tongue, "declares a courage, gravity and constancy. To be born a woman, declares weakness of spirit, neshenes of body, and fickleness of mind."* Justin Martyr, after saying that the Demons by whom according to him the system of heathen mythology was composed, spake of Minerva as the first Intelligence and the daughter of Jupiter, makes this observation; 66 now this we consider most absurd, to carry about the image of Intelligence in a female form!" The Father said this as thinking with the great French comic poet that a woman could be anything more than a woman. Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître, Un certain animal difficile à connoître, Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal; Et comme un animal est toujours animal. Et ne sera jamais qu'animal, quand sa vie never A favourite anecdote with our Philosopher was of the Barbadoes Planters, one of whom agreed to exchange an English maid servant with the other for a bacon pig, weight for weight, four-pence per pound to be paid for the overplus, if the balance should be in favour of the pig, sixpence if it were on the Maid's side. But when they were weighed in the scales, Honour who was "extreme fat, lazy and good for nothing," so far outweighed the pig, that the pig's owner repented of his improvident bargain, and refused to stand to it. Such a case Ligon observes, when he records this notable story, seldom happened; but the Doctor cited it as showing what had been the relative value of women and pork in the West Indies. And observe, he would say, of white women, English, Christian women,- not of poor heathen blacks, who are considered as brutes, bought and sold like brutes, worked like brutes and treated worse than any Government ought to permit even brutes to be treated. However, that women were in some respects better than men, he did not deny. He doubted not but that Cannibals thought them so; for we know by the testimony of such Cannibals as happen to have tried both, * WILSON. that white men are considered better meat than negroes, and Englishmen than Frenchmen, and there could be little doubt that, for the same reason, women would be preferred to men. Yet this was not the case with animals, as was proved by buck venison, ox beef, and wether mutton. The tallow of the female goat would not make as good candles as that of the male. Nature takes more pains in elaborating her nobler work; and that the male, as being the nobler, was that which Nature finished with greatest care must be evident, he thought, to any one who called to mind the difference between cock and hen birds, a difference discoverable even in the egg, the larger and finer eggs, with a denser white and a richer yolk, containing male chicks. Other and more curious observations had been made tending to the same conclusion, but he omitted them, as not perhaps suited for general conversation, and not exactly capable of the same degree of proof. It was enough to hint at them. The great Ambrose Parey, (the John Hunter and the Baron Larrey of the sixteenth century,) has brought forward many instances wherein women have been changed into men, instances which are not fabulous: but he observes, "you shall find in no history, men that have degenerated into women; for nature always intends and goes from the imperfect to the more perfect, but never basely from the more perfect to the imperfect." It was a rule in the Roman law, that when husband and wife overtaken by some common calamity perished at the same time, and it could not be ascertained which had lived the longest, the woman should be presumed to have expired the first, as being by nature the feeblest. And for the same reason if it had not been noted whether brother or sister being twins came first in the world, the legal conclusion was that the boy being the stronger was the first born. And from all these facts he thought the writer must be a judicious person who published a poem entitled the Great Birth of Man, or Excellence of his Creation over Woman. Therefore according to the Bramins, the widow who burns herself with the body of her husband, will in her next state be born a male; but the widow, who refuses to make this self-sacrifice, will never be anything better than a woman, let her be born again as often as she may. Therefore it is that the Jew at this day begins his public prayer with a thanksgiving to his Maker, for not having made him a woman; an escape for which the Greek philosopher was thankful. One of the things which shocked a Moor who visited England was to see dogs, women, and dirty shoes, permitted to enter a place of worship, the Mahometans, as is well known, excluding all three from their Mosques. Not that all Mahometans