Price felt that he was right; he || ter genius, to reward merit, and to contribute as far as he could to the happiness of all around him; but most of all to that of the inestimable friend, whose active benevolence had been the primary cause of his emerging from poverty and gave up his employments under DIALOGUES OF THE LIVING. No. VI. Lady Frances. Well, then, I am very sorry, uncle, you persuaded me to come. I suppose then she engrosses the whole of the conversation, and sits on that exalted seat to deliver out her literary dogmas, as if she were the only judge of wit and learning. Lady Blue's conversazione, at which || of all she can endure the severity she is about to read to her friends of sarcastic satire. parts of her great work in vindication of the rights and superiority of women-Description of the company assembled-Lady Blue's entrée-Her ascent to her seat, and address upon the degradation of her sex-The divisions of her production into the Graces and eight Muses-Who is to supply the place of the ninth? With other matters too numerous and curious to be de tailed here. Scene The Library of Lady BLUE'S House. [The chairs are rauged round a raised seat, Sir James. I would advise you, my dear, to let your little satirical tongue lie still when Lady Blue enters the room, or you may receive a severe reprimand: her ladyship at these her conversaziones is absolutely mistress, and she can endure nothing but what comes in the shape of a compliment; least Sir James. That is a little too much the case I allow, but she really is a woman of considerable learning, and for her sex Lady Frances. If you proceed at that rate, you will be much more likely to receive a reprimand than I. "And for her sex" indeed! Why, are we not called together to hear a sort of lecture from her on her great new work, which is to produce a revolution in the world, by shewing that women have been too much and too long degraded, and that they ought to assert not merely their equality, but their superiority over men? Sir James. True, my saucy niece; but if the whole sex were of your temper and spirit, there would be no need of her voluminous work in folio, to convince ladies that they ought to assert their own dignity and independence. Lady Frances. But I hope she | I mean that gentleman with a very does not intend to go through all that immense heap of paper? Sir James. If so, it will be well for those who take snuff, and are able to keep themselves awake. Lady Frances. Better for those who do not, for they may take a comfortable nap. Sir James. I dare say we shall find amusement enough to keep us alive for an hour, which is the limit of her lecture; besides, she is to intersperse her readings with criticisms, and to require the opinions of the company. Lady Frances. Indeed I hope she will not ask mine: but I suppose that is the reason why I see so many sagacious faces here under wigs of various sizes and denominations, from the scholar's scratch to the bishop's bob. Sir James. And so many females who affect the character of literary ladies; all pretty much advanced in life, and single because they could find no husbands who would allow them their due level-which means men who would be benpecked, and governed by them with a rod of iron. Lady Frances. Perhaps most of them (if one may guess by their looks, which is perhaps not quite fair, considering that most of them are somewhat passées, as the French say,) never had an opportunity of making a refusal either on that or any other ground, Sir James. But old bachelors are here quite as plentiful as old maids. First, observe the celebrated Mr. Peter Pedant of Cambridge, who has been fellow of a college for the last thirty years, and consequently obliged to lead a life of celibacy: thin nose, and a face just as if he were eating sour crabs. Not far from him is the redoubted Dr. Duz bious (uncle to our friend of that name), the principal of one of the colleges of Oxford: he is in a fullbottomed wig, which has lost all the powder, and is noted for being one of the greatest scholars and greatest slovens of his day. Lady Frances. I declare Louisa is quite lost in looking at the company: how she eyes that old lady in the gay pink cap, and the young lady next her, so decorated with yellow! [To her.] Louisa, my dear, on what are your thoughts so occupied? Louisa. By the same subject that my eyes were fixed upon. Sir James. That is Mrs. Censor and her daughter, Miss Candida; the one a widow, and both the most celebrated female critics in London. Her husband was editor of one of the reviews; and it is said that she and her daughter were the principal writers, though the fact was not publicly