for domestic qualities-who, excelling in the fine arts, have carefully enriched their understand. ings-who, enjoying great influence, devote it to the glory of God—who, possessing elevated rank, think their noblest style and title is that of a Christian. That there is also much worth which is little known, she is persuaded; for it is the modest nature of goodness to exert itself quietly, while a few characters of the opposite cast seem, by the rumour of their exploits, to fill the world; and by their noise to multiply their numbers. It often happens that a very small party of people, by occupying the foreground, by seizing the public attention and monopolizing the public talk, contrive to appear to be the great body: a few active spirits, provided their activity take the wrong turn, and support the wrong cause, seem to fill the scene; and a few disturbers of order, who have the talent of thus exciting a false idea of their multitudes by their mischiefs, actually gain strength, and swell their numbers, by this fallacious arithmetic. But the present work is no more intended for a panegyric on those purer characters who seek not human praise because they act from a higher motive, than for a satire on the avowedly licentious, who, urged by the impulse of the moment, resist no inclination; and led away by the love of fashion, dislike no censure, so it may serve to rescue them from neglect or oblivion. There are, however, multitudes of the young and the well disposed, who have as yet taken no decided part, who are just launching on the ocean of life, just about to lose their own right convictions, virtually preparing to counteract their better propensities, and unreluctantly yielding themselves to be carried down the tide of popular practices: sanguine, thoughtless, and confident of safety. To these the author would gently hint, that when once embarked, it will be no longer easy to say to their passions, or even to their principles, Thus far shall ye go, and no further.' Their struggles will grow fainter, their resistance will become feebler, till borne down by the confluence of example, temptation, appetite, and habit, resistance and opposition will soon be the only things of which thy will learn to be ashamed. Should any reader revolt at what is conceived to be unwarranted strictness in this little book, let it not be thrown by in disgust before the following short consideration be weighed.—If in this christian country we are actually beginning to regard the solemn office of Baptism as merely furnishing an article to the parish register-if we are learning from our indefatigable teachers, to consider this Christian rite as a legal ceremony retained for the sole purpose of recording the age of our children ;—then, indeed, the prevaling system of education and manners of which these pages presume to animadvert may be adopted with propriety, and persisted in with safety, without entailing on our children or on ourselves the peril of broken promises or the guilt of violated vows-But, if the obligation which christian Baptism imposes be really binding—if the ordinance have, indeed, a meaning beyond a mere secular transaction, beyond a record of names and dates-if it be an institution by which the child is solemnly devoted to God as his Father, to Jesus Christ as his Saviour, and to the Holy Spirit as his sanctifier; if there be no definite period assigned when the obligation of fulfilling the duties it enjoins shall be superseded-if, having once dedicated our offspring to their Creator, we no longer dare to mock Him by bringing them up in ignorance of His will and neglect of His laws-if, after having enlisted them under the banners of Christ, to fight manfully against the three great enemies of mankind, we are no longer at liberty to let them lay down their arms; much less to lead them to act as if they were in alliance, instead of hostility with these enemies-if, after having promised that they shall renounce the vanities of the world, we are not allowed to invalidate the engagement-if, after such a covenant we should tremble to make these renounced vanities, the supreme object of our own pursuit or of their instruction-if all this be really so, then the Strictures on Modern Education, and on the Habits of Polished Life, will not be found so repugnant to truth, and reason, and common sense, as may on a first view be supposed. But if on candidly summing up the evidence, the design and scope of the author be fairly judged, not by the customs or opinions of the worldly (for every English subject has a right to object to a suspected or prejudiced jury) but by an appeal to that divine law which is the only infallible rule of judgment; if on such an appeal her views and principles shall be found censurable for their rigour, absurd in their requisitions, or preposterous in their restrictions, she will have no right to complain of such a verdict, because she will then stand condemned by that court to whose decision she implicitly submits. Let it not be suspected that the author arrogantly conceives herself to be exempt from that natural corruption of the heart which it is one chief