The Learned Lady in England, 1650-1760

by Myra Reynolds

3. Higher Education

The lesser boarding-schools and the charity schools give no intimation of anything even approximating the higher education of women. But that topic was not neglected. And it is of interest to take up in chronological sequence the various expressions of opinion as to the kind of education women should have.

Anna van Schurman (1607-1678)

The first influential writer advocating a large and liberal curriculum for women was a foreigner,[397] the famous Anna van Schurman of Utrecht. She was, indeed, the most famous learned woman of the seventeenth century, not only in Holland, but in the entire world of letters. As a child she gave such indication of unusual power that her father's interest and ambition were aroused, and he gave her perfect freedom and sympathetic coöperation in the development of her tastes. There was no regular plan or discipline in her education. She merely followed out, in art, in handicrafts, in letters, every new interest of her singularly alert and responsive mind. Till she was twenty-eight, art in some form was her chief occupation. She carved portraits in boxwood, modeled them in wax, etched them on glass or copper, and cut medallions in ivory. She did fine needlework and intricate embroidery, and worked tapestry. Specimens of her scissors-work are still preserved in the Schurman museum at Franeker and show a dexterity that must have been remarkable even in that day of exquisite cut-paper.[398] And she excelled in the fashionable accomplishment of writing in foreign alphabets. She sang delightfully, and played on the cymbal, the lute, and the violin. Her interest in the technical side of music is evidenced by her correspondence with noted musicians such as Huyghens, Hooft, and Bannius.

But gradually during the amateurish delights of these occupations and through the frivolities of a gay life there had been growing in Anna's mind a desire for serious work. And from twenty-eight to forty-eight she gave herself to the learned pursuits on which her contemporary renown was based. She became known throughout Europe and the most extravagant recognition was accorded her. As the finest Latinist in Utrecht she was chosen to write the ode on the founding of the University in that city. She was named the "Star of Utrecht." Gisbert Voët, the Rector of the University, taught her Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee, and influenced her to devote years to a textual study of the Bible. Beverwyck, who through admiration for her had become a convinced feminist, dedicated his treatise De Excellentia Fæmini Sexus to her as "the most wonderful woman of her day." Cats wrote poems to her as the Wonderstuk of the age. Her Ethiopian Grammar was greeted as a marvel by the scholars of the Dutch universities. Jean Louis Balzac congratulated himself on coming to know "cette merveilleuse fille." Descartes was one of her close friends. She corresponded on terms of equality with theologians like Jacob Lydius and Fredereck Spanheim and M. de Saumaise of Leyden University. Caspar van Baerle eulogized her as "a second Sempronia, a better Sappho, a new Pallas." She became almost an object of pilgrimage, royal personages being among those attracted by her great fame. The Queen of Poland, the Duchesse de Longueville, and Christina of Sweden with an escort of Jesuit priests were among those who made visits of state to "the incomparable Virgin."

The last twenty years of Anna van Schurman's life were given entirely to mystical religion under the guidance of Jean de Labadie of whose community she became the most influential member. But in the preceding period many topics of contemporary interest held her attention. Chief among these was the right of women to free mental development. Dr. Rivet, Professor of Theology at Leyden, and her intimate friend, once wrote to her that ordinary women were debarred from equality with men by "the sacred laws of Nature." Anna responded in lively protest and said that he based his arguments on custom and not on reason. In time she wrote a book embodying her own views on the subject. It was published by Elzevir at Leyden in 1641 under the title De ingenii muliebris ad doctrinam et meliores litteras aptitudine. In 1659 the book was translated into rather stiff and cumbersome English, by "C. B.," doubtless Clement Barksdale, an Oxford man, a prolific translator from the Latin and much interested in education. He was master of a free school at Hereford, and later had a successful private school at Hawling in Cotswolds. He must have had especial interest in the education of women, for in 1675 he wrote a Letter touching a College of Maids or a Virgin Society. Mr. Barksdale's translation appeared under the title, The Learned Maid; or, Whether a Maid may be a Scholar. Logick Exercise Written in Latine by that incomparable Virgin Anna Maria à Schurman of Utrecht. With some Epistles to the famous Gassendus and others. The book opens with a quotation from Fr. Spanhemius in which he eulogizes Anna van Schurman as "the utmost Essay of Nature in this Sex." The translation is dedicated to the "Lady A. H.," probably the Lady Anne Hudson to whom Gerbier dedicated his Elogium Heroinum. There had evidently been an earlier translation than Barksdale's, for he says, "This strange maid, being now the second time drest up in her English Habit, cometh to kiss your hand." Two translations into English within eighteen years indicate a considerable interest in the arguments advanced. Yet the form of the book was difficult and unattractive as is indicated by the phrase "Logick Exercise." Every argument is thrown into stiff syllogistic form. The portion of the book entitled "A Refutation to the Adversaries" is somewhat more natural and lively. Stripped of their pedantry the arguments against the education of women and the answers to these arguments are as follows:

Objection: The wits of women are too weak for the study of letters.

Answer: Not all men have "heroical wits" yet they are not excluded from studies. No claim is made that all women should study, but only those of "at least indifferent good wits." Weakness of wit may be aided by study.

Objection: Women have no opportunity to prosecute studies, no academies or schools being open to them.

Answer: There are parents and tutors.

Objection: Knowledge is a useless acquirement since women are shut out from "Politicall, Eclesiasticall, or Academicall" offices.

Answer: Though they gain not the Primary end of public usefulness they yet gain an important secondary personal end.

Objection: Since a little knowledge will suffice for a woman in her vocation an "Encyclopædy" of knowledge is superfluous.

Answer: There is ambiguity in the word "vocation." Does it mean that woman belongs to private as against public life? Then many gentlemen in private life should be shut out from studies. Does it mean woman's special calling to Family Life? But all human beings have a right to a personal development, a "Universal Calling" separate from and above their special vocation.

Objection: Women do not care for studies, and nothing should "be done invitâ Minervâ, as we say, Against the Hair."

Answer: The assumption that women do not care to apply themselves to studies becomes logically important only when it is proved of women after excitation and opportunity in studies. "No man can rightly judge of our Inclination to studies, before he hath encouraged us by the best reasons and means to set upon them: and withall hath given us some taste of their sweetness."

The arguments given and the objections answered lead to the statement:

Wherefore our Thesis stands firm: A Christian Maid, or Woman may conveniently give herself to Learning: Whence we draw this Consectary, that Maids may and ought to be excited and encouraged by the best and strongest Reasons, by the Testimonies of wise men: and lastly by the examples of illustrious Women, to the embracing of this kind of life, especially those who are above others provided of leisure, and other means and aides for their studies. And, because it is best, that the mind being seasoned with Learning from the very Infancy: therefore the Parents themselves are chiefly to be stirred up, as we suppose, and to be admonished of their duty.

In a presentation of the appropriate range of the studies of women Anna includes the entire circle of Liberal Arts and Sciences as convenient for the Head of a Christian Maid.

But specially let regard be had unto those Arts which have neerest alliance to Theology and the Moral Virtues, and are Principally subservient to them. In which number we reckon Grammar, Logick, Rhetoric: especially Logick, fitly called The Key of all Sciences: and then, Physicks, Metaphysicks, History, etc. and also the knowledge of Languages, chiefly of the Hebrew and Greek. All which may advance to the more facile and full understanding of Holy Scriptures: to say nothing now of other Books. The rest, i.e. Mathematicks, (to which is also referred Musick) Poesie, Picture, and the like, not illiberal Arts, may obtain the place of pretty Ornaments and ingenious Recreations. Lastly, those studies which pertain to the practice of the Law, Military Discipline, Oratory in the Church, Court, University, as less proper and less necessary, we do not very much urge. And yet we in no wise yield that our Maid should be excluded from the Scholastick Knowledge or Theory of those; especially not from understanding the most noble Doctrine of the Politicks or Civil Government.

The whole book is a eulogy of learning as a specific for all the ills of mind or heart. Anna quotes from the great Erasmus to the effect that "nothing takes so full possession of the fair Temple of a Virgin's breast, as learning and study, whither, on all occasions she may fly for refuge," and hence nothing can so effectually oppose vanity and light-mindedness. Studies will make a woman sufficient unto herself in leisure hours. Studies perfect and adorn the intellect; they conduce to reverence for the most beautiful, the most excellent, and so to love of God; they fortify the mind against heresies, they teach prudence, they destroy fear, they put courage into the heart; they give a delight that is like "Divine gladness"; and they mollify and sweeten manners. In fine, the liberal pursuit of learning brings the whole nature into conformity with "the Rule of right reason." Who, then, would shut women out from delights so laudable, virtues so desirable?

The whole book gives such an impression of high-minded earnestness, it is so strenuous and sincere, affirmative arguments are so elaborately established, and adversaries are so elaborately crushed, that it becomes a distinct anti-climax to realize what, after all, was the extent of her demand. She virtually asks nothing more than that rich girls of good minds shall be allowed and even encouraged to study at home under tutors, with the proviso that they make no public use of their learning, that they remember St. Paul's injunction to women "to be οἰκουργός, keepers at home," and that they make learning the handmaid of piety. Anna van Schurman was asking for what she herself had had. And her conception seems somewhat less modest when we realize that no scholastic dignities, no authorship, no public offices, could put a woman of to-day so distinctly in the lime-light of royal and learned favor as was this retiring Anna in her quiet little home at Utrecht.

Bathsua Pell, Mrs. Makin (fl. 1641-1673)

The immediate follower of Anna van Schurman was Bathsua Pell, better known as Mrs. Makin.[399] She is one of the most significant personages connected with the education of girls in the mid-seventeenth century. Her father was a rector in Southwick, Sussex. He died in 1616 and his wife in 1617, leaving three children. Thomas became gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles I, but went to America in 1635. The younger brother, John (1611-1685), was early noted as a student. At thirteen he entered Trinity at Cambridge, being even then "as good a scholar as some masters of arts." At twenty he was reported to know Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, High and Low Dutch. By the time he was twenty-three he had specialized in mathematics. He held important mathematical posts under Cromwell; and, later, under Charles II, he was given a valuable living. Bathsua Pell had her brother's talent for languages, and like him had an early repute for learning. About 1641, when she was perhaps about thirty, she was appointed tutoress to Princess Elizabeth, the six-year-old daughter of Charles I. The learned tutoress was apparently at liberty to follow her own ideas of education, and for several years she led the sad little Princess into such delights as might be found in the languages and theology. She boasted of her pupil's proficiency, saying that at nine she could "write, read, and in some measure understand, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and Italian."[400] Mrs. Makin had other distinguished pupils. Among them was Lucy Davies, daughter to Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland, and better known as author of Nosce Teipsum, and Eleanor Truchett, fluent author of half-mad books of prophecy.[401] Lucy married the sixth Earl of Huntington. After his death in 1655, when their son was but six years old, as Countess Dowager of Huntington, she evidently gave her time and interest in her retirement to the studies begun under Mrs. Makin (possibly in the Putney Schools before 1649), who says of her in 1673: "I am forbidden to mention the Countess Dowager of Huntington (instructed sometimes by Mrs. Makin) howe well she understands Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and Spanish; or what a proficient she is in Arts, subservient to Divinity, in which (if I durst I would tell you) she excells."

MRS. BATHSUA MAKIN
"Facsimile copy from an almost unique print by Marshall." From an engraving in Woodburn's Gallery of Rare Portraits, 1816, Vol. II, page 39.

Mrs. Makin makes enthusiastic mention of other learned ladies, but does not make it clear whether they had been under her instruction. Lady Mildmay could not, she says, be justly omitted. Then there was Mrs. Thorold, daughter of Lady Carr in Lincolnshire, who was "excellent in Philosophy, and all sorts of Learning." She cites also "Dr. Love's daughters,"[402] as "still fresh in the memory of men" for their "Worth and Excellency in Learning."

In April, 1649, John Evelyn and a party of ladies visited "the schools or colleges for gentlewomen" at Putney. In all probability Mrs. Makin had charge of this institution. Certainly no other known Englishwoman would have been so competent, or would have had such prestige as a school-mistress, and her Essay of 1673 shows that she remained in the educational field. Accompanying the Essay is a Prospectus for a school she had recently opened. "If any enquire where this education may be performed, such may be informed that a school is lately erected for Gentlewomen, at Tottenham High Cross, within four miles of London, on the road to Ware, where Mrs. Makin is governess who was formerly tutoress to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter to King Charles the First. Where, by the blessing of God, Gentlewomen may be instructed in the Principles of religion, and in all manner of sober and virtuous Education: more particularly in all things ordinarily taught in other schools." These things "ordinarily taught in other schools" are listed as "Dancing, Musick, Singing, Writing, Keeping accompts." Half the time in Mrs. Makin's school was to be spent on this portion of the curriculum. The other half was to be "employed in gaining the Latin and French tongues." Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish were optional subjects, but were offered by the Governess who had a "competent knowledge" of all of them. The language requirements could not have been extensive since "Gentlewomen of eight or nine years old, that can read well, may be instructed in a year or two (according to their parts) in the Latin and French tongues." Something in the way of natural history was attempted. Mrs. Makin announces, "Repositories also for Visibles shall be prepared; by which, from beholding the things, Gentlewomen may learn the Names, Natures, Values, and Use of Herbs, Shrubs, Trees, Mineral-pieces, Metals, and Stones," a sort of laboratory course in botany and mineralogy. Astronomy, geography, and especially arithmetic and history were also offered in a "general" way. Domestic science was not omitted, though oddly bound up with a course in art: "Those that please may learn Limning, Preserving, Pastry, and Cookery." The principle of electives was in full force. "Those that think one language enough for a Woman, may forbear the Languages, and learn only Experimental Philosophy." In fact, students were allowed to take "more or fewer" of the courses offered as they might incline. The regular rate was twenty pounds per annum, but a "competent improvement in the Tongues, and the other things aforementioned" was to command an additional fee. Very astutely Mrs. Makin constituted the parents the judge as to the excellency of their children's attainments. The notice closes with this fair offer: "Those that think these Things Improbable, or Impracticable may have further account every Tuesday, at Mr. Mason's Coffee-house, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange; and Thursdays, at the 'Bolt and Tun,' in Fleet Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon, by some person whom Mrs. Makin shall appoint."[403]

This course of study, desultory, inchoate, fragmentary, as it is, is nevertheless of great historic interest. It is the first known attempt to organize a scheme of definite and solid study for girls. However superficial the work, it was based on a novel and important conception of the value of genuine knowledge in languages and science for girls as well as for boys. It must have been as doubtful and epoch-making an event in a community to have its girls sent to Tottenham High Cross, as for the earliest students to go to Vassar. Unfortunately the inception of this school is all we know about it. A knowledge of its actual work, its success, a list of its students, would serve as an illuminating commentary on the general attitude towards learning for girls in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

That Mrs. Makin expected opposition is shown by the remarkable Essay that was issued with her Prospectus. The full title of the Essay is, An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen, in Religion, Manners, Arts, & Tongues, with an Answer to the Objections against this Way of Education. London, Printed by J. D. to be sold by Tho. Parkhurst, at the Bible and Crown, at the lower end of Cheapside. 1673. In her opening paragraphs Mrs. Makin recognizes that an age in which "Learning and Virtue are counted Pedantick Things, fit only for the Vulgar" is not a propitious time to undertake an advanced scheme for the education of girls. She trenchantly summarizes the prevalent attitude towards learned women; and then bravely sets forth her own creed. She also emphasizes the modesty of her demands:

Custom, when it is inveterate, hath a mighty influence: it hath the force of Nature itself. The Barbarous custom to breed Women low, is grown general amongst us, and hath prevailed so far, that it is verily believed (especially amongst a cort of debauched Sots) that Women are not endued with such reason, as Men; nor capable of improvement by Education, as they are. It is lookt upon as a monstrous thing, to pretend the contrary. A Learned Woman is thought to be a Comet, that bodes Mischief, when ever it appears. To offer to the World the liberal Education of Women is to deface the Image of God in Man, it will make Women so high, and men so low, like Fire in the House-tops it will set the whole world in a Flame. These things and worse than these, are commonly talked of, and verily believed by many, who think themselves wise Men: to contradict these is a bold attempt; where the Attempter must expect to meet with much opposition.... I verily think, Women were formerly Educated in the knowledge of Arts and Tongues, and by their Education, many did rise to a great height in Learning. Were Women thus educated now, I am confident the advantage would be very great: the Women would have Honour and Pleasure, their Relations Profit, and the whole Nation Advantage.... Were a competent number of Schools erected to Educate Ladyes ingenuously, methinks I see how ashamed Men would be of their Ignorance, and how industrious the next Generation would be to wipe off their Reproach. I expect to meet with many Scoffes and Taunts from inconsiderate and illiterate Men, that prize their own Lusts and Pleasure more than your Profit and Content. I shall be the less concern'd at these, so long as I am in your favour; and this discourse may be a Weapon in your hands to defend yourselves, whilst you endeavour to polish your Souls, that you may glorify God, and answer the end of your Creation, to be meet helps to your Husbands. Let not your Ladiships be offended, that I do not (as some have wittily done) plead for Female Preëminence. To ask too much is the way to be denied all. God hath made Man the Head, if you be educated and instructed, as I propose, I am sure you will acknowledge it, and be satisfied that you are helps, that your Husbands do consult and advise with you (which if you be wise they will be glad of) and that your Husbands have the casting-Voice, in whose determinations you will acquiesce.

The main portion of the Essay is addressed to a "much-honoured and worthy friend" who has expressed considerable doubt as to the wisdom of her educational projects. The tone of his letter is indicated by the following summary:

Your great question is, Whether to breed up Women in Arts and Tongues, is not a mere new Device, never before practised in the World. This you doubt the more: Because Women are of low Parts, and not capable of Improvement by this Education. If they could be improved you doubt, whether it would benefit them? If it would benefit them, you enquire where such Education may be had? or, whether they must go to School with Boys? to be made twice more impudent than learned. At last you muster up a Legion of Objections.

These doubts and objections are then discussed seriatim. To establish her contention that women have been educated in arts and sciences in the past she gives an unchronological, uncritical list of women who attained distinction in Greece and Rome and in Bible times. Miriam, "a great poet and philosopher," the women who danced before David (singing songs "compos'd it's like by themselves"), Huldah the Prophetess, "who dwelt (we may suppose) in a college where women were bred up in good literature"; Anna and Phebe; Triphena, Triphosa, and Persis; Priscilla who instructed Apollos; Timothy's mother Eunice and grandmother Lois; and Philip's four daughters, make up from Sacred Writ a list intended to allay the anxieties of a devout churchman as to the effect of learning on female piety. Mrs. Makin was really forced to get as many Biblical recruits as possible, since her opponents regularly massed their forces in the Garden of Eden with the Sin of Eve as their impregnable fort.

To the lay mind examples from classic lands might prove authoritative, hence there follows a list of Greek and Roman ladies of learning. If the heroes of ancient story are but idealized representations of actual men, why, reasons Mrs. Makin, may we not suppose some actual wise women as the begetters of the legends of Minerva, the Muses, and the Sibyls? From history she cites "Sempronia, Cornelia, Lelia, Mutia, Cleobulina, Cassandra, Terentia, Hortensia, Sulpitia, Portia, Helvitia, Enonia, Paula, Albina, Pella, Jenobia, Voleria, Proba, Eudocia, Claudia," and many others; a list too undiscriminating to be convincing, but certainly creditable to Mrs. Makin's industrious learning. After this wide preliminary sweep, Mrs. Makin takes up different realms of attainment. "Women have been good Linguists"; "Women have been good Oratours"; "Women have understood Logic"; "Women have been profound Philosophers"; "Some Women have understood the Mathematics"; "Women have been good Poets"; "Women have been good Divines"—such are the theses she is prepared to defend. The mathematics are most thinly provided with examples, Hypatia of Alexandria and "A Lady of late, her name I have forgot," who printed divers tables, being the only instances she can summon. The richest assemblage of names comes under the linguists and the poets. The purpose of this ardent and prolonged search of times past and present is to show that women are not by act of creation always of "low parts"; that some, indeed, have approached the standards set by men. This being the case, women should have full educational opportunities. Mrs. Makin is careful, however, to hedge in even this proposition with qualifications. Education belongs only to the Christian maid, to the maid of excellent mind, to the maid of wealth and leisure. A woman's education is for her own development and pleasure and for the service of her family. Any social, public, utilitarian use of it is not for a moment contemplated. A further qualification is that education is not absolutely essential:

I do not mean that it is necessary to the esse, to the subsistence, or to the salvation of women, to be thus educated. Those that are mean in the world have not the opportunity for this education. Those that are of low parts, though they have opportunity, cannot reach this. Ex quovis ligno not fit Minerva. My meaning is, persons that God hath blessed with the things of this world, that have competent natural parts, ought to be educated in knowledge. That is, it is much better they should spend the time of their youth to be competently instructed in those things usually taught to gentlewomen at schools, and the over-plus of their time to be spent in gaining arts and tongues and useful knowledge, rather than to trifle away so many precious minutes, merely to polish their hands and feet, to curl their locks, to dress and trim their bodies.

With these limitations the proposition may be allowed to stand that the virtuous, talented woman of leisure should be granted educational advantages. But there are objections still to be met. The more important of these may be summarized with Mrs. Makin's answers:

1. "If we bring up our Daughters to Learning no Persons will adventure to Marry them."

Answer: Learned men would surely choose learned wives, and it will be long before there are learned women enough to overstock the market.

2. "When Solomon praised the good housewife no mention was made of her learning."