known or announced. Louisa. This conversazione is worth attending, if it be only to see the persons of literary eminence. Lady Frances. More properly of literary notoriety-as great a set of quizzes as I ever beheld. But where is Lady Blue all this time? Is it usual for her thus to keep her auditors waiting? I imagine she is rehearsing her part. Louisa. Very probably: I remember when I was here once before, it was the same. She had then a work in hand connected with the same subject as her present-the vindication of the female sex; [Enter Lady Blue.] Louisa. Lady Blue, as I live! What silence prevails on her entrance! Lady Frances. See how she bows, disdaining to courtesy, as a foolish womanish practice! Sir James. In that respect she is not singular ladies have nowadays forgotten how to courtesy gracefully. Lady Frances. How heartily she shakes hands with Mrs. Censor and her daughter! Mr. Pedant too, and Dr. Dubious! Who is that lady whom she now addresses? Louisa. Miss Amaranth Mildew, a disciple of hers, as well as the three or four middle-aged single females next to her, whom she takes under her tuition. Observe, she is coming towards us. Lady Blue. Sir James, it gives me pleasure to see you. I fear I have detained you, and kept you too long in suspense-but my work, my great labour requires prepára tion. To-night it is my purpose merely to detail the heads and principal subjects it embraces. One-nor one hundred evenings would suffice to go through the whole, as you may guess by the magnitude of the MS. I assure you that the industry I have bestowed upon it is astonishing; my friends Dr. Dubious and Mr. Pedant can bear witness to the days and weeks I employed in making researches in the libraries of the two Universities. Why, Sir James, I have had three and four amanuenses engaged upon it at the same time, besides my own individual exertions. Sir James. I am sure the world ought to be much indebted to your ladyship. Lady Frances. But, alas! how ungrateful it often is for the most valuable efforts of human genius and industry! But Lady Blue. I fear that one half of it, I mean the male sex, will not feel itself under any great obligations; for I flatter myself that it will produce an absolute revolution in favour of injured women. I am forgetting my purpose.-[To the company] Upon my honour, ladies and gentlemen, I beg to make a thousand apologies for detaining you so long, when I know that your curiosity is awakened to so lively a degree-but, I may say without vanity, that I trust your patience will be well rewarded. [She ascends to her seat, and opens the MS. turning over the leaves, and smiling with conscious satisfaction. After attention seems. fixed, and she has three or four times cleared her voice, she thus proceeds :] It is not unknown, I apprehend, to all persons present, how grievously the female sex has been oppressed by those who having more physical strength, have basely availed themselves of the advantage. Yet let me ask in the outset, does the power to injure give any title to do injury? or because the power exists, is it impossible that it should be controuled by a superior power? Mere strength is a gift not ago, that I might have had an opportunity of reviewing it: together, we should have remoulded the state of society, and mainly altered the abject condition of women. Miss Beardmore. Charming! charming! her spirit is quite animating. Methinks` I feel regene to men only; they share it in com- || mon with the beasts of the field and the monsters of the wood-nay, are they not much inferior in this respect to many of the brutes of the creation? The horse and the ox possess twenty times their bodily force, and to the stupendous elephant man is an absolute and con-rated, and ready to take up arms temptible pigmy. Yet these, and for my injured sex. But see, Lady more than these, obey his mandate Blue continues. and listen tremblingly to his voice. Lady Blue. After silence had Thus then I shew in my preface, been restored.] Strength is either that "out of his own mouth I will corporeal or incorporeal; and as convict him;" by his own example much as the soul is above the body, I prove, that if strength were a ti- so much is incorporeal strength tle to do injury, the horse, the ox, above the gross sublunary corpoor the elephant might justly inflict real. The greatest and most lastupon him the most grievous suffer- ing revolutions have been those of ings-as grievous as those with mind and opinion: arms may overwhich he visits my unhappy sex. throw, artillery may destroy the [Applause.] No; bodily force is no- firmest fortifications, and fire and thing in comparison with strength sword may lay