powers of housewifery were employed. I was certainly the best philosopher of the two, for my experiments succeeded, and his did not all was well again, except my broken ware and my carpet, my poor vitriolized carpet, which still remains a mournful memento of philosophick fury; or rather of philosophick folly. melted rosin; he had broken three | china cups, two wine glasses, a tumbler, and one of my best decanters; and after all, as I said before, I perceived that he had not succeeded in any one operation. By-the-by-tell your friend, the white-wash scribbler, that this is one way by which our closets become furnished with "halves of china bowls, cracked tumblers, broken wine glasses, tops of teapots, and stoppers of departed decanters." I say, I took a sober view of the dirt and devastation my philosophical husband had made; and there I sat, like Patience on a monument smiling at Grief; but it worked inwardly-yes, Mr. Editor, it worked inwardly, I would almost as lieve the melted rosin had been in his throat, and the vitriol upon his skin, as on my dear marble hearth and my carpet. It is not true that women have no command over their own feelings; for notwithstanding this gross provocation I said nothing, or next to nothing; I only observed, very pleasantly, that a lady of my acquaintance had told me, that the reason why philosophers are called literary men, is because they frequently make a great litter-not a word more. However, the servant cleared away, and down sat the disappointed philosopher. friend dropt in soon after-"Your servant, sir, how do you do?" "Oh Lord, I am almost fatigued to death-I have been all the morning making philosophical experiments." I was now more hardly put to it to smother a laugh, than I had been just before to contain my resentment. My Precious went out soon after with his friend, and I, as you may well suppose, immediately mustered all my forces brushes, buckets, soap, sand, limeskins, and cocoa-nut shells-all the A This operation was scarce over, when in came my experimental dear, and told me, with all the indifference in the world, that he had invited six gentlemen to dine with him at three o'clock--it was then past one; I complained of the short notice: Poh! Poh! says he you can get a leg of mutton and a loin of veal, and a few potatoes, and it will do well enough. Heavens! what a chaos must the head of a philosopher be! a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, and potatoes! I was at a loss whether I should laugh or be angry. But there was no time for determining; I had but an hour and a half to do a world of business in. My carpet, which had suffered in the cause of experimental philosophy in the morning, was destined to be shamefully dishonoured in the afternoon by a deluge of filthy tobacco juice; gentlemen smokers and chewers love cigarrs and pigtail better than carpets. Think, Mr. Editor, what a woman must endure under such circumstances; and then, after all, to be reproached with her cleanliness, and to have her white-washings, her scowerings, and scrubbings made the subject of publick ridicule, is more than patience can put up with. What I have now exhibited is but a small specimen of the injuries we suffer under the boasted superiority of the men. But we will not be laughed out of our cleanliness. A woman would rather be called than slut; as a man would rather be called a knave than fool. I had a great deal more to say, but I am called away. We are just preparing to white-wash; yes, I say to white-wash; the brushes are ready, the buckets are paraded, my husband is gone off, so much the better. When one is about a thorough cleaning, the first dirty thing to be removed is one's husband-I am called for again adieu! And ever-varied sides present such scenes Or dwells complacent on the num'rous signs Of cultivated life. The peasant's decent cot, Or farmer's better mansion, mid his trees, His fertile fields, and orchards, where his hopes, Long held in icy bonds, shall soon expand. His cattle, climbing heights abrupt, to seek The welcome herb, though prematurely The price of The Port Folio is Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance. Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, NO. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET. Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp, Vol. VI. Philadelphia, Saturday, July 23, 1808. For The Port Folio. TRAVELS. ORIGINAL PAPERS. LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE. Written during a residence of between two and three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a ladv in Virginia. (Continued from page 39.). My dear E, I mentioned to you in a former letter that there was a theatre at Geneva, and that it was not much frequented-the arrival of Mademoiselle Comtat however, during the summer, and of a somewhat better troop from Marseilles enabled us to see what is esteemed good acting in France. To me, however, the actors appeared in one continued state of exaggeration, and neither in gesture, tone of voice, or pronunciation to resemble the individuals whom I have had as yet an opportunity of meeting with in company. As to the morality in the French theatre, No. 4. I do not think as highly of it, as when my knowledge was confined to the few distinguished productions I possessed in Carolina, nor am I more reconciled than formerly to their strict adherence to the unities of time and place-it appears to me a greater violation of probability than the most extravagant changes of scene we meet with even in Shakspeare. How is it indeed possible to imagine, that either at a house in the country, or at a hotel garni in Paris, the lover should have no other place to dress in, to lay plans with his valet de chambre, receive his friends, or sooth his creditors in, but the very room in which his mistress sees her company, and We listens to his declarations? were at the Philosophe Marié last night, one of Destouche's few good plays: the first scene represents Alceste, the Philosophe, as musing in his study, which he describes, from experience no doubt, as a sacred asylum against noise, and G ory, but not disposed to sacrifice the calls of humanity to the imaginary rights of man. I like his idea, that no agreement can sub those of the few, and that a nation is not called upon to obey laws contrary to its happiness, and not made by itself-That a despotick government is of all things the most absurd: but it