A BEWAILMENT FROM BATH;
OR, POOR OLD MAIDS.
Mr Editor!—You have a great name with our sex! CHRISTOPHER NORTH is, in our flowing cups—of Bohea—"freshly remembered." To you, therefore, as to the Sir Philip Sidney of modern Arcadia, do I address the voice of my bewailment. Not from any miserable coveting after the publicities of printing. All I implore of you is, a punch of your crutch into the very heart of a matter involving the best interests of my sex!
You, dear Mr Editor, who have your eyes garnished with Solomon's spectacles about you, cannot but have perceived on the parlour-tables and book-shelves of your fair friends—by whose firesides you are courted even as the good knight, and the Spectator, by the Lady Lizards of the days of Anne—a sudden inundation of tabby-bound volumes, addressed, in supergilt letters, to the "Wives of England"—the "Daughters of England"—the "Grandmothers of England." A few, arrayed in modest calf or embossed linen, address themselves to the sober latitudes of the manse or parsonage-house. Some treat, without permission, of "Woman's Mission"—some, in defiance of custom, of her "Duties." From exuberant 4to, down to the fid-fad concentration of 12mo—from crown demy to diamond editions—no end to these chartered documentations of the sex! The women of this favoured kingdom of Queen Victoria, appear to have been unexpectedly weighed in the balance, and found wanting in morals and manners; or why this sudden emission of codes of morality?
No one denies, indeed, that woman has, of late, ris' wonderfully in the market; or that the weaker sex is coming it amazingly strong. The sceptres of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent women now competing with the rougher sex for the laurels of renown. But you know it all better than I can tell you. You have done honour due, in your time, to Joanna Baillie and Mrs Jamieson, to Caroline Southey and Miss Ferrier. You praised Mrs Butler when she deserved it; and probably esteem Mary Howitt, and Mary Mitford, and all the other Maries, at their just value—to say nothing of the Maria of Edgworthstown, so fairly worth them all. I make no doubt that you were even one of the first to do homage to the Swedish Richardson, Frederika Bremer; though, having sown your wild oats, you keep your own counsel anent novel reading.
You will, therefore, probably sympathize in the general amazement, that, at a moment when the sex is signalizing itself from pole to pole—when a Grace Darling obtains the palm for intrepidity—when the Honourable Miss Grimston's Prayer-Book is read in churches—when Mrs Fry, like hunger, eats through stone walls to call felons to repentance—when a king has descended from his throne, and a prince from royal highnesshood, to reward the virtues of the fair partners to whom they were unable to impart the rights of the blood-royal—when the fairest specimen of modern sculpture has been supplied by a female hand, and woman, in short, is at a premium throughout the universe, all this waste of sermonizing should have been thrown, like a wet blanket, over her shoulders!
But this is not enough, dear Mr Editor. I wish to direct your attention towards an exclusive branch of the grievance. I have no doubt that, in your earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present unto them the "Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters"—or "Mrs Chapone's Letters," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the frippery tomes which load the counters of our bazars. This perception has come of itself. If I could only be fortunate enough to enlarge your scope of comprehension!
My dear Mr Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language, thought proper to define such a condition as "SINGLE BLESSEDNESS"—though he aptly enough engrafts it on a thorn! For my part, I cannot enough admire the theory of certain modern poets, that an angel is an ethereal being, composed by the interunion in heaven, of two mortals who have been faithfully attached on earth—and as to "blessedness" being ever "single," either in this world or the next, I do not believe a word about the matter! "Happiness," Lord Byron assures us, "was born a twin!"