waste the cultured of mind; and it is because "man, || plains; but the next season restores proud man, drest in a little brief au- the bloom of nature, and in a few thority," possesses somewhat more years more the fabric which brute intellect and knowledge than the force has razed by brute force may beasts, that he is able" to play such be reared: but when the mind, the fantastic tricks before high heaven," immortal mind is affected-when and make those beasts his slaves or once a change takes place there, subjects. Why then should not that change is a change of centuwomen profit by this experience, || ries-of ages-nothing can assail it and avail themselves of that supe--nothing destroy it. Such then riority of understanding and in- let us make the revolution I now formation which God has given propose: it will be the triumph of them, by reducing man to that le- genius and learning over the tyranvel for which he was intended? [Ap-ny of brute force; and when once plauses, long continued, especially from the ladies.] Miss Amaranth Mildew. Very eloquent and conclusive indeed. Mrs. Mumble. Her argument is irrefragable. it is accomplished, who shall hope to restore the antiquated and exploded sway of man? Can we find a more pertinent or convincing testimony in favour of female superiority, than in that beautiful scriptu Miss Candida. Delightful! I ne- ral apologue where Wit triumphed ver heard any thing better. Mrs. Censor. What a pity it is she did not publish her work long over Strength and as if to shew what a mere trifle it was, and how weak man is even when he is strong est, that strength was placed in the | is brute force under other words, hair of his head: woman's power has been successful in establishing it. [Applause from the ladics.] But let us recollect from whom we derive nearly all our intelligence upon this important point ;-from men-from those who were anx lies in the head-not on the outside of it; it is indestructible, uncontroulable, and must triumph if we but persevere in insisting upon our rights. [Applause] Dr. Dubious. My only doubt ari-ious to deny as much as possible ses from this circumstance: that during about 5000 years, since the creation of the world, females have been considered inferior to males: if the superiority had in truth existed, would it not ere now have been asserted? Lady Blue. I apprehend, Dr. Dubious, with submission to your learning, that that is entirely a mistake, as indeed I prove beyond contradiction in the 284th chapter of my work, where I speak more particularly of such women as have gloriously distinguished themselves in various ways: in war, in the arts and sciences, in poetry, in politics and government, and, in short, in every way that it is possible for them to shew their superiority. the merits of their rivals and their superiors; men are the historians, men the biographers; and what can we expect from their malice and their envy but detraction and injustice? They have been always niggards of their praise, even when it' was extorted, and never gave it but under the infiuence of compulsion. Dr. Dubious. Pardon me, Lady Blue, but I do not exactly see how compulsion operated upon his pen who sang the praises of Sappho, or who perpetuated the triumphs of Corinna. Lady Blue. I establish that point in the 102d chapter of my work, to which I beg to refer you. Sir James. And surely, Lady Blue, you must admit the obligaMr. Pedant. No doubt, Lady tions of your sex to the poets of Blue, your instances are selected almost all ages. Does not Virgil with judgment equal to your learn- | do you justice in every way, ascriing, and enforced with eloquence bing to a feinale even all the marequal to your judgment; but surelytial virtues? Among the Italians, they are few compared with the immense phalanx that may be marshalled on the other side. Lady Blue. Perhaps in numbers they may not exceed, but, like the invincible spirit in Milton, "their numbers last I sum:" for what is mere numerical strength? Here again you would resort to the old practice which I would fain explode, of shewing that all must be right because it has been established for many years, and because numerical strength, which in fact Fol. VI. No. XXXVI. does not Ariosto especially describe his female heroine with every quality that can ennoble our nature? And where will you find a character to equal in dignity or interest our Spenser's Britomart? Lady Blue. Hitherto you will perhaps be aware, that I have only adverted to the preface of my production: when we arrive at the last volume, if indeed five quartos will complete the subject, you will discover that I have completely refuted these objections. Y Y |