object of this slight work to exhibit; that she superciliously erects herself into the implacable censor of her sex and of the world, as if from the critic's chair she were coldly pointing out the faults and errors of another order of beings, in whose welfare she had not that lively interest which can only flow from the tender and intimate participation of fellow-feeling. With a deep self-abasement, arising from a strong conviction of being indeed a partaker in the same corrupt nature; together with a full persuasion of the many and great defects of these pages, and a sincere consciousness of her inability to do justice to a subject which, hewever, a sense of duty impelled her to undertake, she commits herself to the candour of that public, which has so frequently, in her instance, accepted a right intention as a substitute for a powerful performance. BATH, March 14, 1799. 1 STRICTURES ON THE MODERN SYSTEM OF FEMALE EDUCATION. CHAP. I. Address to women of rank and fortune, on the effects of their influence on society.-Suggestions for the exertion of it in various instances. AMONG the talents for the application of which women of the higher class will be peculiarly accountable, there is one, the importance of which they can scarcely rate too highly. This talent is influence. We read of the greatest orator of antiquity, that the wisest plans which it had cost him years to frame, a woman could overturn in a single day; and when we consider the variety of mischiefs which an ill-directed influence has been known to produce, we are led to reflect with the most sanguine hope on the beneficial effects to be expected from the same powerful force when exerted in its true direc tion. The general state of civilized society depends, more than those are aware who are not accustomed to scrutinize into the springs of human action, on the prevailing sentiments and habits of women, and on the nature and degree of the estimation in which they are held. Even those who admit the power of female elegance on the manners of men, do not always attend to the influence of female principles on their character. In the former case, indeed, women are apt to be sufficiently conscious of their power, and not backward in turning it to account. But there are nobler objects to be effected by the exertion of their powers, and unfortunately, ladies, who are often unreasonably confident where they ought to be diffident, are sometimes capriciously diffident just when they ought to feel where their true importance lies; and feeling to exert it. To use their boasted power over mankind to no higher purpose than the gratification of vanity or the indulgence of pleasure, is the degrading triumph of those fair victims to luxury, caprice, and despotism, whom the laws and the religion of the voluptuous prophet of Arabia exclude from light, and liberty, and knowledge: and it is humbling to reflect, that in those countries in which fondness for the mere persons of women is carried to the highest excess, they are slaves; and that their moral and intellectual degradation increases in direct proportion to the adoration which is paid to mere external In this moment of alarm and peril, I would call on them with a warning voice,' which minds, and kindle every slumbering energy in should stir up every latent principle in their their hearts: I would call on them to come forward, and contribute their full and fair proportion towards the saving of their country. But I would call on them to come forward, without departing from the refinement of their character, without derogating from the dignity of their rank, without blemishing the delicacy of their sex; I would call them to the best and most appropriate exertion of their power, to raise the depressed tone of public morals, and to awaken the drowsy spirit of religious principle. They know too well how arbitrarily they give the law to manners, and with how despotic a sway they fix the standard of fashion. But this is not enough; this is a low mark, a prize not worthy of their high and holy calling. For, on the use which women of the superior class may now be disposed to make of that power delegated to them by the courtesy of custom, by the honest gallantry of the heart, by the imperious control of virtuous affections, by the habits of civilized states, by the usages of polished society; on the use, I say, which they shall hereafter make of this influence, will depend, in no low degree, the well-being of those states, and the virtue and happiness, nay perhaps the very existence, of that society. At this period when our country can only hope to stand by opposing a bold and noble unanimity to the most tremendous confederacies against religion, and order, and governments, which the world ever saw, what an accession would it bring to the public strength, could we prevail on beauty, and rank, and talents, and virtue, confederating their several powers, to exert them. selves with a patriotism at once firm and feminine, for the general good! I am not sounding an alarm to female warriors, or exciting female politicians: I hardly know which of the two is the most disgusting and