observe, he would say, of white women, English, Christian women,—not of poor heathen blacks, who are considered as brutes, bought and sold like brutes, worked like brutes—and treated worse than any Government ought to permit even brutes to be treated.

However, that women were in some respects better than men, he did not deny. He doubted not but that Cannibals thought them so; for we know by the testimony of such Cannibals as happen to have tried both, that white men are considered better meat than negroes, and Englishmen than Frenchmen, and there could be little doubt that for the same reason, women would be preferred to men. Yet this was not the case with animals, as was proved by buck venison, ox beef, and wether mutton. The tallow of the female goat would not make as good candles as that of the male. Nature takes more pains in elaborating her nobler work; and that the male, as being the nobler, was that which Nature finished with greatest care must be evident, he thought, to any one who called to mind the difference between cock and hen birds, a difference discoverable even in the egg, the larger and finer eggs with a denser white, and a richer yolk, containing male chicks. Other and more curious observations had been made tending to the same conclusion, but he omitted them, as not perhaps suited for general conversation, and not exactly capable of the same degree of proof. It was enough to hint at them.

The great Ambrose Parey (the John Hunter and the Baron Larrey of the sixteenth century) has brought forward many instances wherein women have been changed into men, instances which are not fabulous: but he observes, “you shall find in no history, men that have degenerated into women; for nature always intends and goes from the imperfect to the more perfect, but never basely from the more perfect to the imperfect.” It was a rule in the Roman law, that when husband and wife overtaken by some common calamity perished at the same time, and it could not be ascertained which had lived the longest, the woman should be presumed to have expired the first, as being by nature the feeblest. And for the same reason if it had not been noted whether brother or sister being twins came first in the world, the legal conclusion was that the boy being the stronger was the first born.

And from all these facts he thought the writer must be a judicious person who published a poem entitled the Great Birth of Man, or Excellence of his creation over Woman.

Therefore according to the Bramins, the widow who burns herself with the body of her husband, will in her next state be born a male; but the widow, who refuses to make this self sacrifice, will never be any thing better than a woman, let her be born again as often as she may.

Therefore it is that the Jew at this day begins his public prayer with a thanksgiving to his Maker, for not having made him a woman;—an escape for which the Greek philosopher was thankful. One of the things which shocked a Moor who visited England was to see dogs, women, and dirty shoes permitted to enter a place of worship, the Mahometans, as is well known, excluding all three from their Mosques. Not that all Mahometans believe that women have no souls. There are some who think it more probable they have, and these more liberal Mussulmen hold that there is a separate Paradise for them, because they say, if the women were admitted into the Men's Paradise, it would cease to be Paradise,—there would be an end of all peace there. It was probably the same reason which induced Origen to advance an opinion that after the day of Judgment women will be turned into men. The opinion has been condemned among his heresies; but the Doctor maintained that it was a reasonable one, and almost demonstrable upon the supposition that we are all to be progressive in a future state. There was, however, he said, according to the Jews a peculiar privilege and happiness reserved for them, that is for all those of their chosen nation, during the temporal reign of the Messiah, for every Jewish woman is then to lie in every day!

“I never,” says Bishop Reynolds, “read of more dangerous falls in the Saints than were Adam's, Sampson's, David's, Solomon's, and Peter's; and behold in all these, either the first enticers, or the first occasioners, are women. A weak creature may be a strong tempter: nothing too impotent or useless for the Devil's service.” Fuller, among his Good Thoughts has this paragraph:—“I find the natural Philosopher making a character of the Lion's disposition, amongst other his qualities, reporteth, first, that the Lion feedeth on men, and afterwards (if forced with extremity of hunger) on women. Satan is a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. Only he inverts the method and in his bill of fare takes the second first. Ever since he over-tempted our grandmother Eve, encouraged with success he hath preyed first on the weaker sex.”

“Sit not in the midst of women,” saith the son of Sirach in his Wisdom, “for from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness.” “Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, counting one by one to find out the account; which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.”

“It is a bad thing,” said St. Augustine, “to look upon a woman, a worse to speak to her, and to touch her is worst of all.” John Bunyan admired the wisdom of God for making him shy of the sex, and boasted that it was a rare thing to see him “carry it pleasant towards a woman.” “The common salutation of women,” said he, “I abhor, their company alone I cannot away with!” John, the great Tinker, thought with the son of Sirach, that “better is the churlishness of a man, than a courteous woman, a woman which bringeth shame and reproach.” And Menu the law-giver of the Hindoos hath written that “it is the nature of women in this world to cause the seduction of men.” And John Moody in the play, says, “I ha' seen a little of them, and I find that the best, when she's minded, won't ha' much goodness to spare.” A wife has been called a daily calamity, and they who thought least unfavourably of the sex have pronounced it a necessary evil.

“Mulier, quasimollior,” saith Varro;3a derivation upon which Dr. Featley thus commenteth: “Women take their name in Latin from tenderness or softness, because they are usually of a softer temper than men, and much more subject to passions, especially of fear, grief, love and longing; their fear is almost perpetual, their grief immoderate, their love ardent, and their longing most vehement. They are the weaker vessels, not only weaker in body than men, and less able to resist violence, but also weaker in mind and less able to hold out in temptations; and therefore the Devil first set upon the woman as conceiving it a matter of more facility to supplant her than the man.” And they are such dissemblers, says the Poet,

as if their mother had been madeOnly of all the falsehood of the man,Disposed into that rib.

3The Soothsayer in Cymbeline was of a like opinion with Varro!

The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,Which we callmollis aer;andmollis aerWe term itmulier.

Southey's favorite play upon the stage was Cymbeline, and next to it, As you like it.

