and a mother. All goes on delightfully for a few years: Miss, or her ladyship, is exceedingly happy, and, no doubt, much admired; but where are her real resources at home? Is she capable of conducting herself upon sound principles of wisdom? Is she capable of bearing a part in truly rational conversation among men of science, or respectable and useful members of society, either in town or country? What becomes of her after her beauty and fashion, are at an end, which a dozen of years must infallibly produce? She then becomes a promoter of pleasures to a new crop of fashionable misses, under the holy mask of patronage, of chaperonship: She betakes herself to cards, to continual driving about from party to party; or she turns Demirep, or Methodist, or some strange thing or other, to prevent her from feeling that horrid languor which must ever, accompany the want of real business, where true science, and the satisfaction of rational curiosity do not interpose their aid to obviate the dreadful consequences of idleness!

This miserable woman, who looked so charming, was so gay and happy, and was so wonderfully accomplished ten years ago, is now a troublesome, discontented, capricious, dissipated old cat, that cannot be endured even by her most servile dependants. In town, she is continually chagrined; in the country, she dies of the vapours, or must go to summer races; to Buxton, Harrogate, or some place of public resort, or take a jaunt to the

Cumberland lakes; and, in short, must either have recourse to continual amusement, to opium, or the closet.

Is there a family in Europe, Sir, that hath hot experienced, or that is not at this moment experiencing, in some degree, the dreadful truth of my observations.

Mothers, it is to you that I ought to address myself. Unfortunately it is too late for you to remedy the misfortunes of your own preposterous education; but you may, by your influence, remedy them in your daughters. With respect to yourselves, if dissipation, and the present reigning manners of Europe, have left any part of yourselves behind, give me leave to recommend to you the mature consideration of the following advice of Dean Swift in the letter above mentioned.

"If you are in company with men of learning, though they happen to discourse of arts and sciences, out of your compass, yet you will gather more advantage by listening to them, than from all the nonsense and frippery of your own sex; but if they be men of breeding as well as learning, they will seldom engage in any conversation where you. ought not to be a hearer, and in time have your part. If they talk of the laws, manners, and customs of several kingdoms of Europe, of travels into remoter nations, of the state of their own country, or of the great men of Greece or Rome; if they give their judgment upon English and French writers, either in

verse or prose, or of the nature and limits of virtue and vice, it is a shame for an English lady not to relish such discourses, nor to improve by them, and endeavour, by reading and information, to have her share in those entertainments, rather than turn aside, as it is the custom, to consult the woman who sits next her, about a hat, a bonnet, or a muslin."

Fall, if it be possible, into the train of some innocent and useful employment, to fill up all your leisure time, and prevent you from being troublesome to your families, and to society, when you grow old, by your cankered tempers, which are the infallible followers of idleness.

I am, Mr Editor, with regard, your constant reader and well-wisher,

SOPHIA.

I

SIR,

Female Education, continued.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BEE.

(June 29. 1791.)

AM the Sophia who troubled you some time ago with a summary of my history, under the title of a fortunate daughter of idleness, and some further thoughts on female education.

I have good reason to consider education, when properly conducted, as the panacea of the moral dispensary; and as it has in general

been miserably neglected in all ages and all countries with respect to my sex, I have little doubt of your female readers paying some attention to my method of educating my daughter Alathea, as it was undertaken in consequence of my own experience, set forth my remarks on the dissertation of the Art of Idleness, and may be particularly useful to those who are still in doubt ith respect to the propriety of treating us women as rational

in

creatures.

In the sixth year of my second marriage, I found myself possessed of three daughters, all of whom I had suckled myself, and I had no other children; so that I began to grow uneasy about the future fortunes of a great flock of misses, that my foreboding disposition led me to expect. I imparted my uneasiness to my dear Eugenius: we were walking out together in a lovely summer evening, and we stopped to look at some swallows teaching their little brood to fly, forcing them from the eves of a house where they nestled; the parents twittering and fluttering, and banging with their wings, and the little ones chirping and returning to the nest.

O my dear friend, said I, would that we were like swallows; but how do you think we shall ever be able to manage our children this way? I fear I shall never be able to teach my little hen swallows to catch flies and shift for themselves when they become too big for the nest.

My husband then casting upon me a look of inexpressible sense and benevolence, and gently squeezing my hand, said to me, My dearest Sophia, you have performed hitherto the part of the old hen so exactly according to nature, that you have only, to go on by her instructions, and all will be well; hereafter you will teach your young swallows to be independent, and to catch flies for themselves. Continuing our delightful walk, our conversation was fixed on the subject of female education. My dear Sophia, said Eugenius, it is difficult indeed for us to teach that which we ourselves have not been taught, either by experience or institution; but you have been taught by the first and the best, and disregarding the prejudices of society, you will form the minds of your daughters to virtue, industry, rational curiosity, respectable employment, to happiness and heaven. You know very well, that the foibles which we men ascribe to the sex, are not inherent, but artificial; they have sprung from the vicious nature of civil governments, from our jealousies, and from our carelessness to remove them; I might say, from our disposition to foster and increase them for our glory and your abasement. Women, it is said, from the relaxed and feeble nature of their constitution, are incapable of high mental attainments; they are cowardly, revengeful, obstinate, inquisitive, sensual, dissipated and idle; fond of dress and show, of change of place,