Answer: The daily tasks of Solomon's housewife required considerable knowledge. "To buy wool and flax, to dye scarlet and purple, requires skill in Natural Philosophy. To consider a field, the quantity and quality, requires knowledge in Geometry. To plant a vineyard, requires understanding in Husbandry. She could not merchandise without Arithmetic. She could not govern so great a family well without knowledge in Politics and Economics. She could not look well to the ways of her household, except she understood Physic and Chirurgery. She could not open her mouth with wisdom and have in her tongue the law of kindness without Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic." But at the best, Solomon's good housewife seems to Mrs. Makin hardly more than "an honest, well-bred, ingenious, industrious Dutchwoman," not at all the sort of talented gentlewoman of the leisure classes for whom the new liberal education is to be provided.

3. "Women are of ill Natures, and will abuse their Education."

Answer: Men also abuse their Education.

4. "They will be proud and not obey their Husbands; they will be pragmatick and boast of their Parts and Improvements."

Answer: "To this I Answer; What is said of Philosophy, is true of Knowledge; a little Philosophy carries a man from God, but a great deal brings him back again; a little knowledge, like windy Bladders, puffs up, but a good measure of true knowledge, like Ballast in a Ship, settles down, and makes a person more even in his station; 't is not knowing too much, but too little that causes the irregularity."

5. "The end of Learning is Publick Business" in which women have no concern.

Answer: The private ends of learning are as important as the public ends. Moreover, this objection would apply to all men in private life.

6. "Women do not desire Learning."

Answer: "Neither do many Boys."

7. "Women are of Low Parts."

Answer: "So are many Men."

8. Women are soft, tender, delicate, weak.

Answer: Then strengthen them by Education.

9. A learned gentlewoman is ridiculous because contrary to custom.

Answer: This custom has a bad ground. Men wish women to be fools, that they may remain slaves. A bad custom should be broken that good customs may prevail.

10. The final and crucial objection is elaborately stated: "How shall time be found to teach children these things here proposed? Boys go to school ordinarily from seven till sixteen or seventeen, and not above one in four attain so much knowledge in the Tongues as to be admitted into the University, where no great accuracy is required, and they learn nothing else usually besides a little History. Gentlewomen will not ordinarily be sent out so soon, nor is it convenient they should continue so long. Further, half their time, it is supposed, must be spent in learning those things that concern them as Women. Twice as many things are proposed to be taught Girls in half the time, as Boyes do learn, which is impossible."

The rest of the article is taken up with an analysis of Lilly's Grammar, to show how slow and burdensome and distasteful are its methods, and to an analysis of the short cuts to knowledge devised by Mrs. Makin and Mr. Lewis. For instance, Lilly's long rule for substantives is simplified into, "Any word with a, an, or the in front of it is a substantive." If you wish to distinguish between a noun and an adjective you have but to note that nouns change when you make a plural, adjectives do not. And so on with many shrewd little tricks of learning whereby the parts of speech may be known at a glance, the nature of said parts of speech not being in question. The whole of Mrs. Makin's scope and plan of education seems superficial and uncoördinated until seen in the light of the contemporary training of boys as she describes it. Then her system seems alive and energetic in its effort to slough off non-essentials.

In passing, Mrs. Makin frequently utters wise and far-seeing opinions concerning the education of girls.

If any desire to know what they should be instructed in? I answer: I cannot tell where to begin to admit Women, nor from what part of Learning to exclude them, in regard of their Capacities. The whole Encyclopoedia of Learning may be useful some way or other to them. "Grammar, Rhetorick, Logick, Physick, the Tongues, Mathematics, Geography, History, Musick, Painting, Poetry"—all of these should be open to women, and all could be advantageously used by them.

With regard to the pleasures of the student she says, "Delight and Pleasure are the attendants on Learning."

There is no pleasure greater than what is founded in Knowledge; it is the First Fruits of Heaven, and a glimpse of that Glory we afterwards expect. There is in all an innate desire of knowing, and the satisfying this is the greatest pleasure. Men are very cruel, that give them leave to look at a distance, only to know they do not know; to make any thus to tantalize is a great torment.

She is especially scornful of the vain and frivolous women of that frivolous age, those women whose time is spent in "making Points for Bravery, in dressing and trimming themselves like Bartholomew-Babies, in Painting and Dancing, in making Flowers of Coloured Straw, and building Houses of stained Paper, and such like vanities."

Poulain de la Barre

A book nearly contemporaneous with Mrs. Makin's Prospectus is entitled The Woman as Good as the Man, or the Equality of Both Sexes. Written originally in French and translated into English by A. L. The French original was by Poulain de la Barre whose De l'Egalité des deux Sexes was published in 1673. The translation by A. L. came out in 1677. The Preface by the author and that by the translator show that they enter upon their work with considerable trepidation, knowing that they write against the general view. The probable opponents are classified as "all the Ignorant and most of the Learned," but the author proceeds valiantly on his mission of enlightenment. "Men," he says, "have always kept women in subjection," moved thereto by a "secret Instinct," as if they had for their own dominance "Letters-Patent from the Author of Nature." Women have likewise accepted the doctrine of their own inferiority so that dependence and subjection have come to seem their normal condition. M. de la Barre states the prevalent idea and his own radical departure from it in the following passage:

Let every Man (in particular) be asked his Thoughts of Women (in general) and that he would surely confess his Mind; he will tell you without doubt, That they were not made but for Man; That they are fit for nothing, but to Nurse and Breed little Children in their Low Ages; and to mind the House. It may be the more Ingenious will add, That there are many Women that have indeed Parts, and Conduct; but that even they who seem to have most, when they are nearly examined, discover still some-what that speaks their Sex: That they have neither Solidity, nor Constancy; nor that depth of Judgment which they think to find in themselves: And that it hath been an effect of Divine Providence, and Wisdom of Men, to have barred them from Sciences, Government, and Offices: That it would be a pleasant thing indeed, to see a Lady in the Chair (in quality of a Professor) teaching Rhetorick, or Medicine; marching along the Streets, followed by Officers, and Sergeants; putting in Execution Laws: Playing the part of a Counsellour; pleading before Judges: Seated on a Bench, to Administer Justice in Supream Courts: Leading of an Army; giving Battel; and Speaking before States, and Princes, as the Head of an Embassy.

I do confess, such Practices would surprize us; but for no other reason, but that of Novelty. For, if in modelling of states and establishing the different Offices that compose them, Women had been likewise called to Functions; we should have been as much accustomed to have seen them in Dignity, as they are to see us. And should have found it no more strange to have seen a Lady on a Throne, than a Woman in a Shop.[404]

M. de la Barre admits that many women may properly be accused of "Idleness, Softness, and Ignorance," but gives the astonishingly modern explanation that no fair estimate of the ability of women can be made until they have been trained by right education and stimulated by public responsibility and opportunity. He believes that if women "made it their business to study Law, they would succeed in it (at least) as well as we." "Women seem born to practise Physick." They would excel as "Pastour or Minister in the Church ... and there can be nothing else but custome shewn, which remove Women therefrom.... And if men were accustomed to see Women in a Pulpit, they would be no more startled thereat, than the Women are at the sight of men." Women if rightly educated would show peculiar aptitude for teaching.

If Women had studyed in the Universities with men, or in others appointed for them in particular, they might have entered into Degrees, and taken the title of Master of Arts, Doctor of Divinity, Medicine, Civil, and Cannon Law: And their genius so advantageously fitting them to learn, would dispose them to teach with success. They would find methods, and insinuating biasses, to instil their Doctrine; they would discover the strength and weakness of their Schollars, to proportion themseves to their reach, and the facility which they have to express themselves; and, [this] which is one of the most excellent talents of a good Master, would compleat and render them admirable Mistresses.[405]

There is no reason "why a Woman of sound Judgment and Understanding, might not take the chaire in a court of Justice, and preside in all other companies." There are no positions of public authority from the throne to the humblest office of state that should not be open to women. Even "the military Art hath nothing beyond others, whereof Women are not capable."

That women may become learned is beyond dispute, and they are the more to be praised because of the difficulties they have overcome:

How many Ladies have there been, and how many are there still, who ought to be placed amongst the number of the Learned, if we assigne them not a Higher Sphear? The Age wherein we live hath produced more of these, than all the past. And as they have in all things run parallel with Men, upon some Particular Reasons, they ought more to be esteemed than they: For, it behoved them to surmount the Softness wherein their Sex is bred, renounce the Pleasures and Idleness, to which Custom had condemned them, overcome certain public Impediments that removed them from Study, and to get above those disadvantagious Notions, which the Vulgar conceive of the Learned, besides, those of their own Sex in general: All this they have performed. And whether it be, that these Difficulties have rendered their Wit more quick and penetrating, or that these Qualities are the peculiar of their Nature, they have [proportionably] made Progress and Advancements beyond Men.[406]

These may be regarded as exceptional women, but "there are infinite numbers of Women, which could have done no less, had their Advantages been Equal." But the training given to girls make them believe that beauty and fine clothes should be their only interests. Their education seldom goes beyond writing and reading, and their library consists of a few little books of devotion.

In all that which is taught to Women, do we see anything that tends to solid instruction? It seems, on the contrary, that men have agreed on this sort of education, of purpose to abase their courage, darken their mind, and to fill it only with vanity, and fopperies.

It may be said that "Learning would render Women more Wicked and Proud." But only false knowledge can produce so bad an effect. True knowledge makes a woman humble and virtuous. It actually "choaks" some men to find women eager after knowledge. These men have "forged to themselves that Women ought not to Study," and they "stand upon their Points, when Women demand to be informed of that which is Learned by Books." But since "Ignorance is the most irksome Slavery," and knowing the truth is a way out of it, all women who seek that way should be praised, not blamed.

"We may [then] with Assurance, exhort Ladies to apply themselves to Study; without having Respect to the little Reasons of those who would undertake to divert them there-from. Since they have a Mind (as well as We) capable of knowing of Truth ... they ought to put themselves in condition of avoyding the Reproach, of having stifled a Talent, which they might put to use." Learning cannot be counted useless to women even if they do not publicly use it. It is a personal right and necessity like "Felicity and Vertue." "The Spring of reason is not limited; it hath in all men an equal Jurisdiction.... Truth and Knowledge are goods that admit of no prescription." And, finally, the economy of the world demands that one half its mentality should not be debarred from the search after Truth.

The sincerity of M. Poulain de la Barre might be put in question by the fact that he wrote in 1675 a book entitled De l'Excellence des Hommes contre l'Egalité des Sexes, but the earlier treatise maintained its popularity, for it was republished in 1676, 1690, 1692. Of the English translation but one edition appeared, nor does it seem to have been well known in the seventeenth century. Mary Astell makes no use of it, perhaps because it was too radical and uncompromising in its demand. Certainly no other defense of feminism even approached the work of M. de la Barre in the relentless logic with which it carried fundamental assumptions into the practical affairs of life.

Dr. George Hickes (1642-1715)

From Marie de Jars to Anna van Schurman, and then to Bathsua Makin is a regular and recognized progression of influence. I am unable to trace any direct influence from Mrs. Makin, though her prestige and the number of her aristocratic pupils must have made her school one of the important factors in establishing new ideas. At any rate, by whatever influences brought about, we have, after about 1680, several significant discussions of liberal education for woman. One of the earliest and most surprising of these comes in a sermon by Dr. George Hickes. Its full title is, A Sermon Preached at the Church of St. Bridget, on Easter, Tuesday, being the first of April, 1684. Before the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse, Lord Mayor of London and Honourable Court of Alderman, Together with the Governors of the Hospital, upon the Subject of Alms-giving. By George Hickes, D. D. Dean of Worcester, and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty.

At the close of this sermon on the reasons for alms-giving Dr. Hickes emphasizes the great obligation resting on those "Who heap up Riches, and can not tell who shall gather them, I mean those to whom God hath given great Estates, and no Children." Such people seem to him set apart by Providence for the endowing of works of public beneficence. In a comprehensive analysis of the practical ways in which they could use their wealth we come upon the following remarkable suggestion:

I will also put you in mind of establishing a Found for Endowing of poor Maids, who have lived so many years in Service, and of building Schools, or Colleges for the Education of young Women, much like unto those in the Universities, for the Education of young Men, but with some alteration in the Discipline, and Occonomy, as the nature of such an Institution would require.

Such Colleges might be so ordered, as to become security to your Daughters against all the hazard to which they are exposed at private Schools, and likewise a security to the Government, that the Daughters of the Land should be bred up according to the religion now established in it, to the unconceivable advantage of the Publick, in rooting out Enthusiasme, with her Daughter Schisme, both of which are upheld by nothing among us as much, as by the Women, who are so silly and deceiveable for want of Ingenious and Orthodox Education, and not for want of Parts. Methinks the Rich and Honourable Ladies of the Church of England, the Elect Ladies of her Apostolical Communion should be zealous to begin, and carry on such a work, as this; which upon more accounts than I have mentioned, would make the Daughters of Israel be glad, and the Daughters of Judah and Jerusalem rejoyce.

Had Dr. Hickes read Anna van Schurman's May the Christian Maid be a Scholar? Or had he seen the Prospectus and Essay of Mrs. Makin which had appeared eleven years before he preached his Sermon to the Lord Mayor?

Among the clergy of the English Church the Reverend George Hickes must take rank as the earliest and one of the most important defenders of higher education for women. His Easter sermon antedated Mary Astell, and his claim was more generous and daring than hers. In 1710, when he published Controversial Letters, he included letters from Susanna Hopton and Lady Gratiana Carew, and he considered them valuable aids in the presentation of religious truth. It was he who called Mrs. Bovey "the Christian Hypatia," and he was the chief encourager of Elizabeth Elstob.

Besides these individual manifestations of approval Dr. Hickes contributed to the cause of the right education of girls by a translation of Fénelon's Traité de l'éducation des filles (1688), under the title Instructions for the Education of a Daughter, by the Author of Telemachus. To which is Added, A Small Tract of Instructions for the Conduct of Young Ladies of the Highest Rank. With Suitable Devotions Annexed. Done into English and Revised by George Hicks. In putting the French treatise into an English dress Dr. Hickes has not hesitated to make such changes as would bring the book closer to English needs. This book was so widely read and so influential in England that rather full extracts may profitably be given. But it should be noted in advance that the general tone of this treatise is much more conventional, much less liberal, in its ideas of education and of opportunity for self-expression than was Dr. Hickes in his Easter sermon, and in his encouragement of individual learned women. But it must be remembered that here he is not writing for mature women with superior minds, but for young girls of high social rank to whom he wishes to recommend the most exalted ideals of character, behavior, and general culture. Modest indeed are the requirements in exact learning:

Teach her to Read and Write correctly. It is shameful, but ordinary, to see Gentlewomen, who have both Wit and Politeness, not able yet to pronounce well what they read; they either hesitate, or else chant, as it were, in reading; whereas they ought to pronounce their Words with a plain and natural Tone, such as is also firm and uniform. They are still more grossly deficient in Orthography, or in Spelling right, and in the manner of forming or connecting Letters in Writing. Accustom her then, from the first, to make her Lines strait, and to have her Character neat and legible.

It would also be requisite for her to understand a little Grammar of her Native Language; by which it is not meant, she should be taught by Rule, as Boys are, Latin: Use her only without Affectation, not to take one Tense for another; to express herself in proper Terms; to explain clearly her Thoughts, with Order, and after a short and concise manner. Thus will you put her into a Method, by which she may teach her own Children afterwards to speak well and truly, without any formal Study. It is well known, that in Old Rome, Sempronia the Mother of the Gracchi, contributed very much to the forming of the Eloquence of her Sons, who became afterwards so great Men.

She ought also to understand the Four first great Rules of Arithmetic; you may make good use of them, in teaching her thereby to keep your Accompts. This is indeed a troublesome Employment to a great many; but an Habit from her Childhood, joyn'd with the Easiness of keeping readily, by the Help of these Rules, all Sorts of Accompts, tho' never so intricate, will very much diminish this Dislike. Now't is sufficiently known how much Exactness of Accompts conduces to the good Order in Families.

After these instructions, which are to hold the first Rank, I believe it will not be quite useless, to allow young Ladies according to their Leisure, and their Capacity, the reading of some select prophane Authors, that have nothing Dangerous in them for the Passions. This is the Means to give them a Distaste of most Plays and Romances; Give them therefore into their Hands Greek and Roman Histories, in the best Translations; they will see in them wonderful Instances of Courage, of Faithfulness, of Generosity, and of the great Contempt of their own private Advantage, whenever the Publick was in the Balance. Let them not be ignorant of the History of Britain, which hath also some very great Instances of Brave (no less than of Bad) Actions, that hardly any thing in Antiquity will be found to exceed: Those Illustrious Patterns which have been set by their own Nation and by Persons too of their own Sex, will be apt more strongly to influence them.

Though Natural Philosophy seems not to be adapted to the Understanding of Women, or at least not to fall within the Bounds of what concerns their Duty; yet Moral Philosophy is, upon both Accounts, to be studied by them.[407] Languages are next to be considered. It is commonly believ'd in France, that a Lady that would be well-bred, must learn Italian and Spanish; as with us, French at least. I see nothing of less Benefit than this Study, unless it be where the Lady is oblig'd to it on account of Business.... Some, and those the farthest in the World from all Pedantry, think it would not be unreasonable for this End, to have them learn a little Latin. For which, there may be a great deal more Reason in those Countries, where this is look'd on as the Language of the Church; it being an inestimable Fruit and Consolation, say they, to understand the Words of the Divine Service, whereat one is oblig'd to attend so often. Yet doubtless, every where the Advantages of it are not small, if but accompanied with Humility, and season'd with Prudence.

To this restricted course of study is added most careful advice as to general reading with a particular caution against romances. If Dr. Hickes's advice had prevailed Steele's Biddy Tipkin and Mrs. Lennox's Arabella would never have existed:

But, on the contrary, Young Persons, and Women especially, without Instruction and Application, have always a roving Imagination. For want of solid Nourishment, their Curiosity violently turns them towards Vain and Dangerous Objects. Such as have a little Capacity, are in Danger to set up for Wits; they read, for this, all the Books that may feed their Vanity; they are extremely affected with Romances, with Plays, with the Relations of Chimerical Adventures, in which profane Love bears a mighty Share; they fill their Minds with empty Notions; and, using themselves to the Magnificent Language of Heroes, or Heroins, in Romances, they spoil themselves hereby for Converse in the World: For all these fine airy Sentiments, these generous Passions, these strange Adventures, which the Author of the Romance, or Play, hath invented merely for Pleasure, bear no sort of proportion, either to the True Motives, which are generally the Springs of our Actions in the World, and upon which all our Affairs do turn; or to the Mistakes, which are commonly met with in all that is here undertaken.

A poor raw Girl, whose Head is fill'd with the moving and surprising Strains, which have charmed her in her Reading, is astonished, not to find in the World real Persons, who may answer to these Romantick Heroes. Fain would she live like those imaginary Princesses, who are in the Romances, that is, always charming, always adored, always above all kind of Want: What a Disgust must it be then, for her to descend from this Heroical State, down to the meanest Parts and Offices of Housewifery.

A second limit is set in cases where the roving imagination may carry young women to subjects too high for them:

Some carry their Curiosity yet much farther still, and set themselves even to decide Matters of Religion, as much as if they had studied in the Schools of Divinity twice Seven Years; and with a Magisterial Air, are for determining some of the most Knotty Questions that divide Men of the greatest Learning and Capacity; and for settling the Bounds of Truth betwixt the several contending Parties, as if they were capable of the Employment.

From "An Address to the Right Honourable the Lady ——, From the Translator," we get a list of books considered by Dr. Hickes as advisable reading for English girls:

It must be acknowledg'd, that there is not less difficulty in the Chusing good Books to busy one's self withal in Solitude, than good Friends to Entertain one in Conversation. Those which I would recommend to a Young Lady, next to the Holy Scriptures, are, The Whole Duty of Man; The Lady's Calling; and The Government of the Tongue. After these let her read Dr. Cave's Primitive Christianity, to give her an Idea of the Lives and Manners of the Ancient Christians; with which she may join his Lives of the Apostles, and, A Companion for the Festivals of the Church of England, by Robert Nelson, Esq. She ought not likewise to be unacquainted with A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of their Truest and Greatest Interest, in Two Parts; nor with The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England: These Two, being written by one of her own Sex, may probably serve to make a deeper Impression upon her, and will be both Instructive and Delightful. To these, if you please, you may add, The Lady's New Years Gift; and, Just Measures of the Pious Institution of Youth, by Mr. Monro. But, chiefly, the Two Volumes of The Christian Pattern, may very Profitably be recommended to her; the Christian Exercises and Entertainments, in the Second, she will find of very peculiar Service and Consolation to her, in all the several Stages of Life; and if she can be brought to be in love with the Character herein of Philothea, the Work is soon done. The Meditations and Soliloquies of St. Augustine, deserve likewise to be of the Number of her more intimate Companions; together with the Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices, with Psalms, and Hymns, and Prayers for every Day in the Week, publish'd by Dr. Hickes: Nothing can be ever sweeter or finer than some of the Meditations, and particularly the Hymns. To these let her add a most excellent Book, called, The Old Religion; with the Winter Evening Conferences; which, together with solid Instruction, will be very divertive: Both by Dr. Goodman. That when she approaches the Solemn Assemblies, she may do it with that Understanding and Devotion which she ought, let her read Comber or Bennet upon the Liturgy. That she may read the Scriptures in her Closet with a greater Relish, let her peruse Mr. Boyle's Considerations on their Stile. For the Psalms, wherein I must needs suppose her particularly conversant, she may have Hatton's Psalter, or Patrick's Paraphrase, which are very plain, and will be of excellent Use. The rest of the Practical Works of this last Author, will not be unworthy her Acquaintance, but especially The Parable of the Pilgrim, the Pleasantness and Easiness of which will incite her to read forward, and will much help to inspire a lovely Idea of Religion. For the same Reason, that I recommend the last, I would likewise The Martyrdom of Theodora, with some few Pieces of like Nature. And the Telemachus of our Author will be better, sure, for her, than any Romance or Novel besides: This, though written in Prose, is perhaps the most compleat Poem that several Ages have produced, for the Subject and Disposition of it. She may be directed likewise to the Psyche of Dr. Beaumont; to Dr. Woodford's Poetical Paraphrases on the Psalms and Canticles; Sir Richard Blackmore's Paraphrase on Job; the Davideis and some of the Pindaricks of Mr. Cowley. If she be Curious, her Time will not be lost in turning over the best Histories and Memoirs. For Plays, there is great Danger in giving her but a Taste of them, tho' there should be some few that may be read, not only Innocently, but Usefully: And great Caution will be required, not to be hurt by some that are the best Written, and not to fall by them into sundry Inconveniences and Temptations, which may not so presently, perhaps, appear; which the Principles laid down in this Treatise of Education do sufficiently evince. For Sermons, at her leisure Hours, when she is disposed to read them, there is abundant Choice. Let her not affect to read such as are too Learned, or above her Capacity; and especially, let her avoid all such as savour of a Party, and that may tend to sowre her with Disputes either Civil or Religious. For the Study of Morality, Seneca's Morals, Abstracted by L'Estrange, is almost the only Piece, that I should offer to her, besides the Incomparable Essays of Mr. Collier, and his Antoninus. I mention but a few, among many others excellent in this kind, because I would not have her distracted by too great Variety of Reading.

