the leading features, if fuch there be, by which he has difcriminated the talents and difpofitions of women from thofe of men. For it is from these original indications of the intention of Providence, taken in conjunction with fuch further proofs of the Divine will as the Scriptures fhall be found to have difclofed, that the courfe and extent of female duties, and the true value of the female character, are to be collected.

In different countries, and at different periods, female excellence has been estimated by very different ftandards. At almoft every period it has been rated among nations, deeply immersed in barbarism, by the scale of fervile fear and capacity for toil. Examine the domeftic proceedings of favage tribes in the old world and in the new, and afk who is the best daughter and the best wife. The answer is uniform. She who bears with fuperior perseverance the viciffitudes of seasons, the fervour of the fun, the dews of night: She who, after a march

march through woods and fwamps from morn to eve, is the firft to bring on her fhoulders a burthen of fuel, and foremoft: in erecting the family wigwam, while the men ftand around in liftlefs unconcern: She who fearches with the greatest activity for roots in the foreft; prowls with the moft fuccefs along the fhore for limpets; and dives with unequalled fortitude for seaeggs in the creek: She who ftands dripping and famifhed before her husband, while he devours, ftretched at ease, the produce of her exertions; waits his tardy permiffion without a word or a look of impatience; and feeds, with the humblest gratitude, and the shortest intermiffion of labour, on the scraps and offals which he difdains: She, in a word, who is moft tolerant of hardship, and of unkindness. When nations begin to emerge from gross barbarism, every new ftep which they take towards refinement is commonly marked by a gentler treatment, and a more reasonable estimation of women. And every improvement

in their opinions and conduct respecting the female fex prepares the way for additional progress in civilisation. It is not, however, in the rudeness of uncivilised life, that female worth can either be fitly apprehended, or be displayed in its genuine colours. And we shall be the lefs inclined to wonder at the perverfion of ideas which has been exemplified on this fubject, amidst ignorance and neceffity, among Hottentots and Indians; when we confider the erroneous opinions on the fame topic which have obtained more or lefs currency in our own country, and even in modern times. It would perhaps be no unfair reprefentation of the sentiment which prevailed in the last age, to affirm that she who was completely versed in the sciences of pickling and preserving, and in the myfteries of cross-stitch and embroidery; fhe who was thoroughly mistress of the family receipt-book and of her needle, was deemed, in point of folid attainments, to have reached the measure of female perfection. Since that period, however, it has

been

been universally acknowledged, that the intellectual powers of women are not restricted to the arts of the housekeeper and the fempftrefs. Genius, taste, and learning itfelf, have appeared in the number of female endowments and acquifitions. And we

have heard, from time to time, fome bold affertors of the rights of the weaker sex, ftigmatising, in terms of indignant complaint, the monopolifing injuftice of the other; laying claim, on behalf of their clients, to co-ordinate authority in every department of science and of erudition; and upholding the perfect equality of injured woman and ufurping man in language fo little guarded, as fcarcely to permit the latter to confider the labours of the camp and of the fenate as exclusively pertaining to himself.

The Power who called the human race into being has, with infinite wisdom, regarded, in the structure of the corporeal frame, the tasks which the different fexes were re

spectively destined to fulfil. To man, on whom

C 2

whom the culture of the foil, the erection of dwellings, and, in general, thofe operations of industry, and those measures of defence, which include difficult and dangerous exertion, were ultimately to devolve, He has imparted the ftrength of limb, and the robustness of conftitution, requifite for the perfevering endurance of toil. The female form, not commonly doomed, in countries where the progress of civilisation is far advanced, to labours more fevere than the offices of domestic life, He has cast in a fmaller mould, and bound together by a loofer texture. But, to protect weakness from the oppreffion of domineering fuperiority, those whom He has not qualified to contend, He has enabled to fascinate; and has amply compenfated the defect of mufcular vigour by fymmetry and expreffion, by elegance and grace. To me it appears, that He has adopted, and that He has adopted with the most confpicuous wif dom, a correfponding plan of discrimination between the mental powers and difpofitions

2