have no small control, and are always at full
liberty to plunge into wanton expenditure,
leaving their husbands the responsible parties.
In short, the ceremony of wedlock, with its
present obligations, more than restores any natu-
ral inequality between the sexes. No longer
are women cyphers beyond the sphere of domestic
life: they are parceners of our power. They are
not, it is true, suffered as yet to dispute the
prizes of ambition, but they partake largely of
its reward; they have the lion's share-they di-
vide, where they do not monopolise the spoil!

Were it not for difference of dress and person, one might almost mistake the wife for the husband in this country (3). Her will is not carried

cendancy be once gained (and the collar of command is soon slipped!)-let a system of insinuation once transfer the authority of wedlock, and, afterwards, every act, be it of large or small import-what must be done, what is to be said, becomes not the act of the Man, but of the Woman. It is not planned, it is determined; and where the lady cannot give her reason, she gives her resolution.

"Hoc volo, sic jubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas:
Imperat ergo viro!"

Juv.

This is "Gynocracy" with a vengeance! as Lord Byron was pleased, on some occasion, to denominate petticoat-sway. This very peculiar and distinct species of government (partaking in its nature not so much of a mild despotism, as of a pure unmixed tyranny) has now grown so common among us, that (albeit laid down neither in Plato nor Aristotle) it well deserves, as it has obtained, a definite and scientific denomination.

We have all seen the ivy twining around the oak, but behold a novelty--the oak twining itself about the ivy! The man who suffers himself to away blindfold thus, can only be likened

to the fool "that rejoiceth when he goeth to the correction of the stock (4)."—" Give not thy soul to a woman, to set her foot upon thy substance." To submit thus is contrary to the first law of nature-it is a direct spurning of Revelation:

"Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey?

or was she made thy guide,

Superior, or but equal-that to her

Thou didst resign thy manhood?"

MILTON, P.L.

Let us presume to offer one word of advice to the sex that, in truth, most needs it. Men should let their love be at least manly; it is always possible to be affectionate without being over-fond;-to copy the gentleness, without the amorousness, of the dove. It is in itself a folly to allow those we love to perceive the vehemence of our affection; for such is human nature,—and such especially is female nature, that where it can control, it is nearly sure to become indifferent about pleasing, and at last despotic. Persecution may appear in many shapes, at home as well as abroad(); it may address us in the voice of mildness as well as of imperious command; and the soft and playful creatures of our idle hours may cause us misery for years: Nothing is to

be disregarded, however seemingly powerless! Though the capacities of Woman are comprised within a very narrow sphere, these act within the circle with vigour and uniformity. It is often by seeming to despise power, that women secure it to satiety! A love of power would seem almost part and parcel of Woman's composition: -for to this end they early learn to enlist every art they are mistresses of;—

In men we various ruling passions find.
In women two almost divide the kind;
These only fix'd, they first or last obey---
The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.

POPE.

§ 5.-Nor is the political influence belonging to women of contemptible amount. There is an old and true maxim, that though kings may reign, women virtually govern: 'tis they who hold the strings of all intrigues, great or small 6). "There are perhaps few instances,” says an elegant writer," in which the sex is not one of the secret springs that regulate the most important movements of private or public transactions *.” Not merely over the fanciful regions of fashion does the female empire extend itself; it dictates to

Fitzosborne's Letters.

the senate, as well as legislates for the ball-room. Women make no laws, it is true; they abrogate none: in so far Law shakes hands with Divinity; but they have an influence beyond any law (7): "Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut ?" Nothing resists them! What follows, though it be poetry, is too true a picture.

"What trivial influences hold dominion

O'er wise men's counsels and the fate of empire!
The greatest schemes that human wit can forge,
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice,
Depend upon our husbanding a moment,
And the light lasting of a Woman's will!"

ROWE.

Nor are women without civil and political power of the direct kind. They are vested with many important trusts, and enjoy most of those privileges which accompany property. They vote for many public functionaries, and their sweet voices are made admissible in electing directors for the government of thirty or forty millions of souls in British India.

In our

And where their influence is but indirect, it is little less powerful on that account. public elections 'tis they who are the actual constituency, they, after all, who virtually elect ;