The final admonition implies the danger always in the background of the most liberal eighteenth-century mind, and that is that learning, even hedged-in and expurgated learning, might make girls bold and unfeminine:

That which remains next, is to win young ladies to beware of the Reputation of being Witty; such a Reputation being constantly attended with very great Perils and Inconveniences to them. For if you take not Care hereof, they that are of a brisk lively Spirit, will continually be intriguing, will be forward to speak of everything, and be criticising on Matters beyond their Capacity; while they affect to shew their Wit, and study to be applauded when they are but troublesome by their Niceness. If you can but give them a Relish for the true Delicacy, they will presently be asham'd of this Affectation of Wit and Humour; and so will avoid splitting upon those dangerous Shelves, which such a Temper is ordinarily exposed to. Show them sweetly that the Virgin Delicacy, the less it is touched, is the more admired.... A Maid ought not to speak but for Necessity; nor then but with an Air of Diffidence and Deference: she ought not likewise to talk of things which are above the common reach of Young Women, even though she, herself, may, perhaps, be instructed in them.

Mary Astell (1666-1739)

It would be interesting to know whether the next and most pronounced advocate of higher education, Mary Astell, had read Dr. Hickes's sermon. Miss Astell[408] was born in Newcastle in 1666. Her father died when she was twelve; the uncle who is supposed to have educated her died when she was thirteen; her mother died when she was eighteen. Beyond these facts nothing is known of her early life. A record of the education of Anne Killegrew, Anne Kingsmill, and Mary Astell would be a social document of great significance for the reign of Charles II. But it was a record too slight to be kept. Of the books these young ladies read, the studies they pursued, of the schools they may have attended, of the tutors they had, we get no hint. Of the early influences that led them to achievements unusual in their day and circle we know nothing. When we first meet them their formal education is complete and we can surmise its details only by doubtful inferences based on later attainments.

At about twenty Mary Astell went to London and there she lived till her death in 1731, Chelsea being the part of the city with which she was most definitely associated. There is no available record of the first seven years of her London life. But during this time she must have been doing thorough and consecutive reading in history, philosophy, theology, and politics. And she must have read analytically, critically, with vigorous independent judgment, for at twenty-seven she was well ready for the era of controversy on which she then entered. Her style was also so matured in her first published work as to indicate a disciplined mind and pen.

In 1693-94 she was in correspondence with John Norris concerning his theory that God should be the sole object of human love. So acute, so devout, so ably expressed, were Miss Astell's letters that Mr. Norris won her consent to an anonymous publication of the correspondence in 1695 under the title, Letters concerning the love of God. In his Preface Dr. Norris said that he could not express the value he set upon Miss Astell's letters either as to their ingenuity or their piety, "the former of which might make them an entertainment for an angel, and the latter sufficient (if possible) to make a saint of the blackest devil." He said he had never met any discourses that had so enlightened his mind and enlarged his heart, had so taken possession of his spirit, and had exerted such "a general and commanding influence over his whole soul."

While carrying on this discussion with Mr. Norris another subject had been more definitely occupying Miss Astell's active mind, and in 1694 she had published her most original and important work, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their true and greatest interest. This appeared in July, 1694, and by 1697 the fourth edition came out. "By a Lover of her Sex" was the only indication of authorship. In 1700 she published Some Reflections upon Marriage, a discussion based on the unhappy experiences of her neighbor in Chelsea, the Duchess of Mazarine. The years 1704-05 show her greatest activity. In Moderation Truly Stated (1704) she answered Owen's Moderation a Virtue, and in the Preface discussed Davenant's recently published Essays on Peace and War. In A Fair Way with Dissenters and their Patrons (1704) she attempted to answer Defoe's Shortest Way with Dissenters, while in a Postscript she carried on her analysis of Owen's views on Moderation. In An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom she took up another phase of politics—religious controversy, showing herself a believer in Stuart doctrines of Church and State. The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England (1705) showed the insidious dangers of latitudinarianism and deism within the Church, and defended the Christian religion as reasonable and resulting in moral excellence. In 1709 appeared her last pamphlet, Bart'lemy Fair, or an Enquiry after Wit, an attack on Shaftesbury's Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, which she, however, wrongly attributed to Swift. The Preface to Bart'lemy Fair is a bitter invective against the Kit-Kat Club.

The pamphlets thus briefly listed are sufficient to show with what sustained energy Mary Astell entered into the discussions most vital in her day. Education, religion, politics, and social questions held her entire attention. She was never side-tracked into anything light or gay. We find no indications that she had any interest in art or general literature, that she had any of the recognized accomplishments, that she put any stress on scientific or linguistic attainments. She was temperamentally a controversialist, a propagandist. She was too serious, too much in earnest, to play with a subject. Her disapprovals were never softened by any humorous recognition of human foibles. For the graces and amenities of style she had slight regard. But she was beyond any woman and most men of her day in her command of the weapons of satire and irony. She could pierce to the heart of a sham or a sophistry, and she was merciless in her analysis of a trifling, corrupt, or irreligious life. She stands as a new type of learned woman. No other woman had ideas so rigorously thought-out or so firmly expressed. She taught with authority, not with the timidity, self-distrust, or reticence supposedly feminine in her time. She did not, write for money or for fame. She wrote because she had a message.

Many of the actual causes championed by Mary Astell are now dead issues, but her ideas concerning women, their education, their increased freedom of action, even in some measure their economic independence, led her into a field of controversy the problems of which are even yet but imperfectly solved. In the cause of feminism she did pioneer work quite amazing in its challenge of contemporary opinion and in its tempered wisdom. Her fundamental assumption was that the potentialities of women must be considered undetermined until they have been given full opportunities for preparation, and tested by real tasks. "Women are from their very Infancy," she says, "debarr'd those advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So partial are Men to Expect Bricks when they afford no Straw."

Eleven years later in the Preface to Reflections on Marriage, in the edition of 1706, she wrote with greater bitterness:

In the first place, Boys have much Time and Pains, Care and Cost bestowed on their education, Girls have little or none. The former are early initiated in the Sciences, are made acquainted with Antient and Modern Discoveries, they Study Books and Men, have all imaginable encouragement; not only Fame, a dry reward now-a-days, But also Title, Authority, Power, and Riches themselves which purchase all things, are the reward of their improvement. The latter are restricted, frown'd upon, beat, not for but from the Muses; Laughter and Ridicule that never-failing Scare-Crow is set up to drive them from the Tree of Knowledge. But if in spite of all difficulties Nature prevails, and they can't be kept so ignorant as their masters would have them, they are stared upon as Monsters, Censur'd, Envyd and every way discouraged, or at the best they have the Fate the Proverb assigns them: Virtue is praised and starved.

Even more caustic is her outburst against the women who accept the theory of their inferiority and hug their chains:

She's a Fool who would attempt their Deliverance or Improvements. No, let them enjoy the great Honour and Felicity of their tame, submissive and depending Temper! Let the Men applaud, and let them glory in this wonderful Humility! Let them receive the Flatteries and Grimaces of the other Sex, live unenvied by their own, and be as much belov'd as one such Woman can afford to love another! Let them enjoy the Glory of treading in the Footsteps of their Predecessors, and of having the Prudence to avoid that audacious attempt of soaring beyond their Sphere! Let them Houswife or Play, Dress and be pretty entertaining Company! Or, which is better, relieve the Poor to ease their own Compassions, read pious Books, say their Prayers, and go to Church, because they have been taught and us'd to do so, without being able to give a better Reason for their Faith and Practice! Let them not by any means aspire to being Women of Understanding, because no Man can endure a Woman of Superior Sense, or would treat a reasonable Woman civilly, but that he thinks he stands on higher Ground, and that she is so wise as to make Exceptions, in his Favour, and to take her Measures by his Directions; they may pretend to Sense, indeed, since meer Pretences only render one the more ridiculous! Let them, in short, be what is call'd very Women, for this is most acceptable to all sorts of Men; or let them aim at the Title of good devout Women, since Men can bear with this; but let them not judge of the Sex by their own Scantling: For the great Author of Nature and Fountain of all Perfection, never design'd that the Mean and Imperfect, but that the most Compleat and Excellent of his Creatures in every Kind, should be the Standard to the rest.[409]

In spite of these very real elements of discouragement Mary Astell proposed a remedy. The basic assumptions of her Serious Proposal in 1694 are nearly identical with those of Bathsua Makin's Prospectus, twenty-one years earlier. They agree that girls have minds worth training, that education is their natural right, their most reliable safeguard, and a permanent source of strength and happiness. But here the likeness ends. Mrs. Makin's inchoate plans contemplated little more than the ordinary school for housewifery and accomplishments, with the addition of solid learning for those who could be lured into it. The total training did not extend beyond the years a girl would ordinarily spend in a boarding-school, hence the genuine learning she could gain would be almost negligible. Mary Astell's plan was much more comprehensive. It was for women as well as for girls. To her "Religious Retirement" might go women tired of the world, young women waiting the arrangement of a suitable marriage, heiresses desiring to escape pursuit, spinsters anxious for some honorable retreat from a derisive world. All would find a serene and ordered life. But no vows were to be taken. In fact, one important purpose of the college was to provide England with virtuous and accomplished wives, through whom social regeneration might be brought about.

In thus educating wives, however, Mary Astell had no iconoclastic or alarming notions of female dominance. She is as positive as the author of The Ladies Calling, or of Halifax himself, in her conception of the husband as the head of the house. She says:

She then who Marries, ought to lay it down for an indisputable Maxim, that her Husband must govern absolutely and intirely, and that she has nothing else to do but to Please and Obey. She must not attempt to divide his Authority, or so much as dispute it; to struggle with her Yoke will only make it gall the more, but must believe him Wise and Good in all respects the best, at least he must be so to her. She who can't do this is no way fit to be a Wife, she may set up for that peculiar Coronet the antient Fathers talk'd of, but is not qualified to receive the great Reward which attends the eminent Exercise of Humility and Self-denial, Patience and Resignation, the duties that a Wife is call'd to.[410]

Education can fortify and guide married women and can give them unending private satisfaction, but can in no way alter their status or secure them any freedom.

To the unmarried woman the college offered the only means so far devised whereby they could not only escape from the odium of a single life, but could have a chance for activity along lines chosen in accordance with their tastes and capacities.

The aims of the college and the plans as outlined were so reasonable and put forward with so much eloquence that they attracted favorable attention. Part II of the Proposal was dedicated to the Princess Anne, and it is to her that we must give the credit for a subscription of £10,000 for the necessary buildings.[411] And it is practically certain that Bishop Burnet, at this time tutor to the young Duke of Gloucester and so of easy access to Anne, is the one to whom we must ascribe the withdrawal of that subscription and along with it the royal sanction so essential an element in the success of the plan. Bishop Burnet saw in this proposed "Lay Monastery" a source of plots and cabals dangerous to the Church. And Anne was too devout and narrow-minded a churchwoman to run any such risks. So the plan came to no practical realization.

Though the time was probably not ripe for such a college, it is significant that in the aristocratic circle where Mary Astell moved there was apparently considerable favorable discussion of the project. In 1697 Thomas Burnet wrote to the Electress Sophia of Mary Astell as "a young Ladie of extraordinary piety and knowledge as any of the age" and comments on her "two little books of proposals to the Ladies" as showing "both her zeal and judgment in thee advyces given to her sex, for the reformation of manners, living, studies, and conversations of the ladies."[412] In the same year Defoe, in his Essay on Projects, referred with praise to Mary Astell, though not agreeing with her plans in detail. In 1697, also, Evelyn commented favorably on Mary Astell: He said that he could not omit some acknowledgment of the satisfaction he had received from her "most sublime" writings, and he adds concerning her college, "Besides what lately she has proposed to the Virtuous of her Sex, to shew by her own Example, what great Things, and Excellencies it is Capable of, and which calls to mind the Lady of that Protestant Monastery, Mrs. Farrer, not long since at Geding in Huntington-shire."[413] George Wheler, in A Protestant Nunnery, refers to "A Serious Proposal written by an ingenious Lady" and gives it the further compliment of adopting some of its ideas.[414] George Hickes, in his Instructions for the Education of a Daughter (1708), gives A Serious Proposal and The Christian Religion, by Mary Astell, in the list of books which he commends to young women. Robert Nelson, in an Address to Persons of Quality (1715), also praised the Proposal to Ladies as made "by a very Ingenious Gentlewoman, which was then well approved by several ladies and others."[415]

The wits of the time are usually accredited with derisive laughter at the female college. But the chief attacks were from Swift in The Tatler in 1709, fifteen years after the Proposal, Part I, and twelve years after the second part. Swift's Tatler articles followed immediately on Mary Astell's Bart'lemy Fair, and were really not so much an attack on a college for women as an attempt to answer Mary Astell's satiric commentary on the Kit-Kat Club, and on Steele and Swift in particular. It was a sort of quid pro quo in which Swift seized upon the weapons most available. The coarseness of the description of the college must have been very offensive to Mary Astell as a similar vulgarity of attack in Three Hours after Marriage must have offended Lady Winchilsea. Swift represents the professors of the college to be Madonella (Mary Astell), Epicene (Mrs. Manley), and Mrs. Elstob, a union that would probably have been as irritating to Mrs. Manley as it was to her virtuous co-adjutors in academic chairs. The break-up of the college is due to a company of rakes to whom the ladies collegiate give joyous welcome.

Steele's attacks on Mary Astell are much milder. He represents her as "Mrs. Comma, the great Scholar," who defends her desired seclusion by herself announcing to would-be callers that she is "not at home." Again, she is put in as the foreman of a jury in a Court of Honour, and is described as a "professed Platonist that had spent much of her time in exhorting the sex to set a just value upon their persons, and to make the men know themselves."

That the attention attracted by Mary Astell's writings was not all contemptuous has been already indicated. Her books were, however, but one source of her influence. In her later life not only was she of sufficient repute to make her home in Chelsea a sort of minor learned salon, but she had considerable personal influence among younger women of like aspirations. Of three of her friendships with learned women we have some knowledge. The most intimate of these was with Lady Elizabeth Hastings, twenty-two years her junior. Lady Betty went to Ledstone to live in about 1705 and was thereafter only occasionally in London, so they could not have had much continuous personal association, but they apparently found themselves in immediate accord on vital subjects. Lady Betty and her sisters on the remote Yorkshire estate almost realized in a small way Mary Astell's ideal of a religious retirement. If the correspondence between them were only extant it would be invaluable. Elizabeth Elstob is also given as one of Mary Astell's friends. Miss Elstob was in London from 1709 to 1715 and came to know Miss Astell during this period. It was to Miss Elstob that Ballard wrote for information about Miss Astell when he wished to write her biography, which might seem to argue a known friendship between the two. But against any theory of real intimacy is the fact that Miss Astell, a woman of substance and wide influence, did not exert herself in Miss Elstob's behalf when she was left penniless and driven into obscurity. The most noted of Mary Astell's literary friends was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The culmination of that friendship in the indignant championship by Mary Astell of Lady Mary's Turkish Letters appears in an essay dated 1724, but the friendship was of much earlier date. It was not by wealth or position or beauty or social charm that Mary Astell gained and held her friends. In person she was "ill-favoured and forbidding," in manner she was abrupt and even rough in repelling what displeased her. She defended her own leisure and followed her own plans with defiance of all social conventions. She had the instincts of a recluse. She was deeply religious, austere to the point of asceticism, and her friendships were no matter of mutual admiration and easy compliances. She was a flaming advocate of Lady Mary against all detractors, but she stoutly combated Lady Mary's religious indifferentism. It was by sheer force of intellectual ability, moral earnestness, and profound convictions that Mary Astell gained her general repute and by sincerity and an unexpected ardor of devotion that she held her friends.

An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696)

Mary Astell's Serious Proposal appeared in 1694 with a second edition in 1695. In 1696 there appeared another feminist pamphlet the full title of which was An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex in which are inserted the characters of A Pedant, A Squire, A Beau, A Vertuoso, A Poetaster, A City-critick. C. In a Letter to a Lady by a Lady. A second edition in 1696, a third in 1697, a fourth in 1791, and an undated but later edition, testify to its popularity. This pamphlet was long attributed to Mary Astell, but both internal and external evidence are against her authorship. There seem to be reasons for ascribing it to Mrs. Drake, the sister of the Mr. James Drake who wrote the commendatory poem and essay published with the Defence of the Female Sex.[416] Whoever the author was she certainly deserves the credit of being the most brilliant woman writer of her period. In her Preface she says:

There have been women in all Ages, whose Writings might vie with those of the greatest Men, as the Present Age as well as past can testifie.... Their names are already too well known, and celebrated to receive any additional Lustre from so weak Encomiums as mine.... I pretend not to imitate, much less to Rival those Illustrious Ladies who have done so much Honour to their Sex, and are unanswerable Proofs of what I contend for. I only wish, that some Ladies now living among us (whose names I forbear to mention in regard to their Modesty) wou'd exert themselves, and give us more recent Instances, who are both by Nature and Education sufficiently qualified to do it, which I pretend not to.

The Essay opens with a statement that women must plead their own cause, since men no longer enter the lists in their behalf. The most recent woman's advocate, William Walsh, she dismisses with scant praise:

Those Romantick days are over, and there is not so much as a Don Quixote of the Quill left to succor the distressed Damsels. 'T is true a Feint of something of this Nature was made three or four years since by one; but how much soever his Eugenia may be oblig'd to him, I am of Opinion the rest of her Sex are but little beholding to him. For as you rightly observ'd, Madam, he has taken more care to give an Edge to his Satyr, than force to his Apology; he has play'd a sham Prize, and receives more thrusts than he makes.... He levels his Scandals at the whole Sex, and thinks us sufficiently fortified, if out of the Story of Two Thousand Years he has been able to pick up a few Examples of Women illustrious for their Wit, Learning or Vertue.... I have neither Learning nor Inclination to make a Precedent, or indeed any use of Mr. W's labour'd Common Place Book; and shall leave Pedents and School-Boys to rake and tumble the Rubbish of Antiquity, and muster all the Heroes and Heroins they can find.

The Essay takes up no such serious and practical topics as Mary Astell discusses. The curious question proposed is, "Whether the time an ingenious Gentleman spends in the Company of Women, may justly be said to be misemploy'd, or not." The opinion to be combated is that of men who declare the company of women to be irksome and unprofitable. The author gives the old argument that in souls there is no male and female, and brings Scripture proof that woman was expressly created as a companion for man. If the divine plan has been interfered with by the disqualification of women the cause is to be found not in their minds or natures but in their lack of education. Men should no more exult over being wiser than women than they would congratulate themselves on conquering a man whose hands were tied.

But women, even without regular education, know more than they are supposed to know. At boarding-schools, to be sure, they learn only needlework, dancing, singing, music, drawing, painting, and other accomplishments; and of languages they know only their mother tongue and French, "now very fashionable and almost as familiar amongst Women of Quality as Men." But after school days they have abundant leisure and the world of classic literature is open to them in translations. Ovid, Tibullus, Juvenal, Horace, Plutarch, Seneca, and Cicero may be read by the woman who knows only her mother tongue, and Dryden has already given "Divine Samples" of the sweetness and majesty of Virgil. The graces of France and Italy are equally at woman's command. Following this account of foreign, especially classic literature, is an energetic passage, very modern in tone, attacking the conception dominant in the Augustan age that the term "learning" applied only to a knowledge of the dead languages.

Nor can I imagine for what good Reason a Man skill'd in Latin and Greek, and vers'd in the Authors of Ancient Times shall be call'd Learned; yet another who perfectly understands Italian, French, High Dutch, and the rest of the European Languages, is acquainted with the Modern History of all those Countries ... shall after all this be thought Unlearned for want of those two Languages. Nay, though he be never so well vers'd in the Modern Philosophy, Astronomy, Geometry, and Algebra, he shall notwithstanding never be allow'd that honourable Title.... Thus you shall have 'em allow a Man to be a wise Man, a good Naturalist, a good Mathematician, Politician, or Poet, but not a Scholar, a learned Man, that is no Philologer. For my part I think these Gentlemen have just inverted the use of the Term, and given that to the knowledge of words, which belongs more properly to Things. I take Nature to be the great Book of Universal Learning, which he that reads best in all, or in any of its Parts, is the greatest Scholar, the most learned Man.

