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have merely attempted to unfold to view the virtues and the qualifications with which nature has deigned abundantly to endow them, and which contribute to our happiness, even more than to their own. seems as if she had decreed the separation of this part of ourselves, with a view to re-union, still more conducive to our gratification, because effected through the medium of our affections, our pleasures, and our pains.

Women are, if I may use the expression, another soul of our being, which, although enveloped in a separate covering, accords most uniformly with all our sentiments, which they inspire; with all our desires, which they excite and párticipate; and with all our weaknesses, which they can commiserate, without yielding to their influence. If man be unhappy, he requires of his soul an energy to enable him to

support the load of physical sufferings, and of moral evils, still more difficult to sustain. But as this assistance must originate within himself, it necessarily partakes of the dejection which pervades his whole being. Should he resort to his other soul, he then feels how much the women, deserve his admiration; these women, who approach him in enchanting forms, and administer an unexpected balm to his sorrows; and who make him sensible, in every particle of his being, that, although they appear distinct from himself, yet they are himself nevertheless. He observes these divinities of the earth unceasingly near him, who make him anticipate consolation, even before it is offered; whom he assents to at once, without waiting for the arguments of persuasion; and who seem to him an asylum against all misfortune.

But since we are endowed with

corporeal strength, the women are born to slavery or submission. Dependent on our passions and caprices; awaiting the arbitrary decrees dictated to them by the forms of government, religion, morality, and the prejudices of men; here, adored as divinities; there, esteemed as companions and equals; and there again, condemned to servitude and contempt; under all these different circumstances we see them still retaining their characteristic distinctions, submitting with inexhaustible patience, and enduring with inconceivable fortitude. Their faults are not augmented under the pressure of distress and humiliation. And which of our qualities do they not possess? One alone, Anacreon says, has been denied them; and that is prudence. But as they are every where led themselves, and never, unless by a temporary usurpation, are able to assume the lead

of others, they have less inducement to the exercise of foresight than the men. Their extreme sensibility, too, pleads their apology in this respect. Alive as they are to every impression that can excite their feelings, their situation is little calculated for the calm exertion of foresight; but, being always prepared to yield themselves up to the suggestions of the moment, they not unfrequently pass their lives in alternate action and repentance. Besides, as prudence is the result of reflexion, aided by experience, and reciprocally of experience matured and strengthened by reflexion, how should they attain the qualification? The difference of sentiment which authors have expressed respecting them, seems to lead to an inference in their favour, Sophocles affirmed that silence was their greatest ornament; and Plato, adopting the opposite extreme, proposed that they

should join in the same occupations with the men. Among the moderns, M. de Condorcet considers them as capacitated for the affairs of politics; while M. de Saint Lambert condemns them to perpetual frivolities. And no doubt examples might be quoted, both in support and in refutation of both these modes of judgment.

But must we not infer from this diversity of opinions, that there is something extraordinary and inexplicable in the constitution of the sex, which renders them the subject of continual wonder and remark? The number of works which they have inspired seems to favour my idea; and I must observe, that the number of those who have written in their praise is much greater than that of their calumniators. Shall we deny them, with Saint Lambert, political talents? How much address and intelligence have they not evinced in important intrigues, and