Essays on Various Subjects | Page 2

a trivial, unimportant light; it is only introduced to insinuate, that where there is more beauty, and more weakness, there should be greater circumspection, and superior prudence.
MEN, on the contrary, are formed for the more public exhibitions on the great theatre of human life. Like the stronger and more substantial wares, they derive no injury, and lose no polish by being always exposed, and engaged in the constant commerce of the world. It is their proper element, where they respire their natural air, and exert their noblest powers, in situations which call them into action. They were intended by Providence for the bustling scenes of life; to appear terrible in arms, useful in commerce, shining in counsels.
THE Author fears it will be hazarding a very bold remark, in the opinion of many ladies, when she adds, that the female mind, in general, does not appear capable of attaining so high a degree of perfection in science as the male. Yet she hopes to be forgiven when she observes also, that as it does not seem to derive the chief portion of its excellence from extraordinary abilities of this kind, it is not at all lessened by the imputation of not possessing them. It is readily allowed, that the sex have lively imaginations, and those exquisite perceptions of the beautiful and defective, which come under the denomination of Taste. But pretensions to that strength of intellect, which is requisite to penetrate into the abstruser walks of literature, it is presumed they will readily relinquish. There are green pastures, and pleasant vallies, where they may wander with safety to themselves, and delight to others. They may cultivate the roses of imagination, and the valuable fruits of morals and criticism; but the steeps of Parnassus few, comparatively, have attempted to scale with success. And when it is considered, that many languages, and many sciences, must contribute to the perfection of poetical composition, it will appear less strange. The lofty Epic, the pointed Satire, and the more daring and successful flights of the Tragic Muse, seem reserved for the bold adventurers of the other sex.
NOR does this assertion, it is apprehended, at all injure the interests of the women; they have other pretensions, on which to value themselves, and other qualities much better calculated to answer their particular purposes. We are enamoured of the soft strains of the Sicilian and the Mantuan Muse, while, to the sweet notes of the pastoral reed, they sing the Contentions of the Shepherds, the Blessings of Love, or the innocent Delights of rural Life. Has it ever been ascribed to them as a defect, that their Eclogues do not treat of active scenes, of busy cities, and of wasting war? No: their simplicity is their perfection, and they are only blamed when they have too little of it.
ON the other hand, the lofty bards who strung their bolder harps to higher measures, and sung the Wrath of Peleus' Son, and Man's first Disobedience, have never been censured for want of sweetness and refinement. The sublime, the nervous, and the masculine, characterise their compositions; as the beautiful, the soft, and the delicate, mark those of the others. Grandeur, dignity, and force, distinguish the one species; ease, simplicity, and purity, the other. Both shine from their native, distinct, unborrowed merits, not from those which are foreign, adventitious, and unnatural. Yet those excellencies, which make up the essential and constituent parts of poetry, they have in common.
WOMEN have generally quicker perceptions; men have juster sentiments.--Women consider how things may be prettily said; men how they may be properly said.--In women, (young ones at least) speaking accompanies, and sometimes precedes reflection; in men, reflection is the antecedent.--Women speak to shine or to please; men, to convince or confute.--Women admire what is brilliant; men what is solid.--Women prefer an extemporaneous sally of wit, or a sparkling effusion of fancy, before the most accurate reasoning, or the most laborious investigation of facts. In literary composition, women are pleased with point, turn, and antithesis; men with observation, and a just deduction of effects from their causes.--Women are fond of incident, men of argument.--Women admire passionately, men approve cautiously.--One sex will think it betrays a want of feeling to be moderate in their applause, the other will be afraid of exposing a want of judgment by being in raptures with any thing.--Men refuse to give way to the emotions they actually feel, while women sometimes affect to be transported beyond what the occasion will justify.
AS a farther confirmation of what has been advanced on the different bent of the understanding in the sexes, it may be observed, that we have heard of many female wits, but never of one female logician--of many admirable writers of memoirs, but never of one chronologer.--In the boundless and a?rial regions