guard ourselves by rehearsing the articles of our belief, negative and positive, upon the main subject.

I. We do not believe in the mental equality of the sexes. We do not even admit the cowardly compromise lately in use of difference in kind. The difference in question is one of power, and with power there must be associated the idea of superiority, mince it away whoever pleases, and thinks it honest to do so. Mrs. Jameson has put this matter in a nutshell for us. In the type woman, intellect is always diluted with emotion to a much greater extent than is the case with the type man. It is not pure and unembarrassed; it is slow to seize abstractions; it is apt to linger over personals and accidentals, and lacks muscularity of hold. After all,' says Aurora Leigh,

Yes, 'a little' only; but in that little there is a fund of power which makes us men, for ever and ever, dear ladies all, your lords and masters, so fondly certain of our seigneury that we really don't much care whether you own your vassalage or not. It is the rarity of pure intellect in woman, her incapacity to 'rule her blood a little' for an Idea,which makes her incapable of the highest Art. We need not go to Hamlet's instructions to the players to learn what our own experience and observation will tell us, that to command the emotions of others we must command our own. This, for love, a woman can; for an idea, not.

II. On the other hand, this is not 'limiting the growth' of women, which is what we deniers of her intellectual equality are charged with doing. Like us, she has an unlimited race before her, and an everreceding goal. But she must keep her line of march.

III. And in saying 'she must,' nothing arbitrary, no application of external force, is contemplated. If an ideal of the sex be assumed, of course it will exercise a certain influence in society, and-man being, like Mrs. Partington's devil, 'a poor critter after all,'-it will sometimes prove injurious. But if Mary Somerville can make counters of the stars, or Harriet Martineau illustrate social economics, or Joanna Baillie write tragedies, she will meet discountenance only from fools and scurvy knaves. Hands off!-a clear stage! And bay leaves for all who earn them!

IV. Nay, more than this. It is not only undeniable, but is a great grief to all intelligent men who have parted with the gossamerisms of adolescent views of life, that the received feminine ideal has shared the fate of all ideals in vulgar keeping-it has become fetish, and has been surrounded with degrading and mischievous superstitions. The work of to-day is to strip the idolum of its gewgaws, sweep bare the altar-stone, and purify the cultus. We wish it to go forth to the ends of the earth, as by the sound of a trumpet, that a true man would seek to set no limit whatever to the culture his female companion may bring to her intercourse with him; that every woman has an independent soul, for

making the best of which she is responsible to God, and to Him supremely; that, in so far as the wishes of the other sex may be allowed to guide her, she may take it for granted, that those of the best and most sensible men are for the most intelligent and cultivated companionship possible. It is our privilege, and, we had well-nigh said, the chief grace and glory of our life, to know a very, very few superior women, and we think their society one of the greatest of earthly pleasures, and of earthly strengths too. To know them is to have fixed a grapplingiron in solid grounds of goodness and wisdom, from which any effort of aspiration is possible, and any drifting away to any shape of earthly ruin almost impossible. It is to be helped, corroborated, cheered, and uplifted. Far from us, then, be the superstitious deference to the popular, or any other ideal, which would hinder for any girl the most robust and generous training she can bear, from books, friends, and the facts of life around and about her. Might it only please God to increase the number of large-brained, large-hearted women! We will promise to discuss with them no questions of equality, and to give them any honours they may challenge.

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V. We do not believe there is any conspiracy' among men 'to keep women down;' that 'men are tyrants;' or that 'custom' has always wronged women, and is now the only foundation for the differences in the education of the sexes. Customs do not come up in a night like mushrooms. There is sure to be a natural reason for whatever is universal among the race.

VI. We believe women are likely to be injured by the inflated talk, which has now become a cant, about their character and functions. Within these ten years, language has been turned upside down by writers who did not particularly care to be precise in the use of words, -Mr. Carlyle, for example,-till we really do not always see our way in the use of plain English. No subject has suffered more from the abuse of Germanized phraseology than that of 'Woman's Mission.' Woman is, it seems, all 'love' now-a-days; she is 'gentle woman, ever kind,'-a personage it has never been our good fortune to meet. She is man's conscience;' with her 'clear eye' she 'pierces through his moral sophistries,' and leads him back to the faith, and hope, and trust, and honesty, of his childhood-and so forth. As if this were not enough, there is a cant abroad which applies such words as 'holy' and 'divine' to womanly functions and impulses, which are in themselves no more so than the appetite for food. 'A mother's love' ought to be 'holy,' but the blind instinct which is so called by the canters is no more 'holy' than that in virtue of which a bear protects her cubs. In the intense affection and self-sacrifice of a mother, there is sublimity and poetry, but nothing strictly moral, and only harm is done by shamming that there is-as is pretended by that class of thinkers who maintain the 'ultimate identity' of Poetry and Religion (a shallow mistake). The 'gentle woman ever kind' theory, pervading as it does nearly all our essay-writing and story-telling, is exceedingly mischievous. Young men get married under a sort of impression that it is theirs to do the 'stern' business (and they do it), while it is the wife's to do the