believe that women have no souls. There are some who think it more probable they have, and these more liberal Mussulmen hold that there is a separate Paradise for them, because they say, if the women were admitted into the Men's Paradise, it would cease to be Paradise, there would be an end of all peace there. It was probably the same reason which induced Origen to advance an opinion that after the day of Judgment women will be turned into men. The opinion has been condemned among his heresies; but the Doctor maintained that it was a reasonable one, and almost demonstrable upon the supposition that we are all to be progressive in a future state. "There was, however," he said, “according to the Jews a peculiar privilege and happiness reserved for them, that is for all those of their chosen nation, during the temporal reign of the Messiah, for every Jewish woman is then to lie in every day!" amongst other his qualities, reporteth, first, that the Lion feedeth on men, and afterwards (if forced with extremity of hunger, on women. Satan is a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. Only he inverts the method, and in his bill of fare takes the second first. Ever since he over-tempted our grandmother Eve, encouraged with success he hath preyed first on the weaker sex." "Sit not in the midst of women," saith the son of Sirach in his Wisdom, "for from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness." "Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, counting one by one to find out the account; which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found." "It is a bad thing," said St. Augustine, "to look upon a woman, a worse to speak to her, and to touch her is worst of all." John Bunyan admired the wisdom of God for making him shy of the sex, and boasted that it was a rare thing to see him "carry it pleasant towards a woman.' "The common salutation of women," said he, "I abhor, their company alone I cannot away with!" John, the great Tinker, thought with the son of Sirach, that "better is the churlishness of a man, than a courteous woman, a woman which bringeth shame and reproach." And Menu the lawgiver of the Hindoos hath written that "it is the nature of women in this world to cause the seduction of men." And John Moody in the play, says, “I ha' seen a little of them, and I find that the best, when she's minded, won't ha' much goodness to spare." A wife has been called a daily calamity, and they who thought least a necessary evil. "Mulier, quasi mollior," saith Varro *; a derivation upon which Dr. Featley thus commenteth : "Women take their name in "I never," says Bishop Reynolds, "read | unfavourably of the sex have pronounced it of more dangerous falls in the Saints than were Adam's, Samson's, David's, Solomon's, and Peter's; and behold in all these, either the first enticers, or the first occasioners, are women. A weak creature may be a strong tempter: nothing too impotent or useless for the Devil's service." Fuller among his Good Thoughts has this paragraph: "I find the natural Philosopher making a character of the Lion's disposition, The Soothsayer in Cymbeline was of a like opinion with Varro ! The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, We term it mulier. Southey's favourite play upon the stage was Cymbeline, and next to it, As you like it. Latin from tenderness or softness, because they are usually of a softer temper than men, and much more subject to passions, especially of fear, grief, love, and longing; their fear is almost perpetual, their grief immoderate, their love ardent, and their longing most vehement. They are the weaker vessels, not only weaker in body than men, and less able to resist violence, but also weaker in mind and less able to hold out in temptations; and therefore the Devil first set upon the woman as conceiving it a matter of more facility to supplant her than the man.” And they are such dissemblers, says the Poet, As if their mother had been made "Look indeed at the very name," said the Doctor, putting on his gravest look of provocation to the ladies. "Look at the very name Woman, evidently meaning either man's woe — or abbreviated from woe to man, because by woman was woe brought into the world." And when a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that common word must have arisen? Who does not see that it may be directly traced to a mournful interjection, alas! breathed sorrowfully forth at the thought the girl, the lovely and innocent creature upon whom the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would in time become a woman, -a woe to man! There are other tongues in which the name is not less significant. The two most notoriously obstinate things in the world are a mule and a pig. Now there is one language in which pige means a young woman : and another in which woman is denoted by the word mulier: which word, whatever grammarians may pretend, is plainly a comparative, applied exclusively and with peculiar force to denote the only creature in nature which is more mulish than a mule. Comment, says a Frenchman, pourroit-on aymer les Dames, puis qu'elles se nomment ainsi du dam et dommage qu'elles apportent aux hommes !