nocence reigned together. But unacquainted with the nature or existence of evil,-conscious only of good and imagining that all were of that essence around her; without the advantages of the tradition of forefathers to relate, or of ancient records to hand down, Eve was fatally and necessarily ignorant of the rebellious disobedience of the fallen Angels, and of their invisible vigilance and combination to accomplish the destruction of the new favourites of Heaven. "In so momentous an event as that which has ever been exclusively imputed to her, neither her virtue nor her prudence ought to be suspected; and there is little reason to doubt, that if the same temptations had been offered to her husband under the same appearances, but he also would have acquiesced in the commission of this act of disobedience. "Eve's attention was attracted by the manner in which the Serpent first made his attack: he had the gift of speech, which she must have observed to be a faculty peculiar to themselves. This appeared an evidence of something supernatural. The wily tempter chose also the form of the serpent to assist his design, as not only in wisdom and sagacity that creature surpassed all others, but his figure was also erect and beautiful, for it was not until the offended justice of God denounced the curse, that the Serpent's crest was humbled to the dust. "During this extraordinary interview, it is evident that Eve felt a full impression of the divine command, which she repeated to the tempter at the time of his solicitations. She told him they were not to eat of that Tree. But the Serpent opposed her arguments with sophistry and promises. He said unto the Woman, ye shall not surely die-but shall be as Gods. What an idea to a mortal!-- Such an image astonished her! It was not the gross impulses of greedy appetite that urged her, but a nobler motive had induced her to examine the consequences of the act. - She was to be better and happier; to exchange a mortal for an angelic nature. Her motive was great,virtuous, irresistible. Might she not have felt herself awed and inspired with a belief of a divine order? -Upon examination she found it was to produce a greater good than as mortals they could enjoy.; this impression excited a desire to possess that good; and that desire determined her will and the future destiny of a World!” It must be allowed that this Lady Authoress has succeeded in what might have been supposed the most difficult of all attempts, that of starting a new heresy, — her followers in which may aptly be denominated Eveites. The novelty consists not in excusing the mother of mankind, but in representing her transgression as a great and meritorious act. An excuse has been advanced for her in Lodovico Domenichi's Dialogue upon the Nobleness of Women. It is there pleaded that the fruit of the fatal tree had not been forbidden to Eve, because she was not created when the prohibition was laid on. Adam it was who sinned in eating it, not Eve, and it is in Adam that we have all sinned, and all die. Her offence was in tempting him to eat, et questo anchora senza intention cattiva, essendo stata tentata dal Diavolo. L'huomo adunque peccò per certa scientia, et la Donna ignorantemente, et ingannata. I know not whether this special pleading be Domenichi's own; but he must have been conscious that there is a flaw in it, and could not have been in earnest, as Miss Hatfield is. The Veronese lady Isotta Nogarola thought differently; essendo studiosa molto di Theologia et di Philosophia, she composed a Dialogue wherein the question whether Adam or Eve in the primal transgression had committed the greater sin. How she determined it I cannot say, never having seen her works. Domenichi makes another assertion in honour of womankind which Miss Hatfield would undoubtedly consider it an honour for herself to have disproved in her own person, that no heresy, or error in the faith, ever originated with a woman. Had this Lady, most ambitious of Eve's daughters, been contemporary with Doctor Dove, how pleasant it would have been to have witnessed a debate between them upon the subject! He would have wound her up to the highest pitch of indignation, and she would have opened the flood-gates of female oratory upon his head. CHAPTER CCVI. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. OPINIONS OF THE MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE "It was not impossible,” he said, “but that a THE SOCIETY OF gentlemen agree WITH liable) the text may have represented that Eve was taken from the side of her husband instead of from that part of the back where the tail grew. The dropping of a syllable might occasion it. Sing of the nature of women, and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: It shall be humourous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all and all in one. MARSTON. THE Doctor had other theological arguments in aid of the opinion which he was pleased to support. The remark has been made which is curious, or in the language of Jeremy Taylor's age, considerable, that we read in Genesis how when God saw everything else which he had made he pronounced that it was very good, but he did not say this of the woman. There are indeed certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out of Adam's side: but that Adam had originally been created with a tail, (herein agreeing with the well-known theory of Lord Monboddo,) and that among the various experiments and improvements which were made