Furthermore, ignorance of Latin is no such drawback when one considers the English language and its riches. Who is nobler than Mr. Shakespeare? Whose grief more awful than Mr. Otway's? What tenderer Passion than in the Maid's Tragedy? Whose thoughts more beautiful and gallant than Mr. Dryden's? Her "Indignation, Compassion, Grief, are all at the Beck of these dramatists." Who can rival Sir George Etheredge, Sir Charles Sedley, for "neat Raillery and Gallantry"? Who has such strong "Wit and pointed Satyr" as Mr. Wicherley? Who can offer such "sprightly, gentile, easie Wit" as Mr. Congreve? For critics, who can more justly point out beauties and defects than Mr. Dennis and Mr. Rymer? If for poetry we are inclined, what more ravishing than the fancy of Cowley and the gallantry of Waller? For elevation of soul and reverence are there not the Fairy Queen and Paradise Lost? Then as for "satyrists," there are Mr. Butler and Mr. Oldham. For morals there are sermons, pious, solid, eloquent. For essays, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Osborn, Sir Wm. Temple, Sir George Mackenzie, Sir Roger L'Estrange.

The second portion of the Essay answers those who accuse women of inconstancy, dissimulation, impertinence, and vanity. These, the author maintains, are imperfections of human nature, not especially of women; and her method of proof is to show typical masculine exemplifications of these defects. Under vanity are a "Bully," a "Scourer," a "Fop Poet," a "Beau," a "Sloven"; these being men who disqualify themselves for agreeable social intercourse by a too emphatic and egregious desire to bring themselves into notice.

Of these the most voluminous Fool is the Fop Poet who ... has always more Wit in his Pockets than any where else, yet seldom or never any of his own there. Esop's Daw was a Type of him; for he makes himself fine with the Plunder of all Parties. He is a Smuggler of Wit, and steals French Fancies without paying the customary Duties. Verse is his Manufacture; For it is more the labour of his Finger than his brain.... He talks much of Jack Dryden and Will Wycherley, and the rest of that Set, and protests he can't help having some respect for 'em, because they have so much for him, and his Writings.... Once a Month he fits out a small Poetical Smack at the charge of his Bookseller, which he lades with French Plunder new vampt in English, small Ventures of Translated Odes, Elegies and Epigrams of Young Traders, and ballasts with heavy Prose, of his own.... He is the Oracle of those that want Wit and the Plague of those that have it.... Men avoid him for the same Reason they avoid the Pillory, the security of their Ears.

The "Pedant" and the "Country Squire" are both blockheads, and thus unfitted for rational society. "For my part, I think the Learned and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 't is all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense." These characters are especially effective. Not Pope himself has a more trenchant and sharply antithetic picture of the "Vertuoso." Contemporary public opinion as to the uselessness of the students of grasses, flies, bugs, shells, coins, etc., received concise and picturesque statement in the Defence.

What improvements of Physick, or any useful Arts, what noble Remedies, what serviceable Instruments have these Mushrome, and Cockel-shell Hunters oblig'd the World with? For I am ready to recant if they can shew so good a Med'cine as Stew'd Prunes, or so necessary an Instrument as a Flye Flop of their own Invention and Discovery.... I wou'd not have any Body mistake me so far, as to think I wou'd in the least reflect upon any sincere, and intelligent Enquirers into Nature, of which I as heartily wish a better knowledge, as any Vertuoso of 'em all. You can be my Witness, Madam, that I us'd to say, I thought Mr. Boyle more honourable for his learned Labours, than for his Noble Birth; and that the Royal Society, by their great and celebrated Performances, were an Illustrious Argument of the Wisdom of the August Prince, their Founder of Happy Memory; and that they highly merited the Esteem, Respect and Honour paid 'em by the Lovers of Learning all Europe over. But though I have a very great Veneration for the Society in general, I can't but put a vast difference between the particular Members that compose it.

The character of a "Beau" is keen and minute in observation. No coquette was more admirably dissected. The later Tatler pictures are inferior in brightness and pointed detail. The whole account is readable, laughable. Impertinence is defined as the quality of busying one's self with the trivial, and forcing these petty affairs on the attention of the uninterested. The author responds in lively fashion to those who count this a peculiarly feminine trait:

Thus, when they hear us talking to, and advising one another about the Order, Distribution, and Contrivance of Household Affairs, about the Regulation of the Family, the Government of Children and Servants, the provident management of a Kitchin, and the decent ordering of a Table, the suitable Matching and convenient disposition of Furniture, and the like, they condemn us for impertinence. Yet they may be pleased to consider, that as the affairs of the World are now divided betwixt us, the Domestick are our share, and out of which we are rarely suffer'd to interpose our Sense. They may be pleased to consider likewise, that as light and inconsiderable as these things seem, they are capable of no Pleasures of Sense higher, or more refin'd than those of Brutes without our care of 'em. For were it not for that, their Houses wou'd be meer Bedlums, their most luxurious Treats, but a rude confusion of ill Digested, ill mixt Scents and Relishes, and the fine Furniture, they bestow so much cost on, but an expensive Heap of glittering Rubbish. Thus they are beholding to us for the comfortable enjoyment of what their labour, or good Fortune hath acquir'd or bestow'd, and think meanly of our care only, because they understand not the value of it.

The Essay is, in reality, hardly more than a frame for the "Characters." It defends the female sex, by the method of denouncing the "Adversaries of the Sex." Its result as argument is, therefore, on the whole, negative. But the positive value of the book is great in its spirited exemplification of a woman's power to form independent judgments and to write vigorous English.

Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)

In 1697, the year in which the fourth edition of Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies appeared, Defoe published his Essay on Projects. Among plans for joint-stock banks, repairing and widening of highways, assurance societies, sick clubs, pensions for widows, etc., comes "An Academy for Women":

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to our women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves. One would wonder indeed how it should happen that women are conversible at all, since they are only beholden to natural parts for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew, or make baubles; they are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names, or so, and that is the height of a woman's education; and I would but ask those who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman I mean) good for, that is taught no more?... The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear; and 't is manifest that, as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why, then, should women be denied the benefit of instruction?... I would ask any such, what they can see in ignorance that they should think it a necessary ornament to a woman? Or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool? Or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught?... Shall we upbraid women with folly, when 't is only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them from being made wiser?

The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker, than those of the men; and what they might have been capable of being bred to, is plain from instances of female wit, which this age is not without; which upbraids us with injustice, and looks as if we denied women the advantage of education for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements. To remove this objection, and that women might have at least a needful opportunity of education in all sorts of useful learning, I propose the draught of an academy for that purpose.... I doubt a method proposed by an ingenious lady, in a little book called Advice to the Ladies, would be found impracticable.... When I talk, therefore, of an academy for women, I mean both the model, the teaching, and the government different from what is proposed by that ingenious lady for whose proposal I have a very great esteem, and also a great opinion of her wit; different, too, from all sorts of religious confinement, and, above all, from vows of celibacy.

Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but little from public schools, wherein such ladies as were willing to study, should have all the advantages of learning suitable to their genius....

The building should be of three plain fronts, without any jettings or bearing work, that the eye might at a glance see from one coin to the other; the gardens walled in the same triangular figure, with a large moat, and but one entrance.

Having thus provided against intrigues and escapades he would have no guards, no eyes, no spies, set over the ladies, but would expect them to be tried by the principles of honor and strict virtue.

Defoe's arguments in favor of the higher education of women represent the most advanced thought of his age.

Methinks mankind, for their own sakes, since, say what we will of the women, we all think fit one time or other to be concerned with them, should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable, if they expected no such thing as delight from them. Bless us! what care do we take to breed up a good horse, and to break him well! And why not a woman?...

But to come closer to the business. The great distinguishing difference which is seen in the world between men and women, is in their education; and this is manifested by comparing it with the difference between one man or woman and another.

And herein is it I take upon me to make such a bold assertion, that all the world are mistaken in their practice about women; for I can not think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and delightful to man, with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all only to be stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves.

Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least; but, in short, I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to be fit for it....

I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex, nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice: it is a thing will be more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but an essay at the thing; and I refer the practice to these happy days, if ever they shall be, when men shall be wise enough to mend it.

Defoe asserts that his ideas on this subject were not derived from Mary Astell, and is even slightly irritated that she was ahead of him in publication, since he had long before mentally elaborated the scheme he suggests.

"Sophia Pamphlets" (1739-40)

The feminist argument was carried on in what are known as the "Sophia Pamphlets." The first of these appeared in 1739 and was entitled Woman not inferior to Man: or a short and modest vindication of the natural right of the fair sex to a perfect equality of power, dignity and esteem with the men. By Sophia a person of Quality. There was an immediate answer under the title, Man superior to Woman; containing a plain confutation of the fallacious arguments of Sophia in her late Treatise intitled Woman not Inferior to Man. In 1740 Sophia responded with, Woman's superior excellence over Man or a reply to the author of a late treatise entitled Man superior to Woman. In which the excessive weakness of that Gentleman's answer to Woman not inferior to Man is exposed. The three pamphlets were published together in 1757 under the collective title Beauty's Triumph. These pamphlets give an interesting little passage at arms in the feminist controversy. The subjects taken up in the first pamphlet are closely modeled on The Woman as Good as the Man. "In what esteem the women are held by the men and how justly"; "Whether women are inferior to men in this intellectual capacity, or not"; "Whether the men are better qualified to govern than women, or not"; "Whether the women are fit for public offices, or not"; "Whether the women are naturally capable of teaching sciences, or not"; "Whether women are naturally qualified for military offices, or not,"—these are the topics discussed. With regard to the education of women Sophia says:

Men, by thinking us incapable of improving our intellects, have entirely thrown us out of the advantages of education, and thereby contributed as much as possible to make us the senseless creatures they imagine us. So that for want of education, we are rendered subject to all the follies they dislike in us.... And as our sex, when it applies to learning, may be said at least to keep pace with the men, so are they more to be esteemed for their learning than the latter: Since they are under a necessity of surmounting the softness they were educated in; of renouncing the pleasure and indolence to which cruel custom seem'd to condemn them to overcome the external impediments in their way of study; and to conquer the disadvantageous notions, which the vulgar of both sexes entertain of learning in women. And whether it be these difficulties add any keenness to a female understanding, or that nature has given women, a quicker more penetrating genius than to men, it is self-evident that many of our sex have far out-stript the men. Why then are we not as fit to learn and teach the sciences, at least to our own sex, as they fancy themselves to be.... We may easily conclude then, that if our sex, as it hitherto appears, have all the talents requisite to learn and teach these sciences, which qualify men for power and dignity, they are equally capable of applying their knowledge to practice in exercising that power and dignity. And since, as we have said, this nation has seen many glorious instances of Women, severally qualified to have all public authority center'd in them, why may they not be as qualified at least for the subordinate offices of ministers of state, vice-queens, governesses, etc.?

Sophia has, however, one reservation. Women may not enter the ministry:

Thus far I insist there is no science or public office in a state which women are not as much qualified for by Nature as the ablest of Men. With regard to divinity, our natural capacity has been restrain'd by a positive law of God: and therefore we know better than to lay claim to what we could not practice without sacrilegious intrusion.

The Gentleman, in his answer to Sophia, takes up her claims seriatim and disposes of them to his own satisfaction.

Neither Juvenal nor I [he says] deny that Women may acquire some superficial Learning. All we contend for is that it is ever evil bestowed upon them, inasmuch as it renders them useless to their own sex, and a nuisance to ours.... I grant Greece has shewn its Sappho, Rome her Cornelia, France has produced a Dacier; Holland has brought forth a Schurman; Italy a Doctress; and England now boasts an Eliza and a Sophia.

But the whole serio-comic tone of the Gentleman's Essay makes it difficult of interpretation. Sophia writes as if she were in genuine earnest in her protest and propaganda. But it seems much less certain that the Gentleman is not merely playing with the situation.[417] The identity of the writers has not been discovered. Miss McIlquham[418] believes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to be Sophia. But this is hardly likely, since 1739 is the year Lady Mary went to Italy. A writer signing himself "Medley," in Notes and Queries, suggests that "Sophia" was Lady Sophia Fermor, the second wife of Lord Cararet, and thinks she may also have been the "Sophia" of Letters of Portia to her Daughter Sophia, though these were not published till years later.[419]

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[CHAPTER IV]
MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS ON WOMEN IN SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

In addition to definite discussions as to the learning appropriate for women, there were numerous books on general topics pertaining to women, with incidental but often most illuminating comments on the advantages or disadvantages of a liberal education. These books also aid in building up a conception of the prevailing ideas concerning women apart from technical questions of education.

The Ladies' Calling (1673, 2d ed.)

The Ladies' Calling, the second edition of which appeared in 1673, was the most important as well as the most influential of all the seventeenth-century books on the social and domestic aspects of the life of women. The book is eminently well-bred, dignified, and aristocratic in tone, and ardently religious. The authorship of The Ladies' Calling has long been in dispute. Tradition has persistently ascribed it to Lady Pakington who, said Lady Winchilsea,

Of each Sex the two best Gifts enjoy'd,

The Skill to write, the Modesty to hide.

But if she were the author she has hidden the fact so successfully as to lose the credit of her work. Modern investigation ascribes the series of books, The Whole Duty of Man, The Gentleman's Calling, and The Ladies' Calling, with some degree of certainty to Richard Allestree,[420] one of the learned and devout men who found in Lady Pakington intellectual as well as religious sympathy. But it seems quite probable that Lady Pakington assisted him in The Ladies' Calling. At any rate, whoever the author, the book may fairly be considered an expression of the ideals of the group surrounding Lady Pakington, an outgrowth of their discussions. The "Calling" described is purely religious in tone, and the republication of the book in 1673 gains an added significance when we think of it as a protest against the social customs of the Restoration court and an appeal to ladies of high rank, summoning them to a sober sense of their duties and responsibilities. In an exaltation of Meekness, Modesty, Affability, and Piety as the genuine and proper Ornaments of Women, the author states the opposing faults as he has observed them. The picture he gives of ladies in the best circles is sufficiently appalling. Under "Modesty" is a protest against "Female swearers." "An Oath sounds gratingly out of whatever mouth, but out of a woman's it hath such an uncooth harshness that there is no noise this side of Hell can be more amazingly odious." Drinking is also reprobated as "a vice detestable in all, but prodigious in women," "nothing human being so much a beast as a drunken woman." Modesty also forbids excessive talkativeness, "that indecency of loquacity" generally charged to women. It forbids loudness of discourse, "a blustering or ranting style," or even "unhandsome earnestness." All mannishness in speech, manner, or dress must be avoided. Public speaking, even on the part of gifted women, is alien alike to St. Paul and true modesty. "Incontinence of mind," whereby secrets slip so easily from the female grasp, is likewise opposed to the sobriety and self-restraint implied in modesty.

Attractive and important as modesty is, it is outranked in value as a daily necessity by Meekness, meekness of the will, of the affections, of the understanding. Women particularly need this endearing quality of ready submission to authority, for, "since God has thus determined subjection to be the women's lot, there needs no other argument of its fitness, or for their acquiescence"; and since they must always be under the control of parents or husband, they will do well to cultivate meekness, "the parent of peace."

Affability and compassion are considered natural to women. They also have a predisposition to Piety, for it is based on Fear and Love, the "two most pungent passions of the female sex," and is, besides, their greatest ornament. Devotion, since it "requires a supple gentle soil," finds feminine softness and pliability very apt and proper for it.

The second part of The Ladies' Calling comes from generals to particulars. It takes up women as Virgins, Wives, and Widows. Modesty and obedience being the recognized virtues of Virgins, their case is passed over as having been already adequately presented. "Superannuated Virgins" are less easy to dispose of. "An old Maid is now thought such a Curse as no Poetic fury can exceed, look'd on as the most calamitous Creature in Nature." There was no possible complete evasion of the contempt with which protracted maidenhood was regarded. If, however, "these superannuated Virgins would behave themselves with Gravity and Reservedness, addict themselves to the strictest Virtu and Piety, they would give the world some cause to believe 't was not their necessity, but their choice, that kept them unmarried; that they were pre-engaged to a better Amour, espoused to the Spiritual Bridegroom: and this would give them among the soberer sort, at least the reverence and esteem of Matrons.... But if, on the other side, they endeavor to disguise their Age by all the impostures and gayeties of a youthful dress and behavior, if they still herd themselves amongst the youngest and vainest company, and betray a young Mind in an aged Body, this must certainly expose themselves to scorn and censure."

Under the heading "Antiquated Widows" are similar admonitions to a life of "assiduous Devotion." "How preposterous is it for an Old Woman to delight in Gauds and Trifles such as were fitter to entertain her Grand-children: to read Romances with spectacles, and be at Masks and Dancings, when she is fit only to act the Antics? These are contradictions to Nature, the tearing off her Marks, and where she has writ fifty or sixty, to lessen ... and write sixteen."

This is a long, serious, and very sincere book, and its evident purpose is to take up all important questions concerning women. But in point of fact, decorum, morality, piety, are the only subjects of discussion. Education is not mentioned except in the Preface, where it is stated that the mental inferiority of women should not be accepted as a foregone conclusion until they have had the same opportunities as men.

Men have their parts cultivated and improved by Education, refined and subtilized by Learning and Arts, are like an inclosed piece of a Common, which by industry and husbandry becomes a different thing from the rest, tho the natural turf owned no such inequality. And truly had women the same advantage, I dare not say but that they would make as good returns of it; som of those few that have bin tried, have bin eminent in several parts of Learning.... And were we sure they would have balast to their sails, have humility enough to poize themselves against the vanity of Learning, I see not why they might not more frequently be entrusted with it; for if they could be secured against this weed, doubtless the soil is rich enough to bear a good crop. But not to oppose a received opinion, let it be admitted, that in respect of their intellects they are below men; yet sure in the sublimest part of humanity, they are their equals; they have souls of as divine an Original, as endless a Duration, and as capable of infinite Beatitude.

Aside from this one passage the book is thoroughly conventional in its conception of the domestic, educational, and social duties and position of women. There is no hint of revolt, no thought of enlarged advantages. Whatever is, is right, so far as the position of women is concerned. The one appeal is for high-mindedness, personal religion, close adherence to the Church, as a woman's armor of defense. Within the realm of the spirit God and her own nature have set her free for lofty flights and great attainments.

The Lady's New Year's Gift (1688)

One of the most popular and entertaining of the many books for the particular advantage of the female sex was The Lady's New Year's Gift: or, Advice to a Daughter, by George Savile, first Marquess of Halifax. It was printed from a circulating manuscript without authorization in 1688. The fifteenth edition appeared in 1765. There was a new edition in 1791. It was translated into Italian and several times into French.[421] There is no word about education in the book. It concerns itself entirely with moral, social, and domestic topics. Vanity, Pride, Censure, Religion, are characteristic headings. Under "Behaviour" is a satiric description of the women who refuse to grow old.

I will add one Advice to conclude this head, which is that you will let every seven years make some alteration in you towards the Graver side, and not be like the Girls of Fifty, who resolve to be always Young, whatever Time with his Iron Teeth hath determined to the contrary. Unnatural things carry a Deformity in them never to be Disguised; the Liveliness of youth in a riper Age, looketh like a new patch upon an old Gown; so that a Gay Matron, a cheerful old Fool, may be reasonably put into the List of the Tamer kind of Monsters. There is a certain Creature call'd a Grave Hobby Horse, a kind of a she Numps, that pretendeth to be pulled to a play, and must needs go to Bartholomew Fair, to look after the young Folks, whom she only seemeth to make her care, in reality she taketh them for her excuse. Such an old Butterfly is of all Creatures the most ridiculous, and the soonest found out.

This passage is apparently reminiscent of The Ladies' Calling and but emphasizes the early relegation of the lady to the cap and the chimney-corner. There are other similar social dicta but the stress of the advice is on Husbands, House, Family, Children, the Husband bulking so large in the foreground as almost to obscure other interests. "How to live with a husband" is the central topic. The general laws on which particular maxims are founded are thus stated:

You must first lay it down for a Foundation in general, That there is Inequality in the Sexes, and that for the better Oeconomy of the World, the Men, who were to be the Lawgivers, had the larger share of Reason bestow'd upon them; by which means your Sex is the better prepar'd for the Compliance that is necessary for the better performance of those Duties which seem to be most properly assign'd to it. This looks a little uncourtly at the first appearance; but upon Examination it will be found that Nature is so far from being unjust to you, that she is partial on your side. She hath made you such large Amends by other Advantages, for the seeming Injustice of the first Distribution, that the Right of Complaining is come over to our Sex. You have it in your power not only to free yourselves, but to subdue your Masters, and without violence throw both their Natural and Legal Authority at your Feet. We are made of differing Tempers, that our Defects may the better be Mutually Supplied: Your Sex wanteth our Reason for your Conduct, and our Strength for your Protection; Ours wanteth your Gentleness to soften, and to entertain us. The first part of our Life is a good deal subjected to you in the Nursery, where you Reign without Competition, and by that means have the advantage of giving the first Impressions. Afterwards you have stronger Influences, which, well manag'd, have more force in your behalf, than all our Privileges and Jurisdictions can pretend to have against you. You have more strength in your Looks, than we in our Laws, and more power by your Tears, than we have by our Arguments.