unnatural character. Propriety is to a woman what the great Roman critic says action is to an orator; it is the first, the second, the third requisite. A woman may be knowing, active, witty and amusing; but without propriety she cannot be amiable. Propriety is the centre in which all the lines of duty and of agreeableness meet. It is to character what But I turn to the bright reverse of this morti- proportion is to figure, and grace to attitude. It fying scene; to a country where our sex enjoys does not depend on any one perfection, but it is the blessings of liberal instruction, of reasonable the result of general excellence. It shows itself laws, of a pure religion, and all the endearing by a regular, orderly, undeviating course; and pleasures of an equal, social, virtuous, and de- never starts from its sober orbit into any splenlightful intercourse. I turn, with an earnest did eccentricities; for it would be ashamed of hope, that women thus richly endowed with the such praise as it might extort by any deviations bounties of Providence, will not content them from its proper path. It renounces all commenselves with polishing when they are able to re-dation but what is characteristic; and I would form; with entertaining when they may awaken; and with captivating for a day, when they may bring into action powers of which the effects may be commensurate with eternity. 27 charms. VOL. I. make it the criterion of true taste, right princi. ple, and genuine feeling, in a woman, whether she would be less touched with all the flattery of romantic and exaggerated panegyric than Rr with that beautiful picture of correct and elegant | effects which we actually see produced, through propriety which Milton draws of our first mother, when he delineates Those thousand decencies which daily flow Even the influence of religion is to be exercised with discretion. A female Polemic wanders nearly as far from the limits prescribed to her sex, as a female Machiavel or warlike Thalestris. Fierceness has made almost as few converts as the sword, and both are peculiarly ungraceful in a female. Even religious violence has human tempers of its own to indulge, and is gratifying itself when it would be thought to be serving God. Let not the bigot place her natural passions to the account of Christianity, or imagine she is pious when she is only passionate. Let her bear in mind that a Christian doctrine is always to be defended with a Christian spirit, and not make herself amends by the stoutness of her orthodoxy for the badness of her temper. Many, because they defend a religious opinion with pertinacity, seem to fancy that they thereby acquire a kind of right to withhold the meekness and obedience which should be necessarily involved in the principle. But the character of a consistent Christian is as carefully to be maintained as that of a fiery disputant is to be avoided; and she who is afraid to avow her principles, or ashamed to defend them, has little claim to that honourable title. A profligate who laughs at the most sacred in stitutions and keeps out of the way of every thing which comes under the appearance of formal instruction, may be disconcerted by the modest, but spirited rebuke of a delicate woman, whose life adorns the doctrines which her conversation defends: but she who administers reproof with ill-breeding, defeats the effect of her remedy. On the other hand, there is a dishonest way of labouring to conciliate the favour of a whole company, though of characters and principles irreconcilably opposite. The words may be so guarded as not to shock the believer, while the eye and voice may be so accommodated, as not to discourage the infidel. She who, with a half-earnestness trims between the truth and the fashion; who while she thinks it creditable to defend the cause of religion, yet does it in a faint tone, a studied ambiguity of phrase, and a certain expression in her countenance, which proves that she is not displeased with what she affects to censure, or that she is afraid to lose her reputation for wit, in proportion as she advances her credit for piety, injures the cause more than he who attacked it, for she proves either that she does not believe what she professes, or that she does not reverence what fear compels her to believe. But this is not all: she is called on, not barely to repress impiety, but to excite, to encourage, and to cherish every tendency to serious religion. the mere levity, carelessness, and inattention (to say no worse) of some of those ladies who are looked up to as standards in the fashionable world. I am persuaded if many a woman of fashion, who is now disseminating unintended mischief, under the dangerous notion that there is no harm in any thing short of positive vice, and under the false colours of that indolent humility, what good can I do?' could be brought to see in its collected force the annual aggregate of the random evil she is daily doing, by constantly throwing a little casual weight into the wrong scale, by a mere inconsiderate and unguarded chat, she would start from her self-complacent dream. If she could conceive how much she may