in his form and organisation before he was finished, the tail was removed as an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or superfluous part which was then lopped off, the Woman was formed. "We are not bound to believe the Rabbis in everything," the Doctor would say; "and yet it cannot be denied that they have preserved some valuable traditions which ought to be regarded with much respect." And then by a gentle inclination of the head, and a peculiar glance of the eye, he let it be understood that this was one of those traditions which were entitled to consideration. | "And this view of the question," he said, "derived strong support from that wellknown and indubitable text wherein the Husband is called the Head; for although that expression is in itself most clear and significative in its own substantive meaning, it becomes still more beautifully and emphatically appropriate when considered as referring to this interpretation and tradition, and implying as a direct and necessary converse that the Wife is the Tail." There is another legend relating to a like but even less worthy formation of the first helpmate, and this also is ascribed to the Rabbis. According to this mythos the rib which had been taken from Adam was for a moment laid down, and in that moment a monkey stole it and ran off with it full speed. An Angel pursued, and though not in league with the Monkey he could have been no good Angel; for overtaking him, he caught him by the Tail, brought it maliciously back instead of the Rib, and of that Tail was Woman made. What became of the Rib, with which the Monkey got clear off, "was never to mortal known." However the Doctor admitted that on the whole the received opinion was the more probable. And after making this admission he related an anecdote of Lady Jekyll, who was fond of puzzling herself and others with such questions as had been common enough a generation before her, in the days of the Athenian Oracle. She asked William Whiston of berhymed name and eccentric memory, one day at her husband's table, to resolve a difficulty which occurred to her in the Mosaic account of the creation. "Since it pleased God, Sir,” said she, “to create the Woman out of the Man, why did he form her out of the rib rather than any other part?" Whiston scratched his head and answered: "Indeed, Madam, I do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked part of the body." "There!" said her husband, "you have it now: I hope you are satisfied!" He had found in the writings of the Huguenot divine, Jean D'Espagne, that Women have never had either the gift of tongues, or of miracle; the latter gift, according to this theologian, being withheld from them because it properly accompanies preaching, and women are forbidden to be preachers. A reason for the former exception the Doctor supplied; he said it was because one tongue was quite enough for them: and he entirely agreed with the Frenchman that it must be so, because there could have been no peace on earth had it been otherwise. But whether the sex worked miracles or not was a point which he left the Catholics to contend. Female Saints there certainly had been, "the Lord," as Daniel Rogers said, "had gifted and graced many women above some men especially with holy affections; I know not," says that divine, "why he should do it else (for he is wise and not superfluous in needless things) save that as a Pearl shining through a chrystal glass, so her excellency shining through her weakness of sex, might show the glory of the workman." He quoted also what the biographer of one of the St. Catharines says, "that such a woman ought not to be called a woman, but rather an earthly Angel, or a heavenly homo: hæc fœmina, sed potius Angelus terrestris, vel si malueris, homo cælestis dicenda erat, quam femina." In like manner the Hungarians thinking it infamous for a nation to be governed by a woman-and yet perceiving the great advantage of preserving the suc cession, when the crown fell to a female, they called her King Mary, instead of Queen. And Queen Elizabeth, rather than be accounted of the feminine gender, claimed it as her prerogative to be of all three. "A prime officer with a White Staff coming into her presence" she willed him to bestow a place then vacant upon a person whom she named. "May it please your Highness Madam," said the Lord, "the disposal of that place pertaineth to me by virtue of this White Staff." "True," replied the Queen, "yet I never gave you your office so absolutely, but that I still reserved myself of the Quorum." "Of the Quarum, Madam," returned the Lord, presuming, somewhat too far, upon her favour.-Whereat she snatched the staff in some anger out of his hand, and told him “he should acknowledge her of the Quorum, Quarum, Quorum before he had it again." It was well known indeed to Philosophers, he said, that the female is an imperfection or default in nature, whose constant design is to form a male; but where strength and temperament are wantinga defective production is the result. Aristotle therefore calls Woman a Monster, and Plato makes it a question whether she ought not to be ranked among irrational creatures. There were Greek Philosophers, who (rightly in his judgment) derived the name of 'Ašŋvñ from us and alpha privativa, as implying that the Goddess of wisdom, though Goddess, was nevertheless no female, having nothing of female imperfection. book unjustly ascribed to the learned Acidalius was published in Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women were not reasonable creatures, but distinguished from men by this specific difference, as well as in sex. And a Mahomet too was not the only person who has supposed that women have no souls. In this Christian and reformed country, the question was propounded to the British Apollo whether there is now, or will be at the resurrection any females in Heavensince, says the questioner, there seems to be no need of them there! The Society of the party. There is Miss Sapphire, Miss Gentlemen who, (in imitation of John | Priscilla Prussian, Mrs. Indigo, and the Dunton, his brother-in-law the elder Wesley, Widow Woad. And Heaven knows who and their coadjutors,) had undertaken in beside. Mercy on me-it were better to this Journal to answer all questions, re- be detected at the mysteries of the Bona turned a grave reply, that sexes being Dea, than be found here! Hear them how corporeal distinctions there could be no they open in succession — such distinction among the souls which are "Infamous!" now in bliss; neither could it exist after the resurrection, for they who partook of eternal life neither marry nor are given in marriage. That same Society supposed the Devil to be an Hermaphrodite, for though by his roughness they said he might be thought of the masculine gender, they were led to that opinion because he appeared so often in petticoats. "Shameful!" "He has heaped together all the slanderous and odious things that could be collected from musty books." "Talk of his Wife and Daughter. I do not believe any one who had wife and daughter would have composed such a Chapter as that. An old bachelor I warrant him, and mustier than his books." "Pedant!" CHAPTER CCVII. FRACAS WITH THE GENDER FEMININE. "Libeller!" "Wretch! "Monster!" And Miss Virginia Vinegar compleats. If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of the climax by exclaiming with peculiar em them be as they are. TIMON OF ATHENS. "PAPP-PAAH!" says my daughter. "You intolerable man!" says my wife. "You abominable creature!" says my wife's eldest sister, "you wicked wretch!" "Oh Mr. Author," says Miss Graveairs, "I did not expect this from you." "Very well, Sir, very well! This is like you!" says the Bow-Begum. "Was there ever such an atrocious libel upon the sex?" says the Lady President of the Celestial Blues. The Ladies of the Stocking unanimously agree in the sentence of condemnation. phasis, "Man!" All Indigo-land is in commotion; and Urgand the Unknown would be in as much danger proh-Jupiter! from the Stockingers, if he fell into their hands, as Orpheus from the Mænades. Tantæne animis cælestibus iræ ? "Why Ladies! dear Ladies! good Ladies! gentle Ladies! merciful Ladies! hear me, hear me! In justice, in compassion, in charity, hear me! For your own sakes, and for the honour of feminality, hear me !" "What has the wretch to say?" "What indeed can be said? Nevertheless let us hear him, so bad a case must always be made worse by any attempt at defending it." "Hear him! hear him!" me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may be better judges. Who is here so unfeminine that would be a male creature? if any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so coarse that would not be a woman? if any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love her sex? if any speak; for her have I offended. I can have offended none but those who are ashamed of their womanhood, if any such there be, which I am far from thinking." Gentle Ladies, do you in your conscience believe that any reasonable person could possibly think the worse of womankind, for any of the strange and preposterous opinions which my lamented and excellent friend used to repeat in the playfulness of an eccentric fancy? Do you suppose that he was more in earnest when he brought forward these learned fooleries, than the Devil's Advocate when pleading against a suit for canonisation in the Papal Court? Questo negro inchiostro, ch' io dispenzo Non fu per dare, o donne, a i vostri nasi, Ingrato odore, o d' altro che d'incenzo.* Hear but to the end, and I promise you on the faith of a true man, a Red Letter Chapter in your praise; not a mere panegyric in the manner of those who flatter while they despise you, but such an honest estimate as will bear a scrutiny,—and which you will not like the worse because it may perhaps be found profitable as well as pleasing. Forgive me, sacred sex of woman, that, That when I die, some never thought-stain'd virgin My ashes, like a charm, upon those men man. By the laws of the Venetians as well as of certain Oriental people, the testimony of two women was made equivalent to that of one And in those of the Welsh King Hywel Dda, or Howel Dha, "the satisfaction for the murder of a woman, whether she be married or not, is half that of her brother," which is upon the same standard of relative value. By the same laws a woman was not to be admitted as bail for a man, nor as witness against him. He knew that a French Antiquarian (Claude Seissel) had derived the name of the Salic law from the Latin word Sal, comme une loy pleine de sel, c'est à dire pleine de sapience ‡, and this the Doctor thought a far more rational etymology than what some one proposed either seriously or in sport, that the law was called Salique because the words Si aliquis and Si aliqua were of such frequent occurrence in it. "To be born a manchild," says that learned author who first composed an Art of Rhetoric in the English BRANTÔME. |