The difficulties a wife may meet are fully recognized and the best ways of surmounting them are suggested. Is her husband unfaithful? The wife's proper task is Discretion, Silence, affected Ignorance. Does he drink to excess? Let her reflect that the fault is too common to be fatal to happiness. Is he ill-humored? The wife has but to mark "how the Wheels of such a Man's Head are used to move" and she can manage him at her will. Is he sullen? Watch for "the first Appearances of Cloudy Weather and be wary till the Fit shall pass." Possibly he may be a "Close-handed Wretch." This calls forth all a Wife's powers. She must use kindness, play on his ambition and vanity, using now and then even "a Dose of Wine to open up a narrow Mind." A weak and incompetent husband may become, in the hands of "a dexterous woman," even an asset of some value. She must, of course, pay deference to him in public, but she can easily see to it that he is really under her control. "Such a Fool is a dangerous Beast, if others have the keeping of him; and you must be very undexterous if when your Husband shall resolve to be an Ass, you do not take care he may be your Ass." Marriage is but a prolonged fencing-bout of wits. The woman works under unavoidable handicaps, but if she is sufficiently adroit, if she is mistress of artifice, if she knows the tricks of the game, she may emerge from the conflict substantially victorious.

The book was written in all seriousness and with tender love for the daughter Elizabeth for whose guidance it was intended. She is said to have prized it highly and to have kept it always on her table. Elizabeth was married early to the third Earl of Chesterfield who evidently had a humorous appreciation of the book, for he wrote on the fly-leaf "Labour in vain."

A Dialogue concerning Women (1691)

In 1691 there appeared A Dialogue concerning Women, Being a Defence of the Sex. Written to Eugenia by W. Walsh. The Preface by John Dryden says of women: "For my own part, who have always been their Servant, and have never drawn my Pen against them, I had rather see some of them prais'd extraordinarily, than any of them suffer by detraction: And that in this Age, and at this time particularly, wherein I find more Heroines than Heroes."

The dialogue is between Misogynes and Philogynes: Misogynes brings up Solomon, Euripides, Simonides, Lucian, St. Chrysostom, and Juvenal, the Epigrammatists, Comick Poets, and Satyrists, as a dreadful array of the ancients against women, showing at least that these ancients "had a very commendable faculty of calling Names." Misogynes especially dislikes "the Learned Woman, who runs mad for the love of hard words, who talks a mixt Jargon, or Lingua Franca, and has spent a great deal of time to make her capable of talking Nonsense in four or five different languages."[422]

Do you not think Learning and Politics become a Woman as ill as riding astride? [he asks]. Do you not, in answer to these, fetch me a Sappho out of Greece; a Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi, out of Rome; an Anna Maria Schurman out of Holland; and think that in shewing me three Learned Women in three thousand years, you have gain'd your point?

Philogynes answers that he shall continue in his opinion that learning is suitable for women

'till you have answer'd Anna Maria Shurman's Arguments in their behalf, and 'till you have taken away her self, who is one of the best Arguments.[423] 'T is possible everybody does not know, that she was very well skill'd in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabick, Turkish, Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Flemish Languages; that she had a very good faculty at Poetry and Painting, that she was a perfect Mistress of all the Philosophies, that the greatest Divines of her time were proud of her judgment in their own profession, and that when we had this character of her she was not above Thirty years of Age.[424]

Or shall I refer you to Mademoiselle Gournay among the French, or Lucretia Marinella among the Italians, who have both writ in defence of their Sex, and who are both Arguments themselves of the Excellency of it?[425]

Consider what Time and Charge is spent to make Men fit for somewhat; Eight or Nine Years at School; Six or Seven Years at the University; Four or Five Years in Travel; and after all this, are they not almost all Fops, Clowns, Dunces, or Pedants? I know not what you think of the Women; but if they are Fools they are Fools with less pains, and less expence than we are.[426]

Gildon's Letters (1694)

Charles L. Gildon published in 1694 a volume of miscellaneous letters and essays. Two of these letters were entitled "Chloe to Urania, against Womens being Learn'd," and "An Answer to the foregoing Letter in Defence of Womens being Learn'd." Chloe but transmits the arguments of her lover Lysander. "Learning will add fresh Pride to the Sex," he asserts, and will kindle in them an ambition of absolute Mastery. His second objection is the fundamental one. "Women were by their Creator design'd for Obedience not Rule; to be instructed by their Husbands, not to instruct them; and to Study nothing but their Household Affairs." If learning were added to the personal charms of women, not deity itself, Lysander thinks, could maintain the divinely ordained overlordship of man. A final argument is that learning will tend to make women unfaithful to their husbands, will give them "wandering desires." Lysander's antidote for the new ideas that seem to be perverting women's minds is Halifax's Advice to a Daughter, the authority of which was so well established that Chloe dares utter no protest against it. Urania, however, easily demolishes Lysander's objections, asserting that learning makes women humble, that no wise woman would ever think so wildly as to "attempt the inverting so prevalent, and inveterate a Custom of the Sovereignty of the Men." The Advice to a Daughter is a book Urania has little esteem for. Especially is she indignant at Halifax's advice to women to remain in the religious faith in which they have been brought up, since, even if such faith be error, says Halifax, women are not expected to do the voluminous reading necessary to find out the truth. Women, Urania maintains, should not govern their actions merely by what a corrupt age "expects." They have souls to save and must learn the truth and must have the learning that will guide them to the truth.

Both Lysander and Urania make the curious assumption that learning would render women more attractive. Lysander thinks it would add unduly to their power. Urania explains the tendency of the learned woman to conjugal infidelity by the statement that her uncommon learning results in an uncommon number of admirers. Let more ladies have learning and the charm of novelty would vanish.

Urania is so easily superior to Chloe and her lover that we must recognize in Gildon one of the champions of female learning.

The Ladies' Dictionary (1694)

One of the most curious books of the late seventeenth century is The Ladies' Dictionary; Being a General Entertainment for the Fair-Sex: A Work Never attempted in English. It was printed for "John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultry, 1694," and is signed by "N. H." who lays claim to the authorship in the following passage which may be quoted at length, since from it we also get a characterization of the book, its proposed scope and aim:

It is now near a Twelve-month since I first entered upon this Project, at the desire of a worthy Friend, unto whom I owe more than I can do for him: And when I considered the great need of such a Book, as might be a Compleat Directory to the Female Sex in all Relations, Companies, Conditions and States of Life; even from Childhood down to Old-age, and from the Lady at the Court, to the Cook-maid in the Country: I was at length prevailed upon to do it, and the rather because I know not of any Book that hath done the like; indeed many learned Writters there be, who have wrote excellent well of some Particular Subjects herein Treated of, but as there is not one of them hath written upon all of them, so there are some things Treated of in this Dictionary that I have not met with in any Language. 'T is true, MY OWN EXPERIENCE IN LOVE AFFAIRS, might have furnisht out Materials for such a Work; yet I do not pretend thereby to lessen my Obligations, to those Ladies, who by their Generous imparting to me their Manuscripts, have furnisht me with several hundred Experiments and Secrets in DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, BEAUTIFYING, PRESERVING, CANDYING, PHYSICK, CHIRURGERY, ETC. Proper for my Work, and such as were not taken out of Printed Books, or on the Credit of others, but such as are Re-commended to me from their own Practice, all which shall be inserted in a Second Part, if this First meets with Encouragement, that so both together may contain all Accomplishments needful for Ladies, and be thereby rendered perfect.... So that you'll find here at one view, the whole Series and Order of all the most Heroick and Illustrious Women of all times, from the first dawning of the World to this present Age, of all Regions and Climate, from the Spicy East, to the Golden West, of all faiths, whether Jews, Ethnicks, or Christians, (and particularly an Account of those Women Martyrs that suffer'd in Queen Mary's days: And in the West in 85: And of all Eminent Ladies, that have dy'd in England for these last fifty years) of all Arts and Sciences, both the graver, and more polite; of all Estates, Virgins, wives and Widows; of all Complexions and Humours, the Fair, the Foul, the Grave, the Witty, the Reserv'd, the Familiar, the Chast, the Wanton. Whatever Poets have fancied, or credible Histories have Recorded, of the first you have the Misteries and Allegories clearly interpreted and explained; of the latter the Genuine Relations Impartially delivered.

The general arrangement of the book is alphabetical, but Mr. "N. H." is too temperamental to yield entirely to an arbitrary alphabet, and so, if words are spiritually akin, he does not hesitate to group them in defiance of their initial letters, as when he puts "Pimp" under "Bawd," being unwilling to separate the household of Satan. There is, also, to add to the confusion, unnatural division of subjects. Under "D," "Diversions for Ladies" begins, but it is continued under "R" as "Recreations for Ladies." More than one third of the 522 pages of the book is given to such topics as "Beauty," "How to preserve Beauty," "Gracefulness," "Behaviour," "Manners," "Love," "Melancholy Lovers," "Occasions of falling in Love," "Passionate Lovers," "Opinions of the Learned on Love," "Progress of Love," "Kissing," "Wooing," "Courtship," and "Wedding."

Mr. "N. H." says he has consulted the most valuable books written for and against the "Fair-Sex" and has made free use of "Dr. Blancards, Mr. Blounts, and other Dictionaries." That he had read The Ladies Calling and Advice to a Daughter is apparent from his treatment of such topics as, "Husband Indifferent, or, how to make your Life easie with him," and "Virgins, their state and Behaviour, particularly those in years," where the outline of the thought and, in frequent instances, the exact phrasing of these recognized authorities are preserved.

"Religion, a lady's chief ornament," is disposed of in two pages. Learning takes about four pages. The promise of the author to give a catalogue of heroic and illustrious women is fulfilled by hundreds of names from myth and legend, from Roman, Greek, and Hebrew history, and from Italy and Holland. When he begins his search for the eminent ladies in England during the last half-century he summons quite a list, including the Countess of Pembroke, Lady Mary Wroth, Ann Askew, the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, Lady Elizabeth Carew, Elizabetha Joanna Westonia, Lady Jane Grey, the Duchess of Newcastle, Mrs. Katherine Philips, Anne Broadstreet, and "Astera Behen," but a page and a half is all he can find to say of all of them together. Mrs. Behn he describes as "a Dramatic Poetress, whose well-known Plays have been very taking; she was a retained Poetress to one of the Theatresses, and writ, besides, many curious Poems." The Duchess of Newcastle is "a very Charitable and obliging Lady to the World" in that she "copiously imparted to publick View, her Elaborate Works ... not forgetting to make her own and her Lord's Fame live, when Monuments shall crumble into Dust."

Taken as a whole, the book is a defense and eulogy of ladies and in the very brief portion of it dedicated to learned women it champions their ability and protests against undue limitations of their activities.

The Ladies' Diary (1703-1726)

Among the early efforts to meet the tastes of women and at the same time coax them along the paths of a more definite mentality, we must rank The Ladies' Diary: or, The Woman's Almanack, Containing many Delightful and Entertaining Particulars, peculiarly adapted for the Use and Diversion of the Fair-Sex. One series of these little books ranges continuously from 1703 to 1726. The Diaries were brought out anonymously, but Mr. Thoresby records in 1720 that he was visited by "Mr. Beighton of Coventry, an ingenious gentleman, author of the Ladies' Diary," so the authorship seems to have been known though not printed.[427] The announced purpose of the Diaries is "to promote some Parts of Mathematical Learning amongst the Fair Sex." To this end Enigmas, Paradoxes, and Arithmetical Questions, are proposed one year, and prizes given for the answers the next year. The Paradoxes included forty-five taken from a curious textbook entitled Gorden's Geography. The Enigmas were usually stated and answered in verse, and sometimes they were in French or Latin. The arithmetical questions often involved in answer a page or two of algebraic formulæ or even the processes of geometry or trigonometry. As a rule the ladies were especially interested in the Enigmas, leaving the mathematical portions to the men of letters, clergymen, and schoolmasters who solaced their winter evenings with the stimuli offered by the Woman's Almanack. Yet the editor asserts that even in mathematics the ladies often proved themselves very skillful. In the introduction in 1718 he says:

And, that the rest of the Fair Sex may be encourag'd to attempt Mathematics and Philosophical Knowledge, they here see that their Sex have as clear Judgements, a sprightly quick Wit, a penetrating Genius, and as discerning and sagacious Faculties as ours, and to my Knowledge do, and can, carry them thro' the most difficult Problems. I have seen them solve, and am fully convinc'd, their Works in the Ladies Diary are their own Solutions and Compositions. This we may glory in as the Amazons of our Nation; and Foreigners would be amaz'd when I shew them no less than 4 or 5 Hundred several Letters from so many several Women, with Solutions Geometrical, Arithmetical, Algebraical, Astronomical and Philosophical.

The solemnity with which contributors devoted themselves to the Diaries, the stately compliments interchanged over successful work, provoke a smile, but yet it must be confessed that no other agency between 1703 and 1726 offered to women so genuine an intellectual opportunity. To some women it was literally a perennial joy. Who were the Astræa and the Adrastea whose names are so often in the prize list? Who, in particular, was Anna Philomathes, who could write up whole numbers, questions and answers, and who kept at the business steadily for eleven years? From what homes did the "4 or 5 Hundred several Letters" of the editor's note come? That the Tatlers, the Spectators, and the Guardians should have their thousands of readers is easily explicable. But do not the now obscure Diaries indicate a more unusual mental energy, a more genuine delight in personal mental activity? In many a home, geographies, arithmetics, histories, classical dictionaries, would surround the "Fair-Sex" as they devoted themselves with leisurely assiduity to the demands of the Diary for the ensuing year. And a prize or an honorable mention marked a gratifying mental achievement.

The Guardian (1713)

In The Guardian, No. 155, we have an account of how melancholy a thing it is to see a coxcomb at the head of a family. The paper proceeds:

This is one reason why I would the more recommend the improvements of the mind to my female readers, that a family may have a double chance for it; and if it meets with weakness in one of the heads, may have it made up in the other. It is indeed an unhappy circumstance in a family, where the wife has more knowledge than the husband; but it is better it should be so, than that there should be no knowledge in the whole house. It is highly expedient that at least one of the persons, who sits at the helm of affairs, should give an example of good sense to those who are under them.

I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improveable minds as the male part of the species, why should they not be cultivated by the same method? Why should reason be left to itself in one of the sexes, and be disciplined with so much care in the other?

There are some reasons why learning seems more adapted to the female world, than to the male. As in the first place, because they have more spare time upon their hands, and lead a more sedentary life. Their employments are of a domestic nature, and not like those of the other sex, which are often inconsistent with study and contemplation. The excellent lady, the lady Lizard, in the space of one summer furnished a gallery with chairs and couches of her own and her daughters' working; and at the same time heard all doctor Tillotson's sermons twice over. It is always the custom for one of the young ladies to read, while the others are at work; so that the learning of the family is not at all prejudicial to its manufactures. I was mightily pleased the other day to find them all busy in preserving several fruits of the season, with the Sparkler in the midst of them, reading over the Plurality of Worlds. It was very entertaining to me to see them dividing their speculations between jellies and stars, and making a sudden transition from the sun to an apricot, or from the Copernican system to the figure of a cheesecake.

There is another reason why those especially who are women of quality, should apply themselves to letters, namely, because their husbands are generally strangers to them.

It is a great pity there should be no knowledge in a family. For my own part, I am concerned, when I go into a great house, when perhaps there is not a single person that can spell, unless it be by chance the butler, or one of the footmen. What a figure is their young heir likely to make, who is a dunce both by father's and mother's side![428]

The Ladies' Library (1714)

Addison and Steele had in mind some publication such as The Ladies' Library at least three years before it appeared. On April 12, 1711 (No. 37), Addison described in The Spectator the library of a lady called Leonora.[429] She had assembled her books partly in accordance with her own taste, partly on the principle that there were some books no library could do without. The list is an interesting one:

Ogleby's Virgil.

Dryden's Juvenal.

Casandra.

Astræa.

Sir Isaac Newton's Works.

The Grand Cyrus: with a Pin stuck in one of the middle Leaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia.

Lock of Human Understanding: with a Paper of Patches in it.

A Spelling book.

A Dictionary for the Explanation of hard Words.

Sherlock upon Death.

The fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Essays.

Father Malebranche's Search after Truth, translated into English.

A Book of Novelles.

The Academy of Compliments.

Culpepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies' Calling.

Tales in Verse by Mr. Durfey: Bound in Red Leather, gilt on the Back, and doubled down in several Places.

All the Classick Authors in Wood.

A Set of Elzivers by the same Hand.

Clelia: Which opened of itself in the Place that described two Lovers in a Bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a Daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a Key to it.

Mr. Steele's Christian Heroe.

A Prayer Book: With a Battle of Hungary Water by the side of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Tryal.

Seneca's Morals.

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.

Le Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances.

After some comment on this list as not in all respects desirable, Addison stated that it was his purpose soon to suggest a catalogue of books that would be proper for the improvement of the sex. In May (No. 79) of the same year a lady named "B. D." reminded The Spectator of this promise, and urged that in his catalogue of a Female Library he would pay particular attention to devotional works. In June (No. 92) The Spectator gives an account of the letters received by the editor in answer to his call for help in making up his "Catalogue of a Lady's Library." Book-sellers recommend the authors they have printed; husbands give the preference to Wingate's Arithmetic, the Countess of Kent's Receipts, The Government of the Tongue. Ladies send in all sorts of advice. "Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing Women upon their Knees with Manuals of Devotion, nor of scorching their Faces with Books of Housewifry." French romances and plays rank among the most popular sorts of reading. The Spectator renews his promise to search out in authors ancient and modern the passages most suitable for women, a work of this nature being the more necessary since most books are calculated for male readers.

In August (No. 140) "Parthenia" writes concerning her disappointment on reading the description of Leonora's Library which she finds no true guide at all, and she urges The Spectator to more earnest efforts in behalf of the sex:

The great desire I have to Embellish my Mind with some of those Graces which you say are so becoming, and which you assert Reading helps us to, has made me uneasie 'till I am put in a capacity of attaining them: This, Sir, I shall never think my self in, 'till you shall be pleased to recommend some Author or Authors to my Perusal.... I write to you not only my own Sentiments, but also those of several other of my Acquaintance, who are as little pleased with the ordinary manner of spending one's Time as myself: And if a fervent Desire after Knowledge, and a great Sense of our present Ignorance, may be thought a good presage and earnest of Improvement you may look upon your Time you shall bestow in answering this Request not thrown away to no purpose.

In spite of all this preliminary discussion the scheme was not immediately carried out. In November, 1712 (No. 528), "Rachel Welladay" wrote reproachfully: "You never have given us the Catalogue of a Lady's Library as you promised." And it was not till 1714 that The Ladies' Library was published by Steele. Though in three volumes and quite expensive, it became at once so popular that there was an eighth edition by 1772.[430] The book was said to be "Written by a Lady," but it is in reality a compilation from seventeenth-century authors. In the Athenæum (July 5, 1884) is an article by Mr. Aitkin in which the chief passages are traced to Taylor's Holy Living (168 pages), Fleetwood's Relative Duties of Parents and Children, The Whole Duty of Man, The Government of the Tongue, The Ladies' Calling (208 pages), Locke's Treatise on Education, Lucas's Practical Christianity and Enquiry after Happiness, Scott's Christian Life, Tillotson's Sermons, Mary Astell's Serious Proposal (86 pages), Halifax's Advice to a Daughter (47 pages), Hickes's Education of a Daughter. Angry charges were brought against Steele for his use of such copious extracts from Jeremy Taylor, as "an infringement on the rights of the poor orphans who have very little else to subsist on,"[431] and Mary Astell commented satirically on the consistency of the author who had shown his teeth against her Serious Proposal and then had transcribed "above a hundred pages of it" into his Ladies' Library. But no individual cavils interfered with the general approval. The book was received as an extremely judicious compilation of the best passages from authoritative sources. The Ladies' Calling, Advice to a Daughter, A Serious Proposal, and The Education of a Daughter, however unacceptable to modern thought many of their fundamental assumptions and practical rules may be, represented the highest and most dignified contemporary views as to the rights and responsibilities of women. Brought together thus in one survey these ideas would make a cumulative impression. There was nothing in the quotations to antagonize or terrify the most conservative religious readers, yet the total effect of the book would be a recognition of woman's ability to think on important and difficult questions, and the outcome would be to give her insensibly a more honorable place in home, social, and church life.