be diminishing the good impressions of young men; and if she could imagine how little amiable levity or irreligion makes her appear in the eyes of those who are older and abler (how. ever loose their own principles may be) she would correct herself in the first instance, from pure good nature; and in the second, from worldly prudence and mere self-love. But on how much higher principles would she restrain herself, if she habitually took into account the important doctrine of consequences: and if she reflected that the lesser but more habitual corruptions make up by their number, what they may seem to come short of by their weight: then perhaps she would find, that among the higher class of women, inconsideration is adding more to the daily quantity of evil than almost all other causes put together. There is an instrument of inconceivable force, when it is employed against the interest of Christianity: it is not reasoning, for that may be answered; it is not learning, for luckily the infidel is not seldom ignorant; it is not invective, for we leave so coarse an engine to the hands of the vulgar; it is not evidence, for happily we have that all on our side: it is RIDICULE, the most deadly weapon in the whole arsenal of impiety, and which becomes an almost unerring shaft when directed by a fair and fashionable hand. No maxim has been more readily adopted, or is more intrinsically false, than that which the fascinating eloquence of a noble sceptic of the last age contrived to render so popular, that ' ridicule is the test of truth." It is no test of truth itself; but of their firmness who assert the cause of truth, it is indeed a severe test. This light, keen, missile weapon, the irresolute, unconfirmed Christian will find it harder to withstand, than the whole heavy artillery of infidelity united. A young man of the better sort, has perhaps just entered upon the world, with a certain share of good dispositions and right feelings; neither ignorant of the evidences, nor destitute of the principles of Christianity: without parting with his respect for religion, he sets out with the too Some of the occasions of contributing to the natural wish of making himself a reputation general good which are daily presenting them- and of standing well with the fashionable part selves to ladies are almost too minute to be of the female world. He preserves for a time a pointed out. Yet of the good which right mind- horror of vice, which makes it not difficult for ed women, anxiously watching these minute oc-him to resist the grosser corruptions of society; casions, and adroitly seizing them, might ac- he can as yet repel profaneness; nay, he can complish we may form some idea by the ill * Lord Shaftesbury. withstand the banter of a club. He has sense enough to see through the miserable fallacies | of the new philosophy, and spirit enough to expose its malignity. So far he does well, and you are ready to congratulate him on his security. You are mistaken: the principles of the ardent, and hitherto promising adventurer, are shaken, just in that very society where, while he was looking for pleasure, he doubted not of safety. In the company of certain women of good fashion and no ill fame, he makes shipwreck of his religion. He sees them treat with levity or derision subjects which he has been used to hear named with respect. He could confute an argument, he could unravel a sophistry; but he cannot stand a laugh. A sneer, not at the truth of religion, for that perhaps is by none of the party disbelieved, but at its gravity, its unseasonableness, its dulness, puts all his resolution to flight. He feels his mistake, and struggles to recover his credit; in order to which he adopts the gay affectations of trying to seem worse than he really is; he goes on to say things which he does not believe, and to deny things which he does believe; and all to efface the first impression, and to recover a reputation which he has committed to their hands, on whose report he knows he shall stand or fall, in those circles in which he is ambitious to shine. in their hearts and lives had taken place: their principles became reformed, but their imaginations were indelibly soiled. They could desist from sins which the strictness of Christianity would not allow them to commit, but they could not dismiss from their minds images which her purity forbade them to entertain. There was a time when a variety of epithets were thought necessary to express various kinds of excellence, and when the different qualities of the mind were distinguished by appropriate and discriminating terms: when the words venerable, learned, sagacious, profound, acute, pious, worthy, ingenious, valuable, elegant, agreeable, wise, or witty, were used as specific marks of distinct characters. But the legislators of fashion have of late years thought proper to comprise all merit in one established epithet; an epithet which, it may be confessed, is a very desirable one as far as it goes. This term is exclusively and indiscriminately applied whenever commendation is intended. The word pleasant now serves to combine and express all moral and