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men,

is

The refolution which is displayed in braving the perils of war is, in moft men, to a very confiderable degree, the effect of habit and of other extraneous causes. Courage is esteemed the commoneft qualification of a foldier. And why is it thus common? Not fo much because the stock of native refolution, bestowed on the generality of very large; as because that stock is capable of being increafed by discipline, by habit, by fympathy, by encouragement, by the dread of shame, by the thirst of credit and renown, almost to an unlimited extent. But the influence of these causes is not reftricted to men. In towns which have long suftained the horrors of a fiege, the defcending bomb has been found, in numberless inftances, fcarcely to excite more alarm in the female part of the families of private citizens, than among their brothers (b) and husbands.

(b) It would be easy to multiply examples from antient hiftorians to prove that, among nations imperfectly civilifed, women have frequently encountered, with unfhaken.

:

fortitude,

husbands. In bearing viciffitudes of fortune, in exchanging wealth for penury, fplendor

for

fortitude, the perils and viciffitudes of military campaigns. Examples more recent may be found even in our own country. Dr. Henry, defcribing, in his Hiftory of England, (vol. v. p. 545.) the manners of the former part of the fifteenth century, obferves, that "the ferocity of "thofe unhappy times was fo great, that it infected the "fair and gentle fex, and made many ladies and gentle<< women take up arms, and follow the trade of war." He alfo quotes a writer of credit, who affirms, that " many "worthy ladies and gentlewomen, both French and Eng

lish," took part in the fiege of Sens, during the year 1420; of whom "many began the feats of arms long "time ago, but of lying at fieges now they begin firft."

The influence of habit in producing that kind of courage, which ought rather to be called infenfibility of danger, is, in few inftances, more evident than in the fearless unconcern with which the skirts of Mount Vefuvius, and of other volcanos, are inhabited; and the alacrity with which diftricts ravaged by eruptions are re-occupied. In thefe examples the female mind appears to be rendered as devoid of apprehenfion as that of the men. In the late eruption of Vesuvius, eighteen thousand inhabitants, driven from Torre del Greco by an inundation of lava, which took its course through the centre of the town, returned, ere the ruins were yet cold, to rebuild their dwellings; and pofitively refused the offers, repeatedly made to them by

the

for difgrace, women feem, as far as experience has decided the queftion, to have fhewn themselves little inferior to men. With respect to fupporting the languor and the acuteness of disease, the weight of teftimony is wholly on the fide of the weaker fex. Afk the profeffors of the medical art, what description of the perfons whom they attend exhibits the highest patterns of firmness, composure, and refignation under tedious and painful trials; and they name at once their female patients. It has, indeed, been afferted, that women, in confequence of the flighter texture of their frame, do not undergo, in the amputation of a limb, and in other cafes of corporal fuffering, the fame degree of anguish which is endured by the rigid muscles and stub

the Neapolitan Government, of a fettlement in a lefs dangerous fituation. We do not hear that the female part of the community folicited their relations of the other sex to accede to the propofal; or that they remonftrated against returning to the spot, from which the fiery deluge had expelled them.

born

born finews of perfons of the other fex under fimilar circumftances; and that a smaller portion of fortitude is fufficient to enable the former to bear the trial equally well with the latter. The affertion, however, appears to have been advanced not only without proof, but without the capability of proof. Who knows that the nerves are not as keenly fenfible in a finer texture as in one more robuft? Who knows that they are not more keenly fenfible in the firft than in the fecond? Who can eftimate the degree of pain, whether of body or of mind, endured by any individual except himself? How can any perfon institute a comparison, when of neceffity he is wholly ignorant of one of the points to be compared? If, in the external indications of mental resolution, women are not inferior to men; is a theory which admits not of experimental confirmation a reasonable ground for pronouncing them inferior in the reality? Nor let it be deemed wonderful, that Providence fhould have con

ferred

ferred on women in general a portion of original fortitude, not much inferior, to speak of it in the lowest terms compatible with truth, to that commonly implanted in persons of the other fex, on whom many more scenes of danger and of strenuous exertion are devolved. If the natural tenderness of the female mind, cherished, too, as that tenderness is in civilised nations, by the established modes of ease, indulgence, and refinement, were not balanced by an ample share of latent resolution; how would it be capable of enduring the fhocks and the forrows to which, amid the uncertainties of life, it must be exposed? Finally, whatever may be the opinion adopted as to the precife amount of female fortitude, when compared with that of men, the former, I think, must at least be allowed this relative praise: that it is lefs derived from the mechanical influence of habit and example than the latter; lefs tinctured with ambition; lefs blended with infenfibility; and more frequently drawn from the only fource of genuine

ftrength

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