The Gentleman Instructed (8th ed., 1728)

In the Supplement to The Gentleman Instructed there is an animated presentation of the faults of women. Eusebius, the sage who is to instruct Neander in the duties of a gentleman, becomes so caustic in his attacks on women that Emilia presents the matter to a "Juncto" of ladies assembled to discuss the fashions. Emilia and Lucia are appointed to wait on Eusebius and explain to him that a "Select Committee of Ladies" require satisfaction at his hands. Neander proceeds in lively fashion to lay open the faults of ladies, their idleness, frivolity, vanity, and ignorance. During an arraignment so detailed and knowing it is small wonder that the envoys "sate upon the Tenters," and received the witty summary of their sins with floods of tears, or with torrents of angry words. On the entrance of Neander the colloquy takes a milder tone and Eusebius shows that he has "Balms to heal, as well as Causticks to blister." By a panegyric of noble and virtuous women he "dashes the aigre with the doux," and shows that he can speak "like a Gentleman as well as an Orator." He further modifies his harsh attitude by attributing feminine faults to defects in education. In answer to Neander's question as to the "Cause of our Ladies' Misfortune," Eusebius responds:

It's indeed a Misfortune, but almost Universal; it's spread over the whole World, and affects the whole Species. Emilia has touched the Cause, ill Education: This is the fatal Source of their Misery, the true Origin of all their Failings. Young Ladies are brought up as if God created 'em merely for Seraglio, and that their only Business was to charm a brutish Sultan: One would think they had no Souls, there is such a Care taken of their Bodies; that God had enacted a Salique Law as well as the French, and excluded the Sex from the Inheritance of Heaven.[432]

Later Eusebius has so far conquered the opposition of the two ladies as to venture upon specific good advice:

Pretend not in Company to Wit; you will certainly betray your Judgment. Women seldom appear more foolish, than when they aspire to the Glory of being thought wise. Good God! How was I plague'd t'other Day with the Impertinence of Madam H. She commented upon Aristotle, and Lectur'd us upon the Summe of Thomas Aquinas. She scorn'd the Female Topick of Modes and Dresses, and was for dancing on the high Ropes of Physicks and Divinity. We were first regaled with Materia Prima; then came up a Dish of Occult Qualities; and at last a whole Plate of Theological Terms were flung among the Company. It was as impossible to stop her in this learned Career, as a Ship under full Sail, and you might have sooner silenc'd a Hurricane, than have fetter'd her Ladyship's Tongue. The Sex admir'd her Wisdom, and the Men smil'd at her Folly. She is [sic] made a Provision of School Jargon, and laid it out with much Prodigality, and more Assurance. But all her Knowledge stuck on the Superficies of Words, she enter'd not into the Sense. So that the Fame of her Parts shrunk under Experience, and this Phœnix of women prov'd only a well-taught Parrot.[433]

To a eulogy of needlework he adds:

You may season Works with Reading, for though Women should not pretend to commence Doctors, yet I would not have 'em forswear Knowledge, nor make a Vow of Stupidity. Indeed it's not necessary to Rival the Knowledge of the Sybils, nor the Science of the Muses, she should not wade too deep into Controversy, nor soar so high as Divinity. These Studies lie out of a Lady's Way: They fly up to the Head, and not only intoxicate weak Brains, but turn them; They engender Pride, and blow us up with Self-conceitedness, and when all these meet, we shall be apt to measure Faith by our private Judgment, and set up our ill-shap'd Notions against the receiv'd Tenets of our Religion.[434]

Eusebius joins with nearly all contemporary moralists in a condemnation of romances:

Let not Romances come within reach of a young Lady: They are the Poison of Youth and murther Souls, as sure as Arsenick or Rats-bane kills Bodies.... Alas, when a young Creature reads over flourish'd Descriptions of conquering Beauties, and captive Knights; what a fine Landskip will they draw in her Head? How powerfully will they work upon her tender Heart? What a Tumult will they raise in her Breast?... How often will they envy a Philoclea for having a Pyrocles at her Feet, and how seriously will she wish herself in the Place of Pamelia. Nay, it's odd, when the Fancy is warm'd, and the Imagination charm'd with the advantageous Characters of those Platonick Knights, she may fall in Love with the bare Product of Sidney's Brain, and become a real Slave to Fable and Fiction.[435]

So convincing was Eusebius that Emilia said on leaving:

To complete the Favour, be pleas'd to oblige me with your Instruction in Writing. Memory is Treacherous, and we often forget those Things that should always be remembered: Besides the Benefit is too important to be confined to a private Person. My Disease is Epidemical, and you will find few Ladies in Court untainted: Pray let the Remedy be publick. I will send it to the Press with your Leave, and present it to our Sex with a Dedication.

Then the ladies took leave of Eusebius and drove home. "They were as calm as a spring Morning, and of Enemies became Eusebius's Admirers."[436]

In the Supplement to The Gentleman Instructed there is little that is constructive so far as education is concerned. The faults of women are wittily and picturesquely phrased, but no substitute scheme of life is offered. Wherever learning is specifically spoken of it is with derision.

Advice to a Lady (1731)

Lord Lyttleton wrote in 1731, when he was but twenty-two, a poem entitled "Advice to a Lady" in which he reiterated the commonplaces of the day. He counsels an "elegance of mind as well as dress," but strictly limits the exercise of such mentality as the lady may possess:

Nor make to dangerous wit a vain pretence,

But wisely rest content with modest sense;

For wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain,

Too strong for feeble woman to sustain:

Of those who claim it more than half have none;

And half of those who have it are undone.

---

Seek to be good but aim not to be great:

A woman's noblest station is retreat:

Her fairest virtues fly from public sight,

Domestic worth, that shuns too strong a light.

The attitude of the prudent wife towards her husband is also indicated:

From kind concern about his weal or woe,

Let each domestic duty seem to flow,

The household sceptre if he bids you bear,

Make it your pride his servant to appear;

Endearing thus the common acts of life.

The mistress still shall charm him in the wife.

Dr. Johnson thought this poem showed a mind attentive to life, that it was vigorously and very elegantly expressed, and that it was marked by much truth and much prudence. But Lady Mary Wortley Montagu summarized Lord Lyttleton's platitude in a contemptuous couplet:

Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;

In short, my deary, kiss me! and be quiet.

In 1744 Edward Moore published his Fables for Ladies.[437] In thirteen rather smoothly versified little tales he enforces the ordinary maxims included in the accepted social creed for women. Only the last one goes out of the realm of decorum and domesticity. In "The Owl and the Nightingale" the Nightingale represents the woman who "minds the duties of her nest" and sings the song taught her by nature, and so gains applause from man and bird. The opposite type is represented by the Owl who, puffed up with self-conceit, spends her time in pedantry and sloth. The owl-like lady vaunts her own wits, twits her husband with his inferiority, and lets her children go ragged and dirty.

With books her litter'd floor is spread,

Of nameless authors, never read;

Foul linen, petticoats, and lace

Fill up the intermediate space.

Abroad, at visitings, her tongue

Is never still, and always wrong;

All meanings she defines away,

And stands, with truth and sense, at bay.

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson was the first to make feminism an issue in fiction. Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe have the characteristics counted ideal by Richardson, and both of these young ladies have not only exceptional facility with the pen, but they have an education superior to that of most girls of their day, and they have educational ideas far ahead of their time. Though Clarissa was very young when she died, she is represented as having accomplished much. In fine needlework she excelled cloistered nuns, pieces of her work being sent even to Italy to show the skill of English maidens. She had a pretty hand at drawing, and, even when her execution was faulty, she was nevertheless "absolute mistress in the should-be of art." She knew French and Italian well, and had read the chief poetry in those tongues as well as in English. She had also begun Latin. She read aloud fluently and correctly, with grace and dramatic effect. Her maxim was, "All that a woman can learn above the useful knowledge proper to her sex, let her learn." But she had no patience with a "learned slattern," and deprecated any education that could turn a woman away from domestic economy. Pamela was but sixteen when she married and her education had been in the main that gained through four years with Lady B. But after her marriage she settles into a routine of life, one element of which is three hours a day for study. Italian, French, geography, and arithmetic receive particular attention. The chief pleasures in her home are intellectual ones. Her first theatrical season in London presents her in the rôle of dramatic critic. Ambrose Philips's The Distressed Mother and Steele's Tender Husband had awakened tears and laughter from a generation of play-goers, before Pamela, self-appointed censor of the stage, revealed their immoralities and improbabilities. It is also Pamela who is chosen to lay bare the absurdities of the Italian opera. At her husband's wish she writes an extended essay in which she dissects Locke's Treatise on Education with explanatory and critical comments. Furthermore, quite apart from these technicalities of education, Richardson has given to Pamela, Clarissa, and Miss Howe an independent personality. They are not mere puppets of relatives or of circumstances. They strive valiantly to direct the course of their lives according to the dictates of their own reason and conscience. Parents and husbands are not the arbiters of their destiny. They hold to their own views in spite of adverse public opinion and private authority. Nor do they cling to their theories with a mere meek and silent obstinacy. They argue down all opponents. The whys and the wherefores are at their tongues' end. Conscience, mind, and will are in their own keeping.

These striking characteristics of Richardson's heroines present in concrete form opinions frequently stated by him in his letters. Those to Lady Bradshaigh are sufficient to indicate the stand he took. This correspondence belongs in 1750 and 1751. The more important letters are the following:

Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson.

I own I do not approve of great learning in women. I believe it rarely turns out to their advantage. No farther would I have them to advance, than to what would enable them to write and converse with propriety, and make themselves useful in every stage of life. I hate to hear Latin out of a woman's mouth. There is something in it, to me, masculine. I could fancy such a one weary of the petticoat, and talking over the bottle. You say "the men are hastening apace into dictionary learning." The less occasion still for the ladies to proceed in their's. I should be ashamed of having more learning than my husband. And could we, do you think, help shewing a little contempt, finding ourselves superior in what the husband ought to excel in. Very few women have strength of brain equal to such a trial: and as few men would forego their lordly prerogative, and submit to a woman of better understanding, either natural or acquired. A very uncomfortable life do I see between an ignorant husband and a learned wife. Not that I would have it thought unnecessary for a woman to read, to spell, or speak English; which has been pretty much the case hitherto. I often wonder we can converse at all; much more, that we can write to be understood. Thanks to nature for what we have!

Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh.

Dear Madam,

You do not approve of great learning in women. Learning in women may be rightly or wrongly placed, according to the uses made of them. And if the sex is to be brought up with a view to make the individuals of it inferior in knowledge to the husbands they may happen to have, not knowing who those husbands are, or what, or whether sensible or foolish, learned or illiterate, it would be best to keep them from writing or reading, and even from the knowledge of the common idioms of speech. Would it not be very pretty for the parents on both sides to make it the first subject of their inquiries, whether the girl as a recommendation, were a greater fool, or more ignorant, than the young fellow; and if not, that they should reject her, for the booby's sake?—and would not your objection stand as strongly against a preference in mother-wit in the girl, as against what is called learning; since linguists, (I will not call all linguists, learned men,) do very seldom make the figure in conversation that even girls, from sixteen to twenty, make.

If a woman have genius, let it take its course, as well as in men: provided she neglect not anything that is more peculiarly her province. If she has good sense, she will not make the man she chuses, who wants her knowledge, uneasy, nor despise him for that want. Her good sense will teach her what is her duty; nor will she want reminding of the tenor of her marriage vow to him. If she has not, she will find a thousand ways to plague him, though she knew not one word beyond her mother-tongue, nor how to write, read, or speak properly in that. The English, Madam, and particularly what we call the plain English, is a very copious and a very expressive language.

Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson.

I will not approve of learning in women. You, not even you, shall persuade me to it; that is no farther than I have already allowed which I think is pretty extensively; let them study that, domestic duties, and other necessary acquirements, and they will have employment enough to keep them out of mischief, if their inclinations are not strong that way: and if they were as learned as the most learned you can name, I have a notion these same whisperings must, in some degree, be attended to; and whilst they have ears they will be open to flattery and whilst men have tongues these ears will be filled with it. Learning cannot change nature, but it can make a woman ridiculous, a woman of sense I mean. Then, if it was once become customary, all parents would think their children qualified, and say, "If, please God, my girl shall be a scholar," as the men say of their boys, boobies or not: and what figures would most of us make!—Everything moves easiest in its own sphere. Indeed, Sir, great learning would make strange work of us. You know we are to submit and obey; and it is much as ever we can do, often more, in our inferior state of knowledge. I speak of acquired learning. What we have from good sense and natural genius, nobody can take from us. And the more a woman has of those, the better she must appear if along with those, she has good nature and humility.

Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh.

Your Ladyship will not "approve of learning in women." I cannot help it. But do you not think, Madam, that the woman, who, additionally to the advantages she has from nature, "has been taught to read and converse with ease and propriety"; who can read, spell, and speak English; may not be as justly feared by half the pretty fellows of this age, as if she could read and understand Latin?

I do not allow, that because a man is superficial, a woman must be so too, for fear she should meet with a husband to whom she may have a superior understanding. Do you not remember whose these words are? "What a pity it is that true genius and merit should be veiled under the cloud of inactivity and modesty."—"Strange! (adds this favourite of mine) that people will wrap up their talents and hide them."

In your Ladyship's, of January 6, you say, "I hate to hear Latin out of a woman's mouth: there is something in it to me masculine. I could fancy such a one weary of the petticoat, and talking over a bottle." But, in this case, will not vanity and conceit shew themselves, where they are predominant, in a man's as much as in a woman's mind? Are there not pedantic men? Miss C——[438] is an example that woman may be trusted with Latin and even Greek, and yet not think themselves above their domestic duties. But after all, I contend not that women should be taught either of these languages; nor do I hold languages to be great learning, as I hinted in my former. A linguist and a learned man may very well be two persons. Meantime, all that I contend for, is, that genius, whether in men or women, should take its course: that, as the ray of divinity, it should not be suppressed. But I acknowledge that the great and indispensable duties of women are of the domestic kind; and that, if a woman neglect these, or despise them, for the sake of science itself, which I call learning, she is good for nothing.

But would you not, Madam, have called me by some hard name, had I supposed the sex, in general, so conceited, so self-sufficient, so naturally weak in judgment, as you do? and had I asserted, that the more they knew, the worse they would be for it? I believe, I have observed in a former, that neither of us will let anyone but ourselves speak slightly of the sex.

Lady Bradshaigh to Richardson (March 29, 1751).

I think we pretty nearly agree, as to learning in women. And I was glad to find our opinion corresponding with an author esteemed by the judicious. In the letters of Balzac to Mr. Chapelain, are the following words: "I could more willingly tolerate a woman with a beard, than one that pretends to learning. In earnest, had I authority in the civil government, I would condemn all those women to the distaff, that undertook to write books, that transform their souls by masculine disguise, and break the rank they hold in the world."

Few bits of correspondence could be more illuminating. Lady Bradshaigh holds the conventional mid-century view while Richardson represents the most advanced feminist ideas of his day. Mrs. Makin, Mary Astell, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and "Sophia" asked hardly more than Richardson freely grants.

In his letters to Miss Margaret Collier, Richardson is most earnest in his defense of literary women. In answer to her complaint that Fielding's Voyage to Lisbon was counted an inferior work and hence attributed to her, he "inveighed vehemently" against women who published anonymously, and wished it in his power to punish those geniuses of the female sex who studiously "wrapped up their napkin'd talents," elaborately concealing their "God-given talents." "What is it that they fear?... Is it that the men will be afraid of them, and shun them as wives? Unworthy fear! Let the wretches shun and be afraid of them. Unworthy of such blessings, let such men not dare to look up to merits so superior to their own; and let them enter into contract with women, whose sense is as diminutive as their own souls." Miss Collier answers (with a deep sigh) that a preference for "little-minded creatures" and an aversion to women of uncommon understanding is not confined to the wretches he anathematizes, but is as characteristic of "men of real good sense, great parts, and many fine qualities." Miss Collier styles Richardson "the vindicator" of her sex, but he holds his wrath and asks, "Who shall vindicate the honour of a sex, the most excellent of which desert themselves?"[439]

Henry Fielding

Fielding has, in Tom Jones, an entertaining learned lady in the person of Mrs. Western, the sister of Squire Western. She was of a masculine form, near six foot high, which, added to her manner and learning, possibly prevented the other sex from regarding her, notwithstanding her petticoats, in the light of a woman. "She had considerably improved her mind by study; she had not only read all the modern plays, operas, oratorios, poems, and romances—in all which she was a critic—but had gone through Rapin's History of England, Eachard's Roman History, and many French Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire: to these she had added most of the political pamphlets and journals published within the last twenty years. From which she had obtained a very competent skill in politics, and could discourse very learnedly on the affairs of Europe." Squire Western did not approve of his sister's learned tastes. "You know," he says, "I do not love to hear you talk about politics; they belong to us, and petticoats should not meddle."

But in Fielding's attitude towards his sister's work, and in the personal opinions he expressed in the prefaces to her novels, we find quite a different tone.[440] Mrs. Western represented a self-assertive, pretentious woman whose claim to learning was without justification, and as such Fielding satirized her. For a modest woman of real learning and ability Fielding had great respect.

Pompey the Little (1757)

In Coventry's Pompey the Little is a satirical sketch of a "Lady Sophister" who had visited most of the courts of Europe and who affected a character of wisdom. We first meet her at the bedside of Lady Tempest who is being attended by Dr. Kildarby and Dr. Rhubarb. Lady Sophister had associated with the literati in France "where the ladies affect a reputation of science, and are able to discourse on the profoundest questions of theology and philosophy." She had somehow caught up with the notion that the soul is not immortal, and she never found herself in the company of learned men without launching forth into a discussion of this subject. "This extraordinary principle, to show that she did not take up her notions lightly and wantonly, she was able to demonstrate; and could appeal to the greatest authorities in defence of it. She had read Hobbes, Malebranche, Locke, Shaftesbury, Woolaston, and many more. But Locke was her principal favourite, and consequently she rested chiefly upon him to furnish her with quotations whenever her ladyship pleased to engage in controversy." She attacks the two doctors with, "Have you ever read Mr. Locke's controversy with the Bishop of Worcester?" and hardly waiting to triumph over their confused attempts to evade the question she proceeds: "What do you esteem the soul to be? Is it air, or fire, or æther, or a kind of quintessence, as Aristotle observed—a composition of all the elements?... You know Mr. Locke observes there are various kinds of matter. But first we should define matter, which, you know, the logicians tell us is an extended solid substance. Out of this matter some is made into rose and peach-trees; the next form which matter takes is animal life; from whence we have lions and elephants and all the race of brutes: then the last, as Mr. Locke observes, is thought, and reason, and volition, from whence are created men; and therefore, you plainly see it is impossible for the soul to be immortal." Dr. Rhubarb is dazed by this fluent reasoning, but protests he can recall nothing in Locke about roses and peach-trees and elephants and lions. "Nay, sir," cried she, "can you deny me this? If the soul is fire, it must be extinguished; if air, it must be dispersed; if it be only a modification of matter, then of course it ceases when matter is no longer modified; if it be anything else, it is exactly the same thing: and therefore you must confess—indeed, doctor, you must confess—that it is impossible for the soul to be immortal."[441] Before such a rapid fire of phrases the doctors retire discomfited. It was generally thought that Mr. Coventry meant this sketch for Lady Orford, but even without this personal reference the passage would stand as Coventry's estimate of many of the women of his day who were devoting themselves to metaphysics and knots of divinity.

Jonathan Swift

There is no more concise summing up of the arguments generally advanced against the education of women in the first half of the eighteenth century than that given by Swift in the opening paragraphs of his essay entitled On the Education of Ladies:

It is argued that the great end of marriage is propagation; that, consequently, the principal business of a wife is to breed children, and to take care of them in their infancy: That the wife is to look to her family, watch over the servants, see that they do their work: That she be absent from her house as little as possible: That she is answerable for everything amiss in the family: That she is to obey all the lawful commands of her husband, and visit or be visited by no persons whom he disapproves: That her whole business, if well performed, will take up most hours of the day: That the greater she is, and the more servants she keeps, her inspection must increase accordingly: for, as a family represents a kingdom, so the wife, who is her husband's first minister, must, under him, direct all the officers of state, even to the lowest; and report their behavior to her husband, as the first minister does to his prince: That such a station requires much time, and thought, and order; and, if well executed, leaves but little time for visits or diversions: That a humor of reading books, except those of devotion or housewifery, is apt to turn a woman's brain: That plays, romances, novels, and love-poems, are only proper to instruct them how to carry on an intrigue: That all affectation of knowledge, beyond what is merely domestic, renders them vain, conceited, and pretending: That the natural levity of woman wants ballast; and when she once begins to think she knows more than others of her sex, she will begin to despise her husband, and grow fond of every coxcomb who pretends to any knowledge in books: That she will learn scholastic words; make herself ridiculous by pronouncing them wrong, and applying them absurdly in all companies: That in the meantime, her househould affairs, and the care of her children, will be wholly laid aside; her toilet will be crowded with all the under-wits, where the conversation will pass in criticising on the last play or poem that comes out, and she will be careful to remember all the remarks that were made, in order to retail them in the next visit, especially in company who know nothing of the matter: That she will have all the impertinence of a pedant, without the knowledge; and for every new acquirement, will become so much the worse.[442]

This essay breaks off abruptly so that we cannot tell in what spirit Swift planned to carry on the discussion. But in "A Letter to a Very Young Lady on her Marriage"[443] we get a somewhat fuller statement showing his contempt for women in general, but indicating possibilities in the way of improvement in specific cases:

As divines say, That some people take more pains to be damned, than it would cost them to be saved; so your sex employ more thought, memory and application to be fools, than would serve to make them wise and useful. When I reflect on this I cannot conceive you to be human creatures, but a certain sort of species hardly a degree above a monkey; who has more diverting tricks than any of you, is an animal less mischievious and expensive, might in time be a tolerable critic in velvet and brocade, and, for ought I know, would equally become them.... It is a little hard that not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand should be brought to read or understand her own natural tongue, or to be judge of the easiest books that are written in it; as any one may find, who can have the patience to hear them, when they are disposed to mangle a play or novel, where the least word out of the common road is sure to disconcert them; and it is no wonder when they are not so much as taught to spell in their childhood, nor can ever attain to it in their whole lives.... I know very well that those who are commonly called learned women, have lost all manner of credit by their impertinent talkativeness; but there is an easy remedy for this, if you once consider, that after all the pains you may be at, you never can arrive in point of learning to the perfection of a school boy.[444]

In harmony with this low estimate of the attainments of women is Swift's famous aphorism, "A very little wit is valued in a woman as we are pleased with a few words spoken plain by a parrot."[445] Too much emphasis could easily be given this utterance. It should be remembered that it was not part of a well-considered theory. It was merely one of the many unrelated sayings written down when Swift and Pope resolved to commit to paper all the maxims, epigrams, and short reflections on life that they could think of in a day.[446] The philosophy expressed counted for less than witty phrasing.