intellectual excellence. Every individual, from the gravest professors, of the gravest professions, down to the trifler who is of no profession at all, must earn the epithet of pleasant, or must be contented to be nothing; and must be consigned over to ridicule, under the vulgar and inexpressive cant word of a bore. This is the mortifying designation of many a respectable man, who, though of much worth and much ability, cannot perhaps clearly make out his letters patent to the title of pleasant. For according to this modern classification there is no intermediate state, but all are comprised within the ample bounds of one or other of these two comprehensive terms. That cold compound of irony, irreligion, selfishness, and sneer, which make up what the French (from whom we borrow the thing as well as the word) so well express by the term persiflage, has of late years made an incredible progress in blasting the opening buds of piety in young persons of fashion. A cold pleasantry, a temporary cant word, the jargon of the day (for the 'great vulgar' have their jargon) blights We ought to be more on our guard against the first promise of seriousness. The ladies of this spirit of ridicule, because whatever may be ton have certain watch-words, which may be the character of the present day, its faults do detected as indications of this spirit. The not spring from the redundancies of great clergy are spoken of under the contemptuous qualities, or the overflowing of extravagant appellation of The Parsons. Some ludicrous virtues. It is well if more correct views of life, association is infallibly combined with the very a more regular administration of laws, and a idea of religion. If a warm hearted youth has more settled state of society, have helped to reventured to name with enthusiasm some emi- strain the excesses of the heroic ages, when nently pious character, his glowing ardour is love and war were considered as the great and extinguished with a laugh: and a drawling de-sole business of human life. Yet, if that period claration, that the person in question is really a mighty harmless good creature, is uttered in a tone which leads the youth secretly to vow, that whatever else he may be, he will never be a good harmless creature. Nor is ridicule more dangerous to true piety than to true taste. An age which values itself on parody, burlesque, irony, and caricature, produces little that is sublime, either in genius or in virtue; but they amuse and we live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, truth, and principle be the sacrifice. Nothing chills the ardours of devotion like a frigid sarcasm; and, in the season of youth the mind should be kept particularly clear of all light associations. This is of so much importance, that I have known persons who, having been early accustomed to certain ludicrous combinations, were never liable to get their minds cleansed from the impurities contracted by this habitual levity, even after thorough reformation was marked by a romantic extravagance, and the present is distinguished by an indolent selfishness, our superiority is not so triumphantly decisive, as, in the vanity of our hearts we may be ready to imagine. I do not wish to bring back the frantic reign of chivalry, nor to reinstate women in that fantastic empire in which they then sat enthroned in the hearts, or rather in the imaginations of men. Common sense is an excellent material of universal application, which the sagacity of latter ages has seized upon, and rationally applied to the business of common life. But let us not forget, in the insolence of acknowledged, superiority, that it was religion and chastity, operating on the romantic spirit of those times, which established the despotic sway of woman; and though in this altered scene of things, she now no longer looks down on her adoring votaries from the pedestal to which an absurd idolatry had lifted her: yet let her remember that it is the same religion and the same chas-, dually out of observation and practice, and to be tity which once raised her to such an elevation, that must still furnish the noblest energies of her character, must still attract the admiration, still retain the respect of the other sex. :: While we lawfully ridicule the absurdities which we have abandoned, let us not plume ourselves on that spirit of novelty which glories in the opposite extreme. If the manners of the period in question were affected, and if the gallantly was unnatural, yet the tone of virtue was high and let us remember that constancy, purity, and honour, are not ridiculous in them. selves, though they may unluckily be associated with qualities which are so: and women of delicacy would do well to reflect, when descanting on those exploded manners, how far it be decorous to deride with too broad a laugh, attachments which could subsist on remote gratifications; or grossly to ridicule the taste which led the admirer to sacrifice pleasure to respect, and inclination to honour; how far it be delicate to sneer at that purity which made self-denial a proof of affection; to call in question the sound understanding of him who