length make choice of Woman; this seemed the most fitting instrument for his purpose, wherewith to tempt the favoured people, that so they might become idolaters and be rejected of God. Through the same mischievious influence did John the Baptist (15) perish; and we also read that the persecution of the Christians during the ministry of Paul was "aided and abetted" by women.

Ancient classic records furnish much the same tale; from the memorable days of Troy (16) downwards. The Roman age(17) was not without its Fulvias, Messalinas, and Aggripinas:-The first revolution, in which kingly power was destroyed, had its origin in a dispute about women; the elevation of plebeians to the consulship (in itself another revolution) is traced to the malicious which one sister bore to another.

envy

In Grecian history, the famous war of Peloponnesus, so calamitous to that country, took its rise from the personal resentment of Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles :-(It was under the sway of this famous courtezan, that Athens witnessed its most vicious as well as its most "refined" epoch.) Aristotle and Euripides, the chiefest glories of that land of genius, fled their country on account of women,

But in the annals of Greece and of Rome, and more especially during the era of their early greatness, be it admitted there are not to be pointed out so many instances of female mischief or aggression. It is as easy as it is satisfactory to account for this: their domestic policy was more according to nature; they educated the female portion of their families only with cautious wisdom,---and in this, as in other things, these great people may be said, for a long period of their history, to have lived up to the true standard of civilization.

The Roman code ("that grand monument of human wisdom, for which mankind must ever be inspired with veneration*"), rigorously excluded women from whatever was of a public nature; they had their own domestic tribunal. But the Greeks had particular magistrates to inspect the conduct of their women, and we are told, that "such was the virtue, simplicity, and chastity of women in the Grecian cities, that in this respect hardly any people were ever known to have a wiser polity+." And with all these restrictions, there is ample proof that they by no + Montesquieu.

* Sir J. Mackintosh.

VOL. I.

C

means treated the fair sex with any want of practical generosity. We have precisely a similar account of the Romans, with regard to both these material points, public morality and kind treatment of women: we are told, that, while the laws were in their vigour, "the public morals were more fixed-the men more sober-the women more chaste:" and Livy, the historian, bears particular record that, "notwithstanding the avowed rigour of the Roman customs, no people were milder in their conduct towards women."

But from the days of Greece and Rome, down to those in which we live, evils, and the greatest of evils, have sprung from the same unsuspected source. The French revolution, the last great and stirring event upon which the world looks back, arose "amidst the yells and violence of women*." Some Thais has ever been found in bustling times ready to lead the way:-" Dux femina facti."-Rousseau asserts, that "all the great revolutions were owing to women;" a fact which we may easily credit, if we can first admit the justice of Sir W. Raleigh's maxim-"The

* Burke's Reflections.

tongue is the cause of nearly all the evil that has happened in the world." A peculiar and most effective weapon of the sex, is this one little organ: "What hast thou not been capable of doing, O Woman! and what hast thou not been capable of saying?" The divinity of the tongue was among the Romans aptly personified as female; and after this manner was the goddess styled "Ate, mother of debate, and of all mischief!"

For the sake of women have the dearest and most devoted friends quarrelled—families have been divided-and nations have unceasingly drawn the sword of hostility: they are the very rot of power; for them have been empires lost and won, and the Times a thousand times put "out of joint." The greatest events may spring from trifling causes, and perhaps there are few things, great or small in their consequence, which are not to be traced to a female origin (18). "'tis Woman that seduces all mankind*."

"fœmina litem

Nulla ferè causa est, in quâ non moverit."

It may seem that we have been all this time declaiming; but let us whisper a truth to the reader: The influence of which we speak is not only overgrown, it is fearfully threatening and dangerous; it is rarely exerted for good: it is, in sad reality, “fundi nostri calamitas,” an unsuspected leprosy at the heart of nearly all our social evil. Did we not well know this, so strange and yet so true, we might be tempted to view it rather as a constant farce, and with the of a Democritus: but as it is, we cannot say, "Risum teneatis!" we are compelled to cry out, "Quis talia fando temperet a lacrymis?"

eye

§ 9.-A sample has been given of the evils inflicted upon society by unwholesome liberty among women. "Here be truths," as Shakspeare says, "fearful truths!" But, alas! Wisdom might cry aloud in our streets; her's is a still, small voice, that is heeded not: and we call ourselves a thinking people, while we put our hands before our eyes, and in silence contemplate an evil fixing itself at our very hearths!

We have declared the mischief which the influence of women entails upon others: the in