So, too, with Swift's brutal attacks on Mary Astell's college. It is given undue significance if it is interpreted simply as an attack on higher education for women. His derision of the college was an angry outburst against a particular learned woman who had used her wit to make fun of the Kit-Kat Club. It was Mary Astell the satirist rather than Mary Astell the defender of learned women who awakened his spleen.[447]

On the whole, Swift seems to have been favorably disposed towards women of genuine and unpretentious learning. His friendly services to the Irish poetesses, especially to Mrs. Barber and Mrs. Pilkington, while rather condescending in tone, nowhere indicates any condemnation of their aspirations in the way of writing and publishing. In the "Letter to a Very Young Lady" he comments unfavorably on the women who spend their youth in exploiting their beauty, and their later years in visits and cards, and says, "Whereas I have known ladies at sixty, to whom all the polite part of court and town paid their addresses, without any further view than that of enjoying the pleasure of their conversation." And he advised the young wife to seek out good books and elevating conversation in order to raise herself above the general degrading level of her sex:

You must improve your mind by closely pursuing such a method of study as I shall direct or approve of. You must get a collection of history and travels, which I will recommend to you, and spend some hours every day in reading them, and making extracts from them if your memory be weak. You must invite persons of knowledge and understanding to an acquaintance with you, by whose conversation you will learn to correct your taste and judgment.[448]

More convincing still is Swift's estimate of Stella. From her childhood he had trained her mind and selected her reading, and we must assume that he had formed her character and determined her acquirements according to the feminine model he most admired. When he praised her it was her intelligence on which he put emphasis. He said of her:

Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of mind, or who more improved them by reading and conversation.... She was well versed in the Greek and Roman story, and was not unskilled in that of France and England. She spoke French perfectly, but forgot much of it by neglect and sickness. She had read carefully all the best books of travel, which served to open and enlarge the mind. She understood the Platonic and Epicurean philosophy, and judged very well of the defects of the latter. She made very judicious abstracts of the best books she had read. She understood the nature of government, and could point out all the errors of Hobbes, both in that and in religion. She had a good insight into physic, and knew somewhat of anatomy; in both which she was instructed in her younger days by an eminent physician, who had her long under his care, and bore the highest esteem for her person and understanding. She had a true taste of wit and good sense, both in poetry and prose, and was a perfect good critic of style. Although her knowledge, from books and company, was much more extensive than usually falls to the share of her sex, yet she was so far from making a parade of it, that her female visitants, on their first acquaintance, who expected to discover it by what they call hard words and deep discourse, would be sometimes disappointed, and say, "They found she was like other women." But wise men, through all her modesty, whatever they discoursed on, could easily observe that she understood them very well, by the judgment shown in her observations, as well as in her questions.[449]

Swift did not consider a woman as a slave or a toy. An alert mind, a fund of varied information, an intelligent interest in books and general affairs, seemed to him necessary qualifications in a woman who would be a suitable companion for a man of sense.

Alexander Pope

Pope was interested in questions of education and general learning. His own training had not come through the regular channels of public schools and university, so perhaps as an observer ab extra the defects of the system were more apparent to him than to those brought up in it. At any rate he protested against corporal punishment, against the monotony of a narrow and fixed curriculum, against vague metaphysics and dry-as-dust textual criticism. But in this general discussion he did not touch upon the question of woman's education. His attitude towards learned ladies was a personal one. When he was in love with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the luster of her "heavenly mind," her learning, and her wisdom, were celebrated along with the grace and beauty depicted by Kneller.[450] But when she was no longer in favor she became "that dang'rous thing, a female wit."[451] In The Rape of the Lock he addressed the wayward goddess of the Cave of Spleen as:

Parent of vapors and of female wit,

Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit,

On various tempers act by various ways,

Make some take physic, others scribble plays.[452]

The "women-wits" apparently protested against these lines, or at least Lady Winchilsea did, and he responded with a conciliatory Impromptu to Lady Winchilsea, six lines of which are as follows:

In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,

And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:

Fate doomed the Fall of every Female Wit;

But doomed it then, when first Ardelia writ.

Of all examples by the world confess'd,

I knew Ardelia could not quote the best.

But Pope is never as undisguisedly himself in eulogy as he is in satire, and his real opinions probably came out when he and Gay and Arbuthnot sat down to write a play which should adequately represent their separate and combined hostilities. The assignment to Pope of the character of Phœbe Clinket, the authoress, shows not only his attitude towards Lady Winchilsea, but probably towards the tribe of women wits as well.[453] "Most women have no characters at all"[454] is Pope's general summary; and the highest compliment he could pay to Martha Blount, the woman for whom he cared most, was that she had "Sense and Good Humour."[455] In any comparison with Stella, Martha Blount seems a very commonplace personage to rank as a poet's friend.

Bishop Burnet

Bishop Burnet opposed Mary Astell's plan for a college, and he disliked any pushing into public affairs by women. "I thought," he said, "there were two sorts of persons that ought not to meddle in affairs, though upon very different accounts. These were churchmen and women. We ought to be above it, and women were below it." And when he first heard of Lady Margaret Kennedy, he was unwilling to meet her because of her unfeminine interest in politics.

Yet Bishop Burnet was not absolutely opposed to the education of women. When he gave instructions as to the choice of a wife, "a good understanding" and "a liberal education" were among the characteristics to be sought. His objection to Mary Astell's plan was due to his fear that a lay monastery such as she described might be hostile to the interests of the Church. He even advocated academies devoted to "women's education and religious retreat," and he thought that "monasteries without vows" might be set on foot in such a fashion as to be "the honor of a Queen on her throne."[456]

He also found especial pleasure in the society of educated women. When he finally met Lady Margaret Kennedy, he fell in love with her in spite of her politics. They were married in 1671, and when, after her death, he summed up her character, he put particular stress on her intellectual attainments. "She was a woman," he wrote, "of much knowledge, had read vastly; she understood both French, Italian and Spanish; she knew the old Roman and Greek authors well in the translations; she was an excellent historian and knew all our late affairs exactly well, and had many things in her to furnish out much conversation."[457]

Bishop Burnet's second wife was Mrs. Mary Scott, whom he married in Holland about 1687. In the Life of Burnet it is said of her: "With these advantages of birth, she had those of a fine person; was well skilled in drawing, music, and painting; and spoke Dutch, English, and French equally well. Her knowledge in matters of divinity was such as might rather be expected from a student than from a lady. She had a fine understanding and sweetness of temper, and excelled in all the qualifications of a dutiful wife, a prudent mistress of a family, and a tender mother of children."[458]

Bishop Burnet's third wife has already been noted as a religious writer. Her work was brought to completion and publication through his encouragement and coöperation.

He also chose intellectual women as friends. He corresponded with Mrs. Wharton, and wrote frequent poems to her, and said he "rejoiced in her life and friendship beyond all things of this world." Nor did the fact that she was an authoress disturb him. He even wrote verses in imitation of her verses.[459]

It is evident that Dr. Burnet enjoyed the individual woman of alert intelligence and trained mind, but that he deprecated any but the most carefully guarded schemes for a general extension of educational advantages to women.

John Wesley

John Wesley was always susceptible to the charms of women, but his lack of discrimination and insight in regard to them led to several disastrous affairs of the heart, and finally, at forty-eight, to a more disastrous marriage. These circumstances must be taken into consideration in reading his various utterances on married life. In a tract on Marriage he wrote that the duties of a wife may all be reduced to two: 1. She must recognize herself as the inferior of her husband. 2. She must behave as such. No such order of precedence had prevailed in the Epworth rectory, and the mother he almost worshiped would have scorned such rules. They grew rather from his unhappy union with the domineering, suspicious, obstinate Mrs. Vazeille. When he wrote to her, "Be content to be a private, insignificant person, known and loved by God and me. Leave me to be governed by God and my own conscience. Then shall I govern you with gentle sway, and show that I do indeed love you, even as Christ the Church"; he was not so much expressing his idea of inevitable masculine authority, as he was trying to calm one woman whose jealous frenzies destroyed his private happiness and threatened to injure his work.[460]

John Duncomb: The Feminead (1751)

John Duncomb's Feminead: or, Female Genius, was written in 1751 when he was but twenty-two. It is a tame and feeble production, but since it antedates Mr. Ballard's Memoirs and the Eminent Ladies, Mr. Duncomb's glorification of female genius should have at least the credit of being an original idea. And however halting the expression, his poem embodied a genuine enthusiasm that puts it in line with the newer ideas of the mid-eighteenth century. The list of learned ladies presented is not a long one. Comedy writers and writers of personal memoirs are sorrowfully and briefly dismissed as followers of a wanton muse. The virtuous ladies celebrated are led, of course, by the chaste Orinda. Those who succeed her are Lady Winchilsea, Mrs. Cockburn, Mrs. Rowe, the Countess of Hertford, Viscountess Irwin, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Madan, Mrs. Leapor, Miss Carter, Mrs. Brooks, Miss Ferrar, Miss Pennington, Miss Mulso, and Miss Highmore. Several of these ladies find their only commemoration here. The Viscountess Irwin is deserving of "a grateful tribute from all female hands" because she rescued her sex's cause from the aspersions cast upon it by Mr. Pope in his On the Characters of Women. The poetical epistle of the Viscountess in rebuttal of his charges proved to be a true Ithuriel's spear, and disarmed the witlings. Miss Pennington (afterwards Mrs. Peckard) wrote two odes on "Cynthia" and the "Spring" that appeared in Dodsley's Collection, volume V. Miss Pennington's The Copper Farthing, a burlesque imitation of Philips's Splendid Shilling, was printed in Dilly's Repository, volume I. She died in 1759, aged twenty-five. The others in the list are spoken of elsewhere in these pages, so need no further comment here.

The poems open with an invocation to Richardson as "The sex's friend and constant patron." And there is a passage of national congratulation over the freedom with which British nymphs wander in the groves of Wisdom:

Ev'n now fond Fancy in our polish'd land

Assembled shews a blooming, studious band:

With various arts our reverence they engage,

Some turn the tuneful, some the moral page;

These led by Contemplation, soar on high,

And range the Heavens with philosophic eye;

While those surrounded by a vocal choir,

The canvas tinge, or touch the warbling lyre.

Young Mr. Duncomb of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was looking up his illustrations of female genius at the same time that Mr. Ballard of Magdalen, Oxford, was getting his elaborate Memoirs ready for the press. And each writer was apparently influenced in his views by some specific woman scholar or writer whom he knew and admired, and through whom he was led into a championship of the general cause. As the learned Miss Elstob, and the pretty coin-loving sister, stimulated Mr. Ballard, so Susanna Highmore apparently gave direction to Mr. Duncomb's enthusiasm. He loved Miss Highmore (1730?-1812) through a protracted courtship of more than twelve years. She is the "Eugenia" of his poem and is described as "The Muse's pupil from her tenderest years." She was the daughter of Joseph Highmore, the artist. She belonged to the Richardson coterie and was one of the group to whom he read Sir Charles Grandison. Her sketch of the scene forms the frontispiece to the second volume of Mrs. Barbauld's Correspondence of Samuel Richardson. Her Fidelio and Honoria is the best known of her writings.

George Ballard: Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain

In 1752 there was published at Oxford a significant book entitled Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been Celebrated for their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages Arts and Sciences. The author of this book was George Ballard of whose obscure life but a few chance details have reached our day. This is the more to be regretted since he was evidently a person of marked individuality. He was born in Campden, Gloucestershire, in 1706. His father was a poor man, and it was necessary for the children to be put early to work. Since George was sickly an easy trade was found for him and he was apprenticed to a stay-maker, or woman's habit-maker. His literary tastes were early apparent. At fourteen he read Fox's Acts and Monuments of the Church, various books of polemical divinity, and a number of books against dissenters. He had antiquarian tastes, and while still young began a collection of coins. Our most definite picture of him is as a young man of twenty, still a stay-maker, but already well known as an indefatigable collector. In the summer of 1726 Mr. R. Graves wrote to Mr. Hearne as follows:

At Campden in Gloucestershire lives one Mr. Ballard, a Taylor, who hath a Daughter, a very pretty Girl, of about fourteen Years of Age, that hath an extraordinary Genius for Coins, & hath made an odd Collection of them. Mr. Granger (who came from thence last Night in his Return from London) saw her, and speaks much of her, w^ch I took the more notice of because he is himself a good Judge of Coins, & hath an admirable Collection of them, especially of English ones. But, it seems, this young Girl is chiefly delighted with those that are Roman.[461]

In February of the next year he wrote again:

The bearer is the young tailor of Campden who has collected so many odd coins.... The young Man, whose name is George Ballard has been all about the Country to pick up old money, and has got a great Number.... When he has gott any new that I have not seen, he brings 'em to me to tell him whose they are.... I suppose he will bring some of them with him to shew you.[462]

In March Mr. Hearne recorded the visit of Mr. Ballard:

Yesterday, in the afternoon, called upon me Mr. George Ballard, a young man (a Tayllour) of Campden in Gloucestershire, of whom I have heard Mr. Graves speak more than once. This Ballard is an ingenious, curious young man, & hath pickt up abundance of old Coins, some of w^ch he shewed me. He hath been at many places about the country for that End. He hath also pickt up many of our Historians, & other English Books, & takes great delight in them, but he is no scholar. He is a mighty admirer of John Fox & talks mightily against the Roman Catholicks, tho' I told him, that there are fifteen thousand Lyes in Fox, & brought him to some sense of the Abuses frequently put upon the poor Catholicks.

He shewd me an old Ed. w^ch is the first of Historia Britannica. Mr. Ballard told me, about a week ago he met with a curious old Paint upon Board (an original, as he takes it) done excellently well, of Queen Catharine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII.

Mr. Ballard hath a sister (which Mr. Graves used to talk also of) equally curious in Coins and Books with himself. He told me, she is twenty-three years of Age.[463]

There came with Mr. Ballard, one Mr. Ellys, who deals in Laces etc. and is Brother in law to Mr. Ballard, having married another (one elder) Sister of Mr. Ballard's, by whom he hath 2 children.[464]

In May of the same year Mr. Hearne wrote:

Yesterday Mr. Graves of Mickleton called upon us. He told me, that young Ballard the Taylor of Campden is out of his time, & hath very good business at his trade, but that he is now learning Latin, going twice a day for that end to the School-master there, and that he hath a great mind to come and enter of [sic] some College or Hall in Oxford, but Mr. Graves gives him no encouragement, judging it better (& so I think too) to keep to his Trade. This young Ballard's Great Uncle was a Doctor of Physick. Mr. Graves hath promised to send me some account of him.[465]

In spite of the contradictory statements as to the age of the attractive, coin-loving sister, there emerges from these letters a sufficiently definite picture of a household in which at least two talented young people were carrying on researches in line with the best antiquarian work of the day.

We are not told when Mr. Ballard took up Anglo-Saxon. The letters to and by Mr. Hearne when Ballard was twenty-one and twenty-two do not mention Anglo-Saxon as one of his interests. Six years later we find him on intimate terms with Elizabeth Elstob whose Evesham School was but a few miles from Campden. It does not seem improbable that Miss Elstob introduced this promising young scholar to her own chosen field of work. He was, at any rate, so impressed by the disproportion between her learning and her toil-bound life that he became her knight-errant and finally set in motion influences that resulted in her freedom. Whether Miss Elstob introduced him to Anglo-Saxon, or merely joined her ripe scholarship to his young enthusiasm, their common interest results in a warm friendship that found in Anglo-Saxon its firmest bond.

We have one interesting bit of testimony to the ardor with which Mr. Ballard pursued the new language. He needed an Anglo-Saxon dictionary, but not being able to buy one he borrowed, from Mr. Browne Willis, Somner's Dictionary, and made a very beautiful transcript of it, with Thwaites's additions. This transcript was one of the manuscripts bequeathed by Mr. Ballard to the Bodleian. It was a tremendous piece of work, and it is small wonder that Mr. Ballard celebrated its completion by a "festival."[466]

The advice given by Mr. Graves, that the ambitious young stay-maker should "keep to his trade," was perforce followed. Most of his life was spent as a tailor at Campden, but in spite of this his fame for scholarship grew apace. In 1750 Lord Chedworth and the gentlemen of his hunt, who annually in the hunting season spent about a month at Campden, heard of his attainments, and they offered him an annuity of £100 for life in order that he might prosecute his studies. He gratefully accepted £60 and set out at once for Oxford. He was made one of the eight clerks of Magdalen College, receiving his rooms and commons free. His life at Oxford was but a continuation of his activities at Campden. He had begun vast collections on various subjects and these he pushed nearer to completion. At his death, however, which occurred in 1755 and was occasioned, it was thought, by too strenuous application to study, the only work he had published was the Memoirs. He left to the Bodleian forty-four volumes of manuscripts and original letters, including copies of some of his own writing, and all carefully indexed.[467]

The preparation of the Memoirs was well under way before he went to Oxford, for Mr. G. Russell wrote to him, May 15, 1759: "The work you are now engaged in, will I hope rescue us in a great measure from the too just accusation our neglect in Biography has occasioned, and you have this additional satisfaction in prospect, that as the Fair Sex are the subject, so they will be the Protectresses and Guardians of your performance. Their smiles, like a benign planet, will gradually ripen it to perfection, and their breath embalm it to posterity."[468] The original manuscript of the Memoirs was in the possession of Mr. Gough and was sold with the rest of his books in 1811.[469] A copy of the first edition, in the Bodleian, contains manuscript notes in the handwriting of the author.[470] A second but inferior edition came out in 1775.

When the Memoirs appeared in 1752, it attracted little attention. The Monthly Review for February, 1753, is not laudatory. The editor regrets that Mr. Ballard did not go farther back than the fourteenth century, that he has vainly spent his industry in rescuing from oblivion some ladies who might better have been left there, and finally that "so extraordinary a genius and so excellent a woman as Mrs. Cockburn, is wholly unnoticed in this work." Other criticisms reached Mr. Ballard from private sources. They were based almost entirely on religious and party lines. Mr. Ballard's answer to a letter from Dr. Lyttleton, Dean of Exeter, will sufficiently indicate the tone of these criticisms. It was written May 22, 1753:

The day before I received your first epistle a Gent. of my acquaintance brought me the Monthly Review for February, that I might see what the candid and genteel authors of that work had said of mine. They observe to the publick, that I have said C. Tishem was so skilled in the Greek tongue, that she could read Galen in its original, which very few Physicians are able to do. Whether this was done maliciously, in order to bring the wrath of the Æsculapians upon me, or inadvertently, I cannot say: but I may justly affirm, that they have used me very ill in that affair; since if they had read with attention, which they ought to have done before they attempted to give a character of the Book, they must have known that the whole account of that Lady (which is but one page) is not mine, but borrowed with due acknowledgement from the General Dictionary. They are likewise pleased to inform the world that I have been rather too industrious in the undertaking, having introduced several women who hardly deserved a place in the work. I did not do this for want of materials; neither did I do it rashly, without advising with others of superior judgment in those affairs, of which number Mr. Professor Ward was one. But those pragmatical Censors seem to have but little acquaintance with those studies, or otherwise they might have observed that all our general Biographers, as Leland, Bale, Pits, Wood, and Tanner, have trod the very same steps; and have given an account of all the authors they could meet with, good and bad, just as they found them: and yet, I have never heard of any one that had courage or ill-nature enough, to endeavour to expose them for it. While I was ruminating on these affairs, three or four letters came to my hands, and perceiving one of them come from my worthy friend the Dean of Exeter, I eagerly broke it open, and was perfectly astonished to find myself accused of party zeal in my book; and that from thence the most candid reader might conclude the author to be both a Church and State Tory. But after having thoroughly considered all the passages objected to, and not finding the least tincture of either Whig or Tory principles contained in them, I began to chear up my drooping spirits, in hopes that I might possibly outlive my supposed crime; but, alas! to my still greater confusion! when I opened my next letter from a Tory acquaintance, I was like one thunderstruck at the contents of it. He discharges his passionate but ill-grounded resentment upon me most furiously. He tells me, he did not imagine Magdalen College could have produced such a rank Whig. He reproaches me with want of due esteem for the Stuart Family, to whom he says I have shown a deadly hatred, and he gives me, as he imagines, three flagrant instances of it. 1. That I have unseasonably and maliciously printed a letter of Queen Elizabeth's, in order to blacken the memory of Mary Queen of Scots, and that, too, at a time when her character began to shine as bright as the Sun. 2dly. That I have endeavoured to make her memory odious, by representing her as wanting natural affection to her only son, in my note at p. 162, where he says I have printed part of a Will, etc. And 3dly, tho' she was cut off in such a barbarous and unprecedented manner, yet she has fallen unlamented by me. I am likewise charged with having an affection to Puritanism; the reasons for which are, my giving the Life of a Puritan Bishop's Lady, which it seems need not have been done by me, had I not had a particular regard for her, since it had been done before by Goodwin who reprinted her Devotions. And not content with this, I have blemished my book with the memoirs of a Dissenting teacher's wife, and have been kind enough to heighten even the character given her by her indulgent husband; and that I am very fond of quoting Fox and Burnet upon all occasions. These are thought strong indications of the above-mentioned charge. It may be thought entirely unnecessary to answer any of the objections from Exeter, after having given you this Summary of my kind Friend's Candid Epistle; but to you, Sir, to whom I could disclose the very secrets of my soul, I will endeavour to say a word or two upon this subject, and make you my Confessor upon this Occasion; and I will do it with as much sincerity as if I lay on my death-bed. Before I was fourteen years old, I read over Fox's Acts and Monuments of the Church, and several of the best books of Polemical Divinity, which strongly fortified me in the Protestant Religion; and gave me the greatest abhorrence to Popery. And soon after I perused Mercurius Rusticus, The Eleventh Persecution, Lloyd, Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, and many others, which gave me almost as bad an opinion of the Dissenters. But then I learned in my childhood to live in Charity with all Men, and I have used my best endeavours to put this doctrine in practice all my life long. I never thought ill, or quarrelled with any man merely because he had been educated in principles different to mine; and yet I have been acquainted with many papists, dissenters, etc. and if I found any of them learned, ingenuous, and modest, I always found my heart well-disposed for contracting a firm friendship with them: and notwithstanding that, I dare believe that all those people will, with joint consent, vouch for me, that I have ever been steady in my own principles.