“Look indeed at the very name,” said the Doctor, putting on his gravest look of provocation to the ladies.—“Look at the very name—Woman, evidently meaning eitherman's woe—or abbreviated fromwoe to man, because by woman was woe brought into the world.”

And when a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that common word must have arisen? Who does not see that it may be directly traced to a mournful interjection,alas!breathed sorrowfully forth at the thought the girl, the lovely and innocent creature upon whom the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would in time become a woman,—a woe to man!

There are other tongues in which the name is not less significant. The two most notoriously obstinate things in the world are a mule and a pig. Now there is one language in whichpigemeans a young woman: and another in which woman is denoted by the wordmulier:which word, whatever grammarians may pretend, is plainly a comparative, applied exclusively and with peculiar force to denote the only creature in nature which is more mulish than a mule.Comment, says a Frenchman,pourroit-on aymer lesDames,puis qu'elles se nomment ainsi dudametdommagequ'elles apportent aux hommes!4

4BOUCHET.

A TRUE STORY OF THE TERRIBLE KNITTERS E' DENT WHICH WILL BE READ WITH INTEREST BY HUMANE MANUFACTURERS, AND BY MASTERS OF SPINNING JENNIES WITH A SMILE.—BETTY YEWDALE.—THE EXCURSION—AN EXTRACT FROM, AND AN ILLUSTRATION OF.

O voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,Mirate la dottrina, che s' ascondeSotto 'l velame degli versi strani.DANTE.

“It was about six an' fifty year sen, in June, when a woman cam fra' Dent at see a Nebbor of ours e' Langdon.1They er terrible knitters e' Dent2—sea my Fadder an' Mudder sent me an' my lile Sister, Sally, back we' her at larn at knit. I was between sebben an' eight year auld, an' Sally twea year younger—T' Woman reade on ya Horse, we Sally afore her—an I on anudder, we a man walking beside me—whiles he gat up behint an' reade—Ee' them Days Fwoak dud'nt gang e' Carts—but Carts er t'best—I'd rader ride e' yan than e' onny Carriage—I us't at think if I was t' Leady, here at t' Ho,'3how I wad tear about int' rwoads—but sen I hae ridden in a Chaise I hate t' nwotion ont' warst of ought—for t' Trees gang fleeing by o' ya side, an t' Wa' as4on tudder, an' gars yan be as seek as a peeate.

1The valley of Langdale, near Ambleside. The Langdale Pikes are known to all tourists.

2Dent is a chapelry in the Parish and Union of Sedbergh, W. Division of the wapentake of Staincliffe and Ewcross, W. Riding of the County of York, sixteen miles E. from Kendal.—Lewis's Topog. Dict.

3i.e. At the Hall.

4Wa' as, i.e. Walls, as in p. 86.

“Weel, we dud'nt like Dent at a—' nut that they wer bad tull us—but ther way o' leeving—it was round Meal—an' theystoultit int' frying pan, e' keaeks as thick as my fing-er.—Then we werstawed5we' sae mickle knitting—We went to aSkeulabout a mile off—ther was a Maister an' Mistress—they larnt us our Lessons, yan a piece—an' then we knit as hard as we cud drive, striving whilk cud knit t' hardest yan again anudder—we hed ourDarracks6set afore we com fra' Heam int' mwornin; an' if we dud'nt git them duun we warrant to gang to our dinners—They hed o' macks o' contrivances to larn us to knit swift—T' Maister wad wind 3 or 4 clues togedder, for 3 or 4 Bairns to knitt off—that'at knit slawest raffled tudders yarn, an' than she gat weel thumpt (but ther was baith Lasses an' Lads 'at learnt at knit)—Than we ust at sing a mack of a sang, whilk we wer at git at t'end on at every needle, ca'ing ower t' Neams of o' t' fwoak in t' Deaal—but Sally an me wad never ca'DentFwoak—sea we ca'ed Langdon Fwoak—T' Sang was—

Sally an' I, Sally an' I,For a good pudding pye,Taa hoaf wheat, an' tudder hoaf rye,Sally an' I, for a good pudding pye.

We sang this (altering t' neams) at every needle: and when we com at t' end cried ‘off’ an' began again an' sea we strave on o' t' day through.

5i.e. cloyed, saturated, fatigued. BROCKETT'SGlossary of North Country words.

6i.e.Days-works. So the Derwent is called the Darron.

“We werstawed, as I telt yea—o' t' pleser we hed was when we went out a bit to beat t' fire for a nebbor 'at was baking—that was a grand day for us!—At Kursmas teea, ther was t' maskers—an' on Kursmas day at mworn they gav' us sum reed stuff to' t' Breakfast—I think it maun ha' been Jocklat—but we dud'nt like 't at a', 't ommost puzzened us!—an' we cared for nought but how we wer to git back to Langdon—Neet an' Day ther was nought butthisknitting! T' Nebbors ust at gang about fra' house to house, we' ther wark,—than yan fire dud, ye knaw, an' they cud hev a better—they hed girt lang black peeats—an' set them up an hed in a girt round we' a whol at top—an a' t' Fwoak sat about it. When ony o' them gat into a hubble we' ther wark, they shouted out ‘turn a Peeat’—an'them'at sat naarest t' fire turnt yan, an' meaad alow7—for they nivver hed onny cannal.—We knat quorse wosset stockings—some gloves—an' some neet caps, an' wastecwoat breests, an' petticwoats. I yance knat a stocking, for mysell, e' six hours—Sally yan e' sebben—an' t'woman's Doughter, 'at was aulder than us e' eight—an' they sent a nwote to our Fwoak e' Langdon at tell them.

7i.e.a flame;it is an Icelandic word. See Haldorson's Lexicon.At loga, ardereandLoga, flamma. So in St. George for England,

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