'gentle,'-which they take care accordingly to expect from her, but which they seldom get. We have known, in our own observation, but two married women approaching the Griselda type: one died, fairly worn out by being 'gentle' to those who put upon her, at forty years of age; the other had streaks of grey in her hair at twenty-five, and is being gradually crumpled up by the stern' party to the bargain. We have known men conduct themselves so wantonly in domestic life, for the sake of testing the wife's 'gentleness,' that there could be no parallel to it, unless some one were to go and get his ribs broken for the sake of developing the

'When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!'

'side' of the female character.

VII. We believe that wifehood and motherhood are words which indicate the natural destination of a woman. This is often called a ' debasing' view. It is no more 'debasing' than to say a watch was constructed to tell the time, or an apple-tree made to blossom and bear fruit. Those who think the view debasing' have, of course, seen fit to renounce the Argument from Design in the Creation?

VIII. We believe that there is no absolute, inflexible law of nature, which forbids even a married woman to work for gain, though it is generally very unadvisable that she should do so, and proves poor economy. But that there are absolute, inflexible laws, which ordain full employment for every human being, and that unmarried women— a class who are said to be very much on the increase-are not only entitled, but bound, to seek spheres of industry, and, if they have no private means, spheres of remunerative industry for themselves.

IX. We believe it would be a very good thing, if men and women could meet more frequently under those guarantees for sobriety of feeling and clearness of perception which approximating spheres of industry would give. It would furnish opportunities of mutual knowledge before marriage; it would tend to promote purity of feeling in one sex, and energy and exactitude of habit in the other.

X. And lastly, we believe that of the majority of marriages that are unhappy, the unhappiness is caused by the unfitness of the wife for reasonable companionship-an unfitness produced by a narrow, flimsy education, and a reliance upon sexual superstitions which will not stand the strain of actual life. There is a too common plea for the ridiculous divergence of female culture from any standard common to both sexes, which should be put out of court with indignation for its folly, instead of being, as it is, recklessly adopted and acted upon. The plea is this, that love demands difference rather than resemblance, contrariety rather than similarity of mental interests and pursuits. It is rubbish, and derives all its force from the vulgar love of paradox, Here and there an egotist, like Goethe, or a poor sufferer like Heine. may get along with a woman who is a charming nonentity; but in cases like this, there are two or three conditions rarely to be got together. The man is an egotist who makes for himself a world of his

own: the wife adores him blindly, and is content to be shut out; and, not least, she has not, you will find, a nice moral sense. The real condition of attachment is predominating resemblance. This may be carried, without fear of contradiction, into the matter even of personal appearance. Dark people do not prefer light people: in plausible cases of this sort, the basis of the temperament will always be found the same. But the main drift in this place is to insist upon the necessity, as a preparative for happy marriage, of an education for women which shall tend to create an intellectual trysting-ground for their intercourse in after-life with men. Attachments between the sexes which do not involve esteem, and mutual intelligence and corroboration in what is good and beautiful, are ill-fitted to bear the stress of stubborn facts, and come far short of extracting from the sexual relation the best and highest it can yield in subservience to true happiness and the beauty of holiness.