I can truly affirm that never any one engaged in such a work, with an honester heart, or executed it with more unbiassed integrity, than I have done. And indeed, I take the unkind censures passed upon me by the furious uncharitable zealots of both parties, to be the strongest proof of it. And after all, I dare challenge any man, whether Protestant, Papist, or Dissenter, Whig or Tory, (and I have drawn up and published memoirs of women who professed all those principles) to prove me guilty of partiality, or to shew that I have made any uncharitable reflections on any person, and whenever that is done, I will faithfully promise to make a public recantation. I wish, Sir, you would point out to me any one unbecoming word or expression which has fell from me on Bishop Burnet. Had I had the least inclination to have lessened his character, I did not want proper materials to have done it. I have in my possession two original letters from Bishop Gibson and Mr. Norris of Bemerton, to Dr. Charlett, which, if published, would lessen your too great esteem for him. And what, I beseech you, Sir, have I said in praise of Mrs. Hopton and her pious and useful labours, which they do not well deserve, and which can possibly give any just offence to any good man? I dare not censure or condemn a good thing merely because it borders upon the Church of Rome. I rather rejoice that she retains anything I can fairly approve. Should I attempt to do this, might I not condemn the greater part of our Liturgy, etc.? and should I not stand self-condemned for so doing? I cannot for my life perceive that I have said anything of that excellent woman, which she does not merit; and I must beg leave to say that I think her letter to F. Turbeville deserves to be wrote in letters of gold, and ought to be carefully read and preserved by all Protestants. Mary Queen of Scots fell under my notice, no otherwise than as a learned woman. The affairs you mention would by no means suit my peaceable temper. I was too well acquainted with the warm disputes, and fierce engagement both of domestic and foreign writers on that head, once to touch upon the subject. And indeed, unless I had been the happy discoverer of some secret springs of action which would have given new information to the public, it would have been excessive folly in me to intermeddle in an affair of so tender a nature, and of so great importance.

I have often blamed my dear friend Mr. Brome for destroying his valuable collections, but I now cease to wonder at it. He spent his leisure hours pleasantly and inoffensively, and when old age came on, which not only abates the thirst, but oftentimes gives a disrelish to these and almost all other things, which do not help to make our passage into eternity more easy, he then destroyed them (I dare believe) in order to prevent the malicious reflections of an ill-natured world.

I have always been a passionate lover of History and Antiquity, Biography, and Northern Literature: and as I have ever hated idleness, so I have in my time filled many hundred sheets with my useless scribble, the greater part of which I will commit to the flames shortly to prevent their giving me any uneasiness in my last moments.[471]

The bitter feeling indicated by this letter, and the sense of disappointment resulting from criticisms so unsympathetic, must have been considerably mitigated by the noble list of subscribers with which the book was ushered into the world.[472] That would indicate at least a financial success, and doubtless appreciation came from many unrecorded sources.

Mr. Ballard's book is of interest if it were only as a tour de force in the way of collecting materials from scattered sources. He sought far and wide for the facts he chronicles. All available biographical dictionaries, general histories, county histories, genealogical records, wills, funeral sermons, epitaphs, published works, private manuscripts,—all became the subjects of his indefatigable inquiries. He sought interviews, he wrote letters, he cajoled information from the most unlikely recesses. And he had an eye for picturesque and personal detail, so that out of his rapid and often disordered assemblage of facts it is possible to reconstruct, in many instances, a vivid impression of real women in their form and habit as they lived. That closer scholarship should now and then find inaccuracies in his statements is no more than should be expected, and should in no degree invalidate his claim to recognition as having done an invaluable piece of research in a biographical realm entirely new.

The Memoirs is a handsome volume of 474 pages and contains sixty more or less extended biographies. Except for Queen Elizabeth the longest notice is in the twenty-four pages devoted to Margaret Roper, and the accounts range from that down to eight or ten lines. The order is approximately chronological. The lives are divided into two portions with separate dedications. The first one reads, "To Mrs. Talbot of Kineton in Warwickshire the Following Memoirs of Learned Ladies in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries are most humbly inscribed as an acknowledgement of my sincere and high regard for her and Mr. Talbot and as a small Testimony of Gratitude for Extraordinary Favours conferred by Both of Them upon their most obliged and most devoted humble servant George Ballard." The second dedication was, "To Mrs. Delany the Truest Judge and Brightest Pattern of all the Accomplishments which adorn her Sex these Memoirs of Learned Ladies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries are most humbly inscribed by her obedient servant George Ballard."

In the Preface Mr. Ballard comments on the value of biographical records and then proceeds to a justification of his own work:

The present age is so far from being defective in this respect, that it hath produced a greater number of excellent biographers than any preceding times: and yet, I know not how it hath happened, that very many ingenious women of this nation, who were really possessed of a great share of learning, and have, no doubt, in their time been famous for it, are not only unknown to the public in general, but have been passed by in silence by our greatest biographers.

When it is considered how much has been done on this subject by many learned foreigners, we may justly be surprized at this neglect among the writers of this nation; more especially, as it is pretty certain, that England hath produced more women famous for literary accomplishments, than any other nation in Europe.

---

Those, whose memoirs are here offered to the publick, I have placed in the order of time in which they lived; omitting none, of whom I could collect sufficient materials. For as there may yet be some learned women of those times, whose characters I am an entire stranger to; so there are others, whom I well know to have been persons of distinguished parts and learning, but have been able to collect very little else relating to them. Such as, Lady Mary Nevil, Lady Anne Southwell, Lady Honor Hay, Lady Mary Wroath, Lady Armyne, Lady Ranelagh, Lady Anne Boynton (famous for her skill in ancient coins, and noble collection of them) Lady Levet, Lady Warner, Gentlewomen; Mrs. Mabilla Vaughan, Mrs. Elizabeth Grimstone, Mrs. Jane Owen, Mrs. M. Croft, Mrs. Aemillia Sawyer, Mrs. Makins (who corresponded in the learned languages, with Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman), Mrs. Gertrude More, Mrs. Dorothy Leigh, together with many other learned and ingenious women, since the year 1700; of those latter I have had the good fortune to make very considerable collections: and among the former, I had drawn up an account of Mrs. Carew, in the same manner with the other memoirs, but omitted printing it by mere accident.

The motto on the title-page, "Et sane qui Sexum alterum ad studia idoneum negant, iam olim rejecti, fuere ab omnibus philosophis," expresses the spirit of the book. Mr. Ballard was perfectly genuine in his admiration of learned women. In his impressionable youth he had found his sister as intelligent in collecting old coins and books as he himself. Later the most learned Anglo-Saxon scholar he knew was Miss Elstob. His fervent recognition of his sister's genius, his high sense of Miss Elstob's learning, are but a forecast of the direction of his mature work. He had known two brilliant women, hence he had a belief in the possible intellectual achievements of women. He had seen one of these women, in spite of her constructive and advanced scholarship, consigned to poverty and oblivion, and a sense of injustice took possession of his mind. The championship of Miss Elstob passed over into championship of all learned women. His Memoirs, he hopes, will remove "that vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of the female sex." To accomplish this end he relies in the main on a cool and unemphasized recital of facts. But now and then he allows himself to protest against some especial injustice. For instance, under the "Memoirs of Mary Countess of Pembroke," he says of her translation of the Psalms:

But then we are informed by Sir John Harington, and afterwards by Mr. Wood, and from him by the late learned Dr. Thomas, that she was assisted by Dr. Babington then chaplain to the family, and afterwards Bishop of Worcester; for, say they, 't was more than a woman's skill to express the sense of the Hebrew so right, as she hath done in her verse; or more than the English or Latin translation could give her. This argument has likewise been made use of by a certain divine to divest another worthy Lady of the honour of an excellent performance, in the composition of which was shown some skill in that primitive language. But why this should be thought a cogent argument to prove it, I am very much at a loss to know; it being not so much as pretended, so far as I can be informed, that there is more skill required, or greater difficulties to be met with in acquiring that language, than there is in attaining an exact knowledge in the Greek and other tongues, which all the world knows numberless women have been perfectly well versed in.

And that the female sex are as capable of learning this as any other language, appears so plain from many undeniable instances of it, as to render any farther disproof as to that assertion unnecessary. Let those who doubt of it, read what St. Jerom has recorded of the noble Lady Paula and her daughter Eustochium. The Lady Paula's character he solemnly professes himself, and that upon a most solemn occasion, to have drawn not in the way of a Panegyric, but to have related everything with the strictest veracity; and therefore will not, I hope, be suspected of flattery, when he tells us that she, in her old age, did speedily learn it; and understood the language so well as to speak it.

Or if this be referring them too far back to antiquity, let them reflect on the extraordinary learning and abilities of Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman; who was not only well skilled in Greek and Latin, but in the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Chaldaic, etc. And we are told [in Evelyn's Numismata] that Ludovisia Sarracennia, a Physician's daughter of Lyons, understood and spoke Hebrew and Greek at the age of eight years. To let pass many other foreign examples, I shall only observe that our own Kingdom produced several women in the last century, who were famous for their skill in Hebrew, etc. Particularly a young lady of the North family, who was well versed in the Oriental languages. Mrs. Bland a Yorkshire gentlewoman was so well skilled in it, that she taught it to her son and daughter. Likewise the late Mrs. Bury of Bristol, and others, of whom I need say no more here, since they will be remembered in this catalogue.

Again, under "Lady Pakington," the question of Hebrew comes up. One gentleman has told him that The Whole Duty of Man and the other treatises by the same author could not be by a woman because they were too deeply learned, and another gentleman wrote that the "many quotations from Hebrew writers" precluded female authorship. But Mr. Ballard answers:

And since skill in the Hebrew language is made use of as a convincing argument (tho, for my part, I can not find one Hebrew quotation in the whole book) he may please to understand, that besides the justly celebrated Mrs. Anna Maria à Schurman, and many other foreign ladies, we have had several domestic examples of Women who have been famed for their skill in that primitive language, viz., Lady Jane Gray, Lady Killigrew, a Lady of the Nottingham family, another Lady of the North family, Lady Ranelagh, Mrs. Bury, and Mrs. Elizabeth Bland of Beeston in Yorkshire.

Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755)

The success of Mr. Ballard's Memoirs in 1752 led to the production in 1755 of Poems by Eminent Ladies, "Printed for R. Baldwin, at the Rose, in Pater-Noster-Row."[473] The brief Preface reads in part as follows:

These volumes are perhaps the most solid compliment that can possibly be paid to the Fair Sex. They are a standing proof that great abilities are not confined to the men, and that genius often glows with equal warmth, and perhaps with more delicacy, in the breast of a female. The Ladies, whose pieces we have here collected, are not only an honour to their sex, but to their native country; and there can be no doubt of their appearing to advantage together, when they have each severally been approved by the greatest writers of their times. It is indeed a remarkable circumstance, that there is scarce one Lady, who has contributed to fill these volumes, who was not celebrated by her contemporary poets, and that most of them have been particularly distinguished by the most lavish encomiums either from Cowley, Dryden, Roscommon, Creech, Pope, or Swift.

There is indeed no good reason to be assigned why the poetical attempts of females should not be well received, unless it can be demonstrated that fancy and judgment are wholly confined to one half of our species; a notion, to which the readers of these volumes will not readily assent. It will not be thought partiality to say that the reader will here meet with many pieces on a great variety of subjects excellent in their way; and that this collection is not inferior to any miscellany compiled from the works of men.

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The short accounts of the several writers, prefixed to each of their poems, were compiled from the best materials we could meet with. The life of Mrs. Behn in particular, (which is very entertaining) is extracted from The Lives of the Poets, by Mr. Theophilus Cibber and others. For many of the rest we are obliged to Mr. Ballard's entertaining Memoirs of Learned Ladies.

The two unimpressive volumes of this publication make rather more interesting reading than most miscellanies, but there is no hint of latent genius. The ladies are merely clever versifiers. They manage the heroic couplet with the mechanical skill of Pope's lesser imitators. Their verses jingle in the close with sufficient accuracy. Pope's antitheses and balanced structures, his oratorical figures, his use of pungent personal portraiture, are characteristics that find many enfeebled echoes. In subject-matter and general tone the books present an impeccable front. The authors would be sure to prefer Steele's Ladies' Library to Mrs. Pilkington's Love in Excess, yet they are not conspicuously strait-laced. The poems are nearly all occasional and gain thus a note of reality, and, though no lady attains to genuine humor or actual lightness of touch, there are evidences of a brightness of spirit, a vivacity, a quickness of repartee, that remove the poems from the realm of the purely imitative and conventional.

Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1755)

Among the literary curiosities of the eighteenth century are two books by Thomas Amory. One of these, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, appeared in 1755 in two volumes. The first volume of the second work, The Life of John Buncle, was published in 1756, and a second volume appeared in 1766. When he began the Memoirs he had planned to extend the series to eight volumes, but he did not carry it beyond the second volume of John Buncle. The full title of the Memoirs[474] indicates its character as a medley of unrelated observations, disquisitions, and opinions. John Buncle has a less erratic plan, some order being given by the fact that the hero engages in seven successive matrimonial ventures in the course of his travels through Yorkshire and the Lake District. But the books are alike in aim, both being an exposition of Christian Deism. John Buncle's wives are all either able advocates of Socinianism when he meets them, or they have minds so attempered that on hearing the tenets of that faith they ardently embrace it. The ladies in both books are introduced with a Defoe-like apparatus of seemingly accurate details as to dates, locations, and particular circumstances. Although these ladies have had a great variety of romantic adventures and differ somewhat as to wealth and social position, they are essentially alike in character and function, the one purpose of the author being through them to exemplify and explain his religious beliefs. The interesting point is that Mr. Amory in creating ideal and learned defenders of his views should have chosen young ladies. And this was deliberately done. He states it as his conviction "that the faculties and imagination of women's minds properly cultivated may equal those of the greatest men," and he advocates a higher education for young women of sufficient fortune: "It would be so far from making them those ridiculous mortals Molière has described under the character of learned ladies; that it would render them more agreeable and useful, and enable them by the acquisition of true sense and knowledge, to be superior to gayety, dress and dissipation. They would be glorious creatures then. Every family would be happy."

In accordance with this view his young ladies in the Memoirs and John Buncle have not only virtue, wealth, and beauty, but learning of the most specialized and difficult sort. One girl of twenty had been for five years studying under the tutelage of a Scotchman and had attained great proficiency in "arithmetic, Algebra, and fluxions." On her first interview with the author she discoursed for ten uninterrupted pages on the method of fluxions and so wrought upon her hearer's admiration that "for a full quarter of an hour after she ceased he sat looking at her in the greatest astonishment." But he recovered sufficiently to secure the mathematical prodigy as his fourth wife. Another "master in the fluxionary way" was a Mrs. Benslow, and most of the ladies found a perennial source of joy in algebra and arithmetic. But the realm in which their minds luxuriated was that of speculative theology. They read books on religious faiths, ancient and modern, they discussed the most abstruse problems of metaphysics, and they carried ethical problems into the most attenuated ramifications.

The lady who seems to be in all ways Mr. Amory's ideal is Miss Harriot Eusebia Harcourt. She appears in both books, and in definiteness of personality is superior to any of the other characters. It is not impossible that Amory gives under her name a highly idealized portrait of some one he knew. The Biographium Femineum, published in 1766, was so impressed by Miss Harcourt as to catalogue her among distinguished Englishwomen, but the entire account seems to be based on Amory's characterization. She is also admitted as a real person in Female Biography, by Miss Mary Hays, in 1803, and in Rose's New Biographical Dictionary, in 1839. But Miss Harcourt is almost certainly a fictitious character. If any woman had really accomplished what is described in Amory's books, it is incredible that there should have been no contemporary notice of so novel an experiment.[475]

According to Amory, Miss Harcourt was born in 1705. She received a learned education supplemented by nine years of travel in Europe with her father who secured for her the best masters in the languages of the different countries, so that she became an accomplished linguist. On the death of her father in 1733 she inherited a large fortune which she was free to spend according to her own ideas. Her acquaintanceship with noble nuns in various parts of Europe had convinced her that a life similar to theirs, but outside the Catholic Church, would be ideal. She thereupon returned to England and with eleven like-minded ladies she organized a society of "Reformed Recluses." On her estate in Richmondshire she built a beautiful cloister as a winter residence. In the summer the Society occupied a charming villa on the Green Island, a part of her father's property in the western islands of Scotland. Amory says that he was shipwrecked on this island and that during his long stay there he became intimately acquainted with the details of Miss Harcourt's scheme of life. On so agreeable a theme he allowed his imagination free rein. The magnificent situation of the Green Island gave full scope for descriptions of wild and romantic scenery.[476] For the things wrought by the hand of man in the grounds about the villa, he had but to take hints from some of the great English gardens, notably that at Stowe. The Elysium, the marble busts, the Rotunda, at Stowe, were almost certainly the original of his Elysian Fields, groups of marble statues, and Orbicular Building. And as these external details stimulated his fancy to the production of an Aladdin-like garden, so such suggestions as those of Mary Ward's "Institute," or especially Mary Astell's "Protestant Nunnery," stimulated his active mind into working out the details of such a plan. He described not only the constitution of such a society, its financial status, and its general aims, but he went into all the minutiæ of dress, meals, social customs, diversions, occupations. The ladies paid £500 on entrance, they took no vows of celibacy, they had no prioress, they lived well, they had abundant service, they dressed richly. The badge of their order was a large diamond cross. No one was admitted who had not a taste for music. Musical composition, playing on different instruments, singing, painting, and drawing were the elegant diversions. There was a large and well-selected library, and the ladies made researches according to their taste, with the proviso that once a week they must read to the rest the result of their labors—a sort of multifarious and inchoate seminar. The approved papers were recorded in a club book called Didaskalia. These ladies being Christian deists and having minds unclouded by the mists of superstition, enthusiasm, and atheism, spent much time in rational devotion. Mr. Amory becomes ecstatic as the picture of this ideal society grows under his hand and finally declares that if he were a woman of fortune he would at once seek out this happy society of religious recluses with a certainty that no other life on the globe could offer such felicity. He approves of Miss Harcourt's last act which was to will her large fortune as an endowment for this cloistral house. A fanciful dream, but one that constantly brings to mind Tennyson's Princess. Only to Amory's Green Island there came no disrupting influences of love and childhood. He left his ladies still enjoying their learned seclusion, and filling volume after volume of the Didaskalia, painting great pictures, producing original oratorios, making abstruse speculations, and serving God with calm hearts.[477]

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[CHAPTER V]
SATIRIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE LEARNED LADY IN COMEDY

The artificial comedy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England is of genuine significance as a social document. Its purpose was to hold up to ridicule whatever in contemporary life, especially the life of the every-day middle-class world, could be counted foolish or absurd. In its pages nearly every phase of ordinary human activity could look upon its more or less distorted image, and the taste and temper of the times are pretty fairly measured by the personages accepted by dramatists, actors, and audiences as legitimate sources of comic appeal.

Literature offered a surprisingly rich field to the writers of comedy. Tragedies and comedies, the new Italian opera, farces, pantomimes, harlequinades, pastoral dramas, were parodied, burlesqued, and criticized on the stage. Individual authors, theater-managers, actors, and actresses, were ever-recurring figures in the popular comedy. Quite a little library might, for instance, be gathered of the satiric representations of Colley Cibber, Theophilus Cibber, and Susanna Maria Cibber.

Other popular comic types were heroes and heroines marked by national characteristics. An illuminating social study might be made of the Irishman in comedy, the many ancestors of Sheridan's "Sir Lucius O'Trigger," as "Sir Teague O'Divelly," "Sir Calligan O'Bralligan," "Mr. O'Connor MacCormack," "Major O'Flaherty," and the rest of the truculent, honey-tongued, generous, blundering tribe. There are stage Scotchmen and Welshmen represented by "Sir Pertinax MacSycophant," "Mr. Apreece," and their congeners. The Frenchman as valet, music-master, dancing-master, and villain-in-ordinary to the heroes is ubiquitous.

Or we might study the professions. Physicians line up on the stage as quacks, charlatans, conscious impostors. Lawyers are pictured as men whose sole purpose is to hide ignorance and knavery in a cloud of words, and to empty the pockets of their clients in a trumped-up pursuit of justice.

The Church does not escape. The Puritan who in Restoration drama was represented as a psalm-singing, whining, long-faced hypocrite, concealing a vicious life under a pretense of rigid sanctity, was replaced as a comic type in the early eighteenth century by the non-juror, and when later Wesley's tabernacle and Foote's play-house were competing for popular favor, it was the Methodist who obtained the bright reversion, there being ascribed to him all the cant and hypocrisy of his forbears.

Society is likewise represented in all its follies and vices. Of genuine social importance is a study of the long line of "fops," "coxcombs," "pretty fellows," "beaux," "macaronies," "dudes," as they were variously called, from "Sir Solomon, the Cautious Coxcomb," in 1669, through "Sir Fopling Flutter," "Sir Courtly Nice," "Sir Novelty Fashion," "Lord Foppington," "Sir William Mode," "Mr. Apeall," "Sir Brilliant Fashion," "Lord Trinket," "Brisk," "Flutter," "Sparkish," and the rest of the inane tribe, with their laces and frills, their powdered wigs, their enameled snuff-boxes, their ivory combs and pocket-mirrors, their muffs and canes, their inordinate vanity, affectation, and empty-headedness.

Learning, too, found its place on the stage. From the establishment of the Royal Society in 1662, the work of the Gresham professors was the theme of unbridled ridicule. The virtuoso who spent his whole time with a telescope investigating the geography of the moon or with a microscope determining the nature of the bloom on a plum; the anatomist, the geologist, the antiquarian, were counted fair game for the satirist.