* * BOUCHET. INTERCHIAPTER XXIV. A TRUE STORY OF THE TERRIBLE KNITTERS E' DENT WHICH WILL BE READ WITH INTEREST BY HUMANE MANUFACTURERS, AND BY MASTERS OF SPINNING JENNIES WITH A SMILE. BETTY YEWDALE, THE EXCURSION - AN EXTRACT FROM, AND AN ILLUSTRATION OF. O voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani, Sotto 'l velame degli versi strani. DANTE.t "Ir was about six an' fifty year sen, in June, when a woman cam fra' Dent at see a Nebbor of ours e' Langdon.‡ They er terrible knitters e' Dent §-sea my Fadder an' Mudder sent me an' my lile Sister, Sally, back we' her at larn at knit. between sebben an' eight year auld, an' Sally ya Horse, we Sally afore her - an' I on twea year younger-T' Woman reade on anudder, we a man walking beside me— whiles he gat up behint an' reade― Ee' them Days Fwoak dud'nt gang e' Carts I was but Carts er t'best-I'd rader ride e' yan than e' onny Carriage- I us't at think if I tear about int' rwoads was t' Leady, here at t' Ho,' how I wad -but sen I hae ridden in a Chaise I hate t'nwotion ont' warst of ought- for t' Trees gang fleeing by o' ya side, an t' Wa'as ¶ on tudder, an gars yan be as seek as a peeate.** mickle knitting-We went to a Skeul about a mile off — ther was a Maister an' Mistress -they larnt us our Lessons, yan a piece an' then we o' knit as hard as we cud drive, striving whilk cud knit t' hardest yan again anudder — we hed our Darracks * set afore we com fra' Heam int' mwornin; an' if we dud'nt git them duun we warrant to gang to our dinners - They hed o' macks o' contrivances to larn us to knit swift-T" Maister wad wind 3 or 4 clues togedder, for 3 or 4 Bairns to knitt off-that' at knit slawest raffled tudders yarn, an' than she gat weel thumpt (but ther was baith Lasses an' Lads 'at learnt at knit) — Than we ust at sing a mack of a sang, whilk we wer at git at t'end on at every needle, ca'ing ower t' Neams of o' t' fwoak in t' Deaal - but Sally an me wad never ca' Dent Fwoak sea we ca'ed Langdon Fwoak-T Sang was Sally an' I, Sally an' I, For a good pudding pye, Taa hoaf wheat, an' tudder hoaf rye, Sally an' 1, for a good pudding pye. We sang this (altering t' neams) at every needle: and when we com at t' end cried "off" an' began again, an' sea we strave on o't' day through. "We wer stawed, as I telt yea-o' t' pleser we hed was when we went out a bit to beat t' fire for a nebbor 'at was bakingthat was a grand day for us!-At Kursmas teea, ther was t' maskers- an' on Kursmas day at mworn they gav' us sum reed stuff to' t' Breakfast - I think it maun ha' been Jocklat but we dud'nt like 't at a', 't ommost puzzened us! - an' we cared for nought but how we wer to git back to Langdon-Neet an' Day ther was nought but this knitting! T Nebbors ust at gang about fra' house to house, we' ther wark,than yan fire dud, ye knaw, an' they cud hev a better they hed girt lang black "turn a Peeat"-an' them 'at sat naarest t' fire turnt yan, an' meaad a low† — for they nivver hed onny cannal. - We knat quorse wosset stockings—some gloves — an’ some neet caps, an' wastecwoat breests, an' petticwoats. I yance knat a stocking, for mysell, e' six hours - - Sally yan e' sebben — an' t'woman's Doughter, 'at was aulder than us e' eight an' they sent a nwote to our Fwoak e' Langdon at tell them. "Sally an' me, when we wer by our sells, wer always contrivin how we wer at git away, when we sleept by oursells we talk't of nought else - but when t' woman's Doughter sleept we' us we wer qwhite mum summat or udder always happent at hinder us, till yan day, between Kursmas an' Cannalmas, when t' woman's Doughter stait at heaam, we teuk off. Our house was four mile on 'todder side o' Dent's Town-whor, efter we hed pass t' Skeul, we axed t' way to Kendal - It hed been a hard frost, an' ther was snaw on t' grund- but it was beginnin to thow, an' was varra sloshy an' cauld but we poted alang leaving our lile footings behint us - we hed our cloggs on for we durst'nt change them for our shoon for fear o' being fund out - an' we had nought on but our hats, an' bits o' blue bedgowns, an' brats -see ye may think we - I hed a sixpence e' my pocket, an' we hed three or four shilling mare in our box, 'at our Fwoak hed ge'en us to keep our pocket we'— but, lile mafllins as we wer, we thought it wad be misst an' durst'nt tak ony mare. cuddent be varra heeat "Afore we gat to Sebber § we fell hungry; an' ther was a fine, girt, reed house nut far off t' rwoad, whar we went an' begged for a bit o' breead - - but they wadd'nt give us ought -sea we trampt on, an com to a lile theakt house, an' I said-'Sally thou ti. e. a flame; it is an Icelandic word. See Haldorson's George for England, peeats-an' set them up an hed in a girt Lexicon. 