We have pushed these expressions of opinion farther than we intended, and farther than was necessary for our purpose; but we will delay no longer introducing the volume which we have made the text of such a discursive sermon. Those who have read 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' will know pretty well what they are to expect in a series of essays by the authoress of such a sterling, sound-hearted novel.† Old-fashioned morality, with a Scriptural basis; a little twang of Conservatism in the social philosophy; freedom from the bias of clique views; transparency of style; a vein of healthy sentiment from beginning to end. In spite of evident sincerity, and occasional touches both of energy and pathos, there is, it seems to us, too much retenue, and the general effect is rather chilly. The author's speech is so widely marginated, that it is not easy to fix it with a very decided opinion, except upon topics on which mankind have made up their minds once for all. The book contains, avowedly, only Thoughts, and disclaims originality, on, we submit, incorrect grounds. The author says, she 'does not even attempt an originality, which, in treating of a subject like the present, would be either dangerous or impossible.' Why so? We have read the same thing before in ethical writings; but it is a mistake as an explanation of non-originality of matter. Any originality of general tendency―e. g. an attempt to prove that life is not sacred-would be a presumption against a moral treatise; but originality of matter and treatment is as much open to the moralist as to any other writer, we apprehend. Nor is the spirit which abstains from saying bold things, because they are dangerous,' consistent with the very highest moods of conscientiousness. It is rarely necessary to tone down or very carefully guard one's expression of the thought that is in him. The world will do that quite fast enough, when they once get hold of it; just as a

Moral critics, in general, know as much about harmony of temperament as art-critics, in general, about harmony of colour; of which Mr. Ruskin so quaintly says, 'If people tell you any two colours are discordant, make a note of those colours and put them together as often as you can!'

+ We take pleasure in announcing that her Alice Learmont' is now published by Chapman and Hall at one shilling. It is the best shilling's worth of the class.

congregation in singing (unless there is an instrument to keep them up to pitch) will manage to be half-a-tone flat by the time they reach the third verse of a psalm.

The topics of the twelve chapters of this book are:-I. Something to do. II. Self-dependence. III. Female Professions. IV. Female Handicrafts. V. Female Servants. VI. The Mistress of a Family. VII. Female Friendships. VIII. Gossip. IX. Women of the World. X. Happy and Unhappy Women. XI. Lost Women. XII. Women growing Old. Of these chapters, the best are, I., II., III., VII., and XII. The author is very sincere and very wise in her counsel on the matter of being a governess; and we commend her words not only to young ladies desiring that 'good work,' but to their mothers and fathers, who have the control (more or less) of their daughter's pursuits :

'If, in the most solemn sense, not one woman in five thousand is fit to be a mother, we may safely say that not two out of that number are fit to be governesses. Consider all that the office implies: very many of a mother's duties, with the addition of considerable mental attainments, firmness of character, good sense, good temper, good breeding; patience, gentleness, loving-kindness. In short, every quality that goes to make a perfect woman is required of her who presumes to undertake the education of one single little child.

'Does any one pause to reflect what a "little child" is? Not sentimentally, as a creature to be philosophised upon, painted, and poetised; nor selfishly, as a kissable, scoldable, sugar-plum-feedable plaything; but as a human soul and body, to be moulded, instructed and influenced, in order that it in its turn may mould, instruct, and influence unborn generations. And yet, in face of this awful responsibility, wherein each deed and word of hers may bear fruit, good or ill, to indefinite ages, does nearly every educated gentlewoman thrown upon her own resources, nearly every half-educated "young person "who wishes by that means to step out of her own sphere into the one above it, enter upon the vocation of a governess.

'Whether it really is her vocation, she never stops to think; and yet, perhaps, in no calling is a personal bias more indispensable. For knowledge, and the power of imparting it intelligibly, are two distinct and often opposite qualities; the best student by no means necessarily makes the best teacher; nay, when both faculties are combined, they are sometimes neutralized by some fault of disposition, such as want of temper or of will. And allowing all these, granting every possible intellectual and practical competency, there remains still doubtful the moral influence, which, according to the source from which it springs, may ennoble or corrupt a child for life.

'All these are facts so trite and so patent, that one would almost feel it superfluous to state them, did we not see how utterly they are ignored day by day by even sensible people; how parents go on lavishing expense on their house, dress, and entertainments-everything but the education of their children; sending their boys to cheap boarding-schools, and engaging for their daughters governesses at £20 a year, or daily tuition at sixpence an hour; and how, as a natural result, thousands of incapable girls, and ill-informed, unscrupulous women, go on professing to teach everything under the sun, adding lie upon lie, and meanness upon meanness-often through no voluntary wickedness, but sheer helplessness, because they must either do that or starve!

'Yet, all the while we expect our rising generation to turn out perfection; instead of which we find it-what?

'I do solemnly aver-having seen more than one generation of young girls grow up into womanhood-that the fairest and best specimens of our sex that I have ever known have been among those who have never gone to school, or scarcely ever had a regular governess.