for which is the vote that they do not influence? The system of female canvassing has of late years become a traffic quite notorious(8)

The lady in Hudibras, did not exceed the truth when she asserted the vast powers and privileges of her sex :

"We manage things of greatest weight

In all the world's affairs of state;

We make and execute all laws

Can judge the judges and the cause;
We rule in every public meeting

And make men do what we judge fitting;
Are magistrates in all great towns
Where men do nothing but wear gowns!

We are your guardians, that increase,
Or waste, your fortunes as we please;
And, as you humour us, can deal

In all your matters, ill or well."

§ 6. In our own most artificial of countries alone is it, that women are thus glorified with a false worship. Elsewhere in the world the social condition of women is on a scale very different. To this day, in Africa and a considerable portion of America, they are little more than upper domestics-sometimes lower still, (which remains to be regretted,- for either extreme of treatment is bad.) In Asia their condition is

little better; their treatment among the Hindoos, with the severe philosophy of Menu respecting them, is well known*; and in the large and important empire of China, they experience an habitual confinement within the walls of their own homes-a custom, by the way, to the good effects of which, travellers bear harmonious record (9). In continental Europe we find the sex pampered, and ranking higher in the social scale; but every where, in their condition, they continue immeasureably below Englishwomen. In Spain, and in Italy too, they are depressed more than is commonly supposed. Throughout the whole of Germany they are bronght up to be useful, as well as ornamental. Even in France, the once parent-land of gallantry, it has been considered politic, since the days of the Revolution, to reduce the female mind more to a state of mediocrity, and to re-model the national system of education:-"Elles avoient, sans doute, dans l'ancien régime, trop d'influence sur les affaires."+ The Salique law, which excludes women from the throne (a serious affront, by the way, upon the sex), was, from earliest times, an express and peculiar provision of the French code.

* Vide Mills British India. + Madame de Staël.

With regard to the antients, the wholesome rigour observed in their domestic policy by the Greeks and Romans, is well known; and as to other nations, Aristotle reports of the Scythians, Tacitus of the Germans, and Cæsar of the Gauls, that their customs, as affecting the other sex, were all conducted on similiar principles. The Jews were remarkably prudent in the constitution of their social laws 10).

Shall it be put forward as serious argument, that Englishmen feel they are right in their own island system-in the mere quixotic treatment of women? Alas! "feeling" is, in itself, no trustworthy criterion either of right or wrong. This principle has led men to do many vicious, not to say foolish, things; and the indulgence of our noblest feelings may be carried too far. The wild Arab feels it to be his most honourable occupation to live by plunder, like his fathers before him; the Spartans of old felt it praiseworthy to be a successful thief; the Turk feels it an obligation of honour to conceal his wives from the eyes of men, and to look down with contempt upon the sex at large--what will be said to this instance of feeling?

Wherever women are concerned, it is too

common to run into extremes. Doubtless the worse, infinitely the worse extreme, is that of illusage: but this, to the honour of Englishmen, is of rare occurrence. The more usual extravagance is that of unmitigated, undistinguishing dotage; a description of folly which can hardly be called unkind-it is unwise! If "kind treatment" means an abstinence from blows(11) and actual insult, or if it implies mere nonsensical gallantry, then must our English boast of devotion to the sex be at once admitted; but if the term rather implies (as it should be imagined to imply) an ever-watchful attention to the repose of mind and to the best interests-not to the mere capricesof women; if it means a respect for them as mothers, an attachment to them as wives, not a mere doting fondness for them as playthingsthen are women, in this age and country, not treated kindly?

§ 7. The proposal of placing any restrictions on the sex is usually met by the artful appeal to national vanity:-this involves a point standing at the very threshold of our argument. It is looked upon as an immediate and necessary effect of a nations "refinement," that women enjoy

rights and priveleges, however great or important. But is this circumstance, or, to call things by their true names, is that Effeminacy which takes its growth from female influence,is that supine and excessive softness of manners, which is so commonly attended with indulgence of all the natural passions, any worthy proof that we act up to a true and healthy standard of civilization ?-Alas! luxurious habits, and all over-wrought and pseudo-civilization (under whatever shape) are but melancholy beacons of a nation's corruption and decline!

"The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism":-this may be a startling maxim, but it is none the less sound, and it contains one of the most valuable lessons taught us by history.-Civilization has a bastard sister, whose fellowship renders even herself but a doubtful good; the name of this treacherous ally is Luxury,-savior armis Luxuria, as the fine thought of Juvenal expresses it—a more fatal Scourge than war! "Ere a nation grows old, and as it grows old, it gradually opens the door to this insidious guest, and thus does it sow within itself the very seeds of decay.(12)"

*Vide Chap. vii. § 5.