is to be regretted, that one who has been considered in France as the apostle of liberty, should not have understood the principles of the representative system, which leaves the people all their rights, their feel interruption of every sort, and yet it is in that very study that every event of a very busy play takes place that the husband and wife should converse there, is very na-ject the interest of the many, tò tural, but it is there also that visits are received, that contrary to every rule of propriety the coquette of the piece flirts and quarrels with her admirers, and that a Marquis, who is really a fine gentleman, goes upon one knee, and makes a tender of his person and fortune. Mademoiselle Comtat was very much applauded, and at times when it betrayed, I thought, a want of taste and feeling in the audience. Melite, the wife of Al-ings and their energy, at the same ceste, is represented as throwing herself at the feet of an uncle, who, hard-hearted as he is represented, and familiar with distress, is overcome with compassion, at beholding her in all the agony of such deep distress; such a moment should have commanded universal sympathy and attention, but there was no resisting the shrugs and grimaces of Mademoiselle Comtat, who, in her avidity for applause, kept the audience exclusively attentive to her and in a foolish simper, while they should have been melted into tears at the sight of a wife, a modest and lovely woman, upon her knees. It is singular enough that the theatre should have been erected at no great distance from the gigantick bust of Rousseau, who was never more eloquent or more in the right, than when arguing against the propriety of a theatre in Geneva. The eloquence of this singular man will command attention to the end of time: his political principles are those of a vigorous, enlightened mind, unimproved perhaps by practical knowledge and experience, and deviating at times, as on the article of property, for instance, into the absurdities of the time that it guards against the arts of demagogues, and the evils of confusion. His book on education is replete with useful ideas and hints, either derived from others or from himself, and inculcated with all the charms of eloquence on the most interesting of all subjects: Mothers have been taught by it not to deprive themselves of the most delightful of all employments, and of the caresses of of their children in infancy; the infant too is under obligations to Rousseau, he is left in possession of his little powers of motion, and as he increases in years is no longer considered as a mere dependent being, bending under the will of a master; he is made to learn at a proper period, that there may be necessity arising from circumstances, of which he is himself a judge, to which he must submit, and that faults carry with them the privation of some enjoyment: he acquires by degrees a knowledge of his fellow-creatures, and he arrives at manhood without having been humbled by correction, or enervated by luxury, or spoiled by flattery, with the faculties of the mind awakened, and prepared for any walk of life which he may be called upon to enter. With some exaggeration therefore, and some erroneous views, there is more truth, and more useful knowledge in his Emilius, than in all his other works-it is by this, that the wiser and better part of posterity will know him; such indeed are the tendencies of our nature, that it will always be of service, and more so than even you, who are an American mother, would perhaps imagine; not only the infants, who in the first instance are left in possession of their mo thers' milk, will have to bless the name of Rousseau; but those of the hired nurse, and those of her substitute, the labourer's wife, who were deprived of a great portion of their necessary nourishment, will many of them owe their lives to him: there is hardly a village in the neighbourhood of a large town, where this might not be verified: As to his first literary production which attracted such universal attention, it has been often observed that nothing could be more fallacious than the argumentative part. It is well known that nothing could be more accidental than the circumstance which induced him to adopt that side of the question, but it answered the purposes of his ambition, it made him for a time the object of curiosity, and that was all he wanted: it is singular, that his first effort as an authour, should have been made after the age of forty; it was probably a keen sense of the precious years he had lost in the career of literary glory, which so deeply affected his irascible and jealous mind, and as he emerged from a state bordering on servitude, to assume his station among authours, he is supposed to have been animated by feelings not un like those of Marius, when he entered Rome, as consul, after having been found lurking in the marshes of Minturne-he could not bear superiority of any sorthe was like too many individuals I have known in America, who having been admitted by accident, or in consequence of the offices they were called upon to fill in some family, to take a nearer view of the comforts of opulence, and the graces of polished life, became from envy and resentment the fiercest of all democrats, and would have established a system of equality at the expense of as many lives as were sacrificed by Robespierre. The various forms which madness takes, and the very singular manner in which it often exists, alternately, with reason, in the same individual, might form the subject of an interesting work. In Rousseau there was certainly no small portion of it, for what but madness, founded originally upon the most consummate vanity, could have made him suppose that the orders of society in every part of Europe, were in conspiracy against him? If the government of France sent a sufficiency of force, to put an end to all resistanse in Corsica, it was to prevent his becoming the legislator of that Island; if the king of England offered him a pension, it was only to lead him into some snare, an unresisting victim to the hatred of his enemies; nor would he venture to leave the countryhouse, where he had been so hospitably received at the expense of Mr. Davenport, till he had repeatedly solicited a guard to pro tect him as far as the sea coast. Madame de Genlis, in her Souvenirs, under the name of Felicie, has related in a very interesting manner, her first acquaintance 1 |