preferred the fame of his mistress to his own indulgence; to burlesque that antiquated refinement which considered dignity and reserve as additional titles to affection and reverence. We cannot but be struck with the wonderful contrast exhibited to our view, when we contemplate the opposite manners of the two periods in question. In the former all the flower of Europe smit with a delirious gallantry; all that was young, and noble, and brave, and great, with a frantic frenzy, and preposterous contempt of danger, traversed seas and scaled mountains and compassed a large portion of the globe, at the expense of ease, and fortune, and life, for the unprofitable project of rescuing, by force of arms, from the hands of infidels, the sepulchre of that Saviour, whom, in the other period, their posterity would think it the height of fanaticism so much as to name in good company. That Saviour, whose altars they desert, whose temples they neglect; and though in. more than one country at least they still call themselves by his name, yet too many, it is to be feared, contemn his precepts, still more are ashamed of his doctrines, and not a few reject his sacrifice. Too many consider Christianity rather as a political than a religious distinction; too many claim the appellation of Christians, in mere opposition to that democracy with which they conceive infidelity to be associated, rather than from an abhorrence of impiety for its own sake; too many deprecate the charge of irreligion, as the supposed badge of a reprobated party, more than on account of that moral corruption which is its inseparable concomitant! On the other hand, in an age when inversion is the character of the day, the modern idea of improvement does not consist in altering, but extirpating. We do not reform, but subvert. We do not correct old systems but demolish them, fancying that when every thing shall be new it will be perfect. Not to have been wrong, but to have been at all, is the crime. Existence is sin. Excellence is no longer considered as an experimental thing which is to grow gra improved by the accumulating additions brought by the wisdom of successive ages. Our wisdom is not a creature slowly brought by ripening time and gradual growth to perfection; but is an instantaneously created goddess, which starts at once, full grown, mature, armed cap-a-pee, from the heads of our modern thunderers. Or rather, if I may change the allusion, a perfect saystem is now expected inevitably to spring spontaneously at once, like the fabled bird of Arabia, from the ashes of its parent; and, like that, can receive its birth no other way but by the destruction of its predecessor. Instead of clearing away what is redundant, pruning what is cumbersome, supplying what is defective, and amending what is wrong, we adopt the indefinite rage for radical reform of Jack, who, in altering lord Peter's* coat, showed his zeal by crying out, Tear away, brother Martin, for the love of heaven; never mind, so you do but tear away.' This tearing system has unquestionably rent away some valuable parts of that strong, rich native stuff, which formed the ancient texture of British manners. That we have gained much I am persuaded; that we have lost nothing I dare not therefore affirm. But though it fairly exhibits a mark of our improved judgment to ridicule the fantastic notions of love and honour in the heroic ages; let us not rejoice that the spirit of generosity in sentiment, and of ardour in piety, the exuberances of which were then so inconvenient, are now sunk as unreasonably low. That revolution of taste and manners which the unparalleled wit and genius of Don Quixote so happily effected throughout all the polished countries of Europe, by abolishing extravagancies the most absurd and pernicious, was so far imperfect, that some virtues which he never meant to expose, unjustly fell into disrepute with the absurdities which he did: and it is become the turn of the present taste inseparably to attach in no small degree that which is ridiculous to that which is serious and heroic. Some modern works of wit have assisted in bringing piety and some of the noblest virtues into contempt, by studiously associating them with oddity, childish simplicity, and ignorance of the world: and unnecessary pains have been taken to extinguish that zeal and ardour, which however liable to excess and error, are yet the spring of whatever is great and excellent in the human character. The novel of Cervantes is incomparable; the Tartuffe of Moliere is unequalled; but true generosity and true religion will never lose any thing of their intrinsic value, because knight-errantry and hypocrisy are legitimate objects for satire. But to return from this too long digression, to the subject of female influence. Those who have not watched the united operation of vanity and feeling on a youthful mind, will not conceive how much less formidable the ridicule of all, his own sex will be to a very young man, than that of those women to whom he has been taught to look up as the arbiters of elegance. Such a youth, I doubt not, might be able to work him Swift's Tale of a Tub. |