one side to the other of the entrance of the port, so that in whatever way the enemy attempted to escape, he was sure to have him either with his broadside, or his bow, or his stern chasers. This was, no doubt, a ship of the line.

These are idle and absurd projects; something much better may soon be expected from the combination of scientific principles with practical skill, which the superior class of shipwrights' apprentices, mentioned in a former article, are, we understand, rapidly acquiring at the Royal Naval College and in the dockyard of Portsmouth. The sloop which they are building with their own hands, after their own draft, is said to be a beautiful vessel whose lines differ very materially from the common run of ships of that class. She has been named the Icarus, probably in allusion to the boldness of the undertaking; but, we hope, not in anticipation of its unfortunate result.

All our expedients, however, for husbanding our resources of oak timber, as far as ship-building is concerned, will avail but little if a more economical use of it shall not be observed in the internal purposes to which it is now applied, and most of which might be superseded to advantage by the use of cast iron. Bridges, barges, lighters, dock-gates, canal locks, the roofs, doors, floors, rafters of workshops and warehouses, with almost every species of heavy machinery, are cheaper and better, more durable and more elegant when made of iron than of oak. The security against fire would alone, we should suppose, be a sufficient inducement for introducing it into all buildings of the nature of magazines where valuable materials are intended to be deposited. Its application of late has been greatly extended. We have cables, rigging, buoys and water tanks now of iron, masts and yards will we doubt not be tried; and many of the timbers in the lower parts of a ship, where there is little or no stress, might be replaced with iron which would at the same time act as ballast. The vast quantity of fine elm that used to be buried under the streets of this metropolis and other large cities to convey water, is now almost wholly superseded by iron and stone-in fine, we are now so far advanced in the iron age that, in the worst of events, we should not absolutely despair of being able to substitute for our wooden walls, ships wholly constructed of iron.

In the mean time, should the enemy think fit to alter his system and venture out to fight us, we shall recruit our navy as heretofore at his expense; should he, on the contrary, persevere in the passive plan of remaining quietly in port, we shall have little to apprehend from his dry-rotten fleet, and harbour-made sailors.

ART.

ART. II. The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. Part the Second. Published by Matthew Montagu, Esq. Vols. III. & IV. London. 1813.

WHATEVER doubts may be entertained as to the advances to

wards knowledge that have been lately made by the male part of our species, it is, we think, impossible to deny that the female have made a great and rapid progress. Indeed if we were called upon to mention the circumstance most advantageously characteristic of our own times, we should not hesitate to mention the improved education of women. There are now alive, or at least there have lived, within the last twenty years, more women distinguished for their literary talents, and whose works are likely to immortalize their names, than in the twenty centuries that had elapsed, from the time of Sappho to that of the ingenious lady whose letters are now before us. It has been our lot to be at once delighted by the inventive fertility of Madame de Genlis, the virtuous and pathetic tenderness of Madame Cottin, the native perspicacity and good sense, the mild and cheerful philosophy, the pure and original humour, of Miss Edgeworth-and by Madame de Staël, whose reach and vigour of understanding, whose instinctive quickness in seizing, and happy facility in delineating, the manners of society and the character of nations,-whose brilliant yet earnest and natural eloquence, warm with the best feelings, and dignified by lofty and benevolent views of human nature, place her (in our judgment at least) above all her predecessors, and what is far more, above all her contemporaries. To this distinguished list many others might easily be added in merit as in popularity unequalled in any former age; and, indeed, the more we consider the subject, the more we shall be surprised both at how much they have done, and at how little was done before them. With the single exception of the lively, spirited, graceful, intelligent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, no English woman before the present reign had produced a book that is still read otherwise than as matter of curiosity and research. We shall perhaps be reminded of Mrs. Hutchinson. But the attention we give to her Memoirs is excited, not so much by their literary merit, as by the interesting nature of the events to which they relate, by the picture they afford of national manners at that most important period of our history, and by the purity, sweetness, dignity, and force of her own character.

Till the last half of the eighteenth century the French had equally little to boast of. They had indeed some Memoirs which are still read as forming part of the history of the age, and the classical labours of that dullest of pedants Madame D'Acier; but the age of Lewis XIV. so fertile in great men, produced but one woman that can be numbered among the classical writers of her country, and whose works form part of what may be called the library of nations.' But the merit

of

of Madame de Sevigné, great as it is, is chiefly the merit of style. She seldom rises to eloquence, and never to discussion or invention-of both which we have such frequent, and such excellent specimens in the female writers of our own time. The rest of Europe presented to us almost a complete blank, and even now, France and England almost monopolize the female literature of the world. Italy, in which women are worshipped, and degraded, Spain and Germany have produced (so far as we recollect) no eminent writer in the softer sex. Every civilized country, indeed, can boast its long list of admirable ladies, skilful in all arts and sciences, accomplished in verse and in prose; but it unfortunately happens, that the far greater part of them have either left behind them no monuments of their genius, or that their writings are deemed absolutely unreadable by an ungallant and fastidious posterity. The works of the female authors our contemporaries, are of a higher and more durable kind, and we venture to foretel that Evelina,' Cecilia,' Tales of Fashionable Life,' and 'Corinne,' will not be forgotten, except in a general oblivion of all the choicest specimens of the literature of this

age.