4t loga, ardere, and Loga, flamma. So in St. round we' a whol at top-an a' t' Fwoak sat about it. When ony o' them gat into a hubble we' ther wark, they shouted out 1. e. Days-works. So the Derwent is called the Darron. As timorous larks amazed are Maffing- a state of perplexity. - BROCKETT. Maffled, mazed, and maisled (as used a little further on) have all a like sense. i. e. Sedbergh. sall beg t' neesht thou's less than me, an' "Neesht mwornin she gav us sum mare milk an' breead, an' we gav her our sixpence -an' then went off-sledding away amangt' snaw, ower that cauld moor (ye ken''t weel enough) naarly starved to deeath, an' maisled -sea we gat on varra slawly, as ye may think-an''t rain'd tua. We begged again at anudder lile theakt house, on t' Hay Fell - there was a woman an' a heap of raggeltly Bairns stannin round a Teable - an' she gave us a few of their poddish, an' put a lock of sugar into a sup of cauld tea tull them. eilding† (for they can buy a pennerth, or sea, o' quols or Peeats at onny time there) an' she set on a good fire-an' put on t' kettle - then laited up sum of her awn claes, an' tiet them on us as weel as she cud, an' dried ours - for they wer as wet as thack - it hed rained a' t' way - Then she meead us sum tea-an' as she hedden't a bed for us in her awn house she teuk us to a nebbors - Ther was an auld woman in a Bed naar us that flaed us sadly for she teuk a fit int' neet an' her feace turnt as black as a cwol — we laid trimmiling, an' hutched oursells ower heead e' bed — Fwoks com an' steud round her-an' we heeard them say 'at we wer asleep-sea we meade as if we wer asleep, because we thought if we wer asleep they waddn't kill us - an' we wisht oursells e' t' streets again, or onny whor — an' wad ha' been fain to ha' been ligging under a Dyke. "Neesht mwornin we hed our Brekfast, an' t' woman gav us baith a hopenny Kack beside (that was as big as a penny 'an now) to eat as we went an' she set us to t' top o't' House o' Correction Hill-It was freez sea we gat on varra badly- an' afore we com to Staavley (an' that was but a lile bit o't' rwoad) we fell hungry an' began on our keacks - then we sed we wad walk sea far, an' then tak a bite-an' then on again an' tak anudder - and afore we gat to t' Ings Chapel they wer o'gane - Every now an' than we stopped at reest-an' sat down, an' grat §, under a hedge or wa'a crudled up togedder, taking haud o' yan anudder's hands at try at warm them, for we were fairly maizled wi' t' cauld - an' when we saw onny body cumming we gat up an' walked away "Then we trailed on again till we com to t' Peeat Lane Turnpike Yat they teuk using again, an' t' rwoad was terrible slape; in there, an' let us warm oursells, an' gav us a bit o' breead. They sed had duun re'et to com away; for Dent was t' poorest plaace in t' warld, and we wer seafe to ha' been hungert an' at last we gat to Kendal, when 't was naar dark - as we went up t' streat we met a woman, an' axt t' way to Tom Posts (that was t' man at ust te bring t' Letters fra' Kendal to Ammelsid an' Hawksheead yance a week-an' baited at his house when we com fra' Langdon) - she telt us t' way an' we creept on, but we leaked back at her twea or three times-an' she was still stanning, leuking at us - then she com back an' quiesed us a deal, an' sed we sud gang heam with her We telt her whor we hed cum fra' an' o' about our Tramp 'at we hed hed. - She teuk us to her house - it was a varra poor yan - down beside t' brig at we had cum ower into t' Town-Ther was nea fire - but she went out, an' brought in sam on i. e. a slice. So in Titus Andronicus. "Easy it is Of a cut loaf to steal a shive we know." † Fire-elding, the common term for fuel. Id in Danish is fire. Such words were to be expected in Cumberland. The commencement of Landor's lines to Southey, 1833, will explain why — Indweller of a peaceful vale, Ravaged erewhile by white-hair'd Dane, &c. To late or leat is to seek out. See BROCKETT. It is from the Icelandic at leyta, quærere. Cf. Haldorson in v. i. e. wept, from the old word greet, common to all the Northern languages. Chaucer, Spenser, &c., use it. Ser Specimen Glossarii in Edda Sæmundar hinus Froda V. Grætr, ploratus, at græta, plorare : hence grief, &c. |