We rejoice at this improvement; not only because the performances we have just mentioned are such as would do honour to any country and to any period, but because we consider them as unequivocal symptoms of a general advance in the character, talents, and station in society of the whole sex. The mere existence of three or four extraordinary women in a country is of comparatively little value. But when a few individuals rise to great excellence, it is probable that the quality of the whole class has been ameliorated; and we prize the authors of Castle Rackrent' and Camilla' much less for their insulated, independent merit-that merit which, it must be confessed, is most gratifying to themselves-than when we consider them as the chiefs and representatives of that great and increasing number of edu cated, intelligent, accomplished women, which these islands now produce. In fact, if other proofs were wanting, this alone would be a sufficient indication of the present character and condition of the female sex in this country. It is far more decisive than equal or even superior merit, in the same number of individuals would be with respect to our own sex. We are certainly not disposed to underrate the understandings of women, but we think it no want of respect to them to say that their minds are of a less bold, original, and independent cast; and that they partake much more strongly and uniformly than ourselves of the character of the age in which they live, and the society to which they belong. A few great men may rise up in a comparatively rude and dark age, diffuse a sudden light, and give a new impulse to the world; but a distinguished female writer is the effect of civilization carried to a very high point-of consideration already paid to her sex, and of knowledge widely spread.

We consider the change in the education of women which is in

dicated

dicated by the rank they have lately assumed in the literary world, as a pure unmixed good. Not that we would purchase for them an increase of knowledge, much as we value it, at the expense of their social or domestic virtues, or by taking away that grace and softness which form the charm of the female character. But there is nothing in reason or in experience that should teach us to apprehend such an effect. It is in England, and within the last thirty or forty years, that the progress of learning has been most extensive among women, and yet we see no reason to suppose that they make worse wives, worse mothers, or less agreeable members of society than their great grand-mothers who could spell no word of above three syllables, and who were acquainted with no science but that of making tapestry:

'Lapdogs and lambkins with black staring eyes,

And parrots, with twin-cherries in their beaks.'

It is quite idle, and the mere talk of country squires, to say that knowledge makes women affected, insolent, slovenly, or corrupt. Any advantage, or supposed advantage, be it what it may, that is confined to a few, will produce an unfavourable effect upon the conduct of those few, unless they are also gifted with an unusually larger portion of natural modesty and good sense. The moment the advantage ceases to be also a distinction, it no longer supplies food to vanity, nor gives birth to impertinence and affectation. The diffusion of knowledge is the death-blow to pedantry. If, as our wise ancestors supposed, learned ladies—that is, ladies that knew any thing, were apt to neglect their children, and wear dirty clothes, it was because they were few enough in number to be each an object of remark. A hundred and fifty years ago the few women that could read in a foreign language, or write tolerably in their own, were probably very vain of these accomplishments which separated them by such a prodigious interval from their contemporaries. Just as vain too, in all likelihood, were the first distinguished persons that wore silk and muslin, or rode in coaches, or looked through glass windows; or the Indian prince, who, by the liberality of an English navigator, was first enabled to add Lord of the Brass Kettle' to other titles of high import, and imposing magnificence. But now that, owing to schools and manufactories, and to improved tutors, governesses, and machinery, muslin, and French, and glass, and composition, and hardware, are grown pretty common, all these ornaments and comforts are enjoyed without any drawback from envy on the one side, or vanity on the other. The same arguments, it must be observed, are applicable to all that has been said against instructing the common people. Many excellent persons are still of opinion that nine-tenths of the human species, even in what are called VOL. X. NO. XIX. civilized

с

civilized countries, ought to be left in such a deplorable state of ignorance as to be quite incapable of clearly apprehending the great truths of morality and religion, for fear an increase of knowledge should indispose them to those humble occupations to which their own good and the good of society ought to confine them. Or, as it is usually expressed, lest it should put them above their business.' Here is the same fallacy of treating the effect that is produced upon an individual, for that which would be produced upon the whole body. The only peasant in a whole village that could read and write would probably think the distinction of his clergy placed him above the humble task of holding a spade or guiding a plough, but where all his companions are equally accomplished, he feels no pride, because he enjoys no superiority. The compa rison that produces pride, and laziness, and discontent, is made, not between himself and the occupation, but between himself and the other persons that are generally engaged in it.

The effect of increased knowledge in both the cases to which we have been alluding, is to produce a most salutary re-action upon those from whom it was originally imparted. In proportion as women, and as the lower orders receive a better education, the higher orders and our own sex must make greater efforts to preserve their relative station. It is necessary for the maintenance of their just authority, or what comes to the same thing, for the good of society, that the rich should be superior in knowledge to the poor, and men to women, but there is no occasion to have recourse to artificial means to keep the storehouses of learning under lock and key, to prevent this order from being subverted. Wealth gives such command of time, and such access to the means of information as must always enable the rich man, with moderate sense and application, to raise himself to an immeasurable height above his poorer neighbours, in spite of their broad-brimmed instructor, Joseph Lancaster, and without having recourse to the absurd, pitiful, uncharitable, unchristian expedient, of intentionally and systematically keeping them in that state of ignorance, from which it would be no difficult task to rescue them. The difference of knowledge between rich and poor is naturally measured by the difference of leisure. The interests of society do not appear to require that this disparity between men and women, where they are of the same rank, should be so marked, and it may very safely be left to be determined by the natural superiority of our sex in strength and comprehension of mind, and in the power of application.

The tendency, to which we have already alluded, of an increased acquaintance with literature among women to promote a corresponding improvement in our sex is, we think, already very percep