rated in our rudest and most ignorant periods; it was the originating source, it has been the cradle, it is the highest aspiring of our politeness, and from' this is derived whatever is peculiar in the manners of the masculine sex.

It is certain that woman had little estimation in antient times, unless as subservient to a purpose which it becomes me not to name before this assembly; or, as necessary to posterity; or, as the superior œconomists of domestic supply and order. They were passed as a property from the parent to the husband; they were not introduced on the public stage of life; they were even secreted from the open face of day; they were not admitted to the councils of man, to an equal participation of the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of the lordly male. This, whether it were to the honour or reproach, whether it were the blessing or misfortune, of antient days, was assuredly the character of antient nations, though with some difference of degree; it was that of the Asia

tics, of the Greeks and Romans, and continues at this day to be the unvaried character of the eastern world. To the rough inhabitants of northern Europe, barbarians, as history affects to call them, but who were our progenitors, the female sex are primarily indebted for their vindication to the equal dignity and privileges of human nature. To this singular character of these northern nations, long unknown to the rest of the world, Cæsar and Tacitus have borne testimony, while they were confined to their native land. The romantic gallantry of the days of chivalry, and the romanzas of the succeeding period, in which it is difficult to decide whether superstition, heroic courage, or idolatry of the sex, be the predominant feature, and the gradual passing of the old romance into the modern novel, all demonstrate that this character has never been parted with, but been mellowed into the more rational and tempered gallantry of the present day, such as we their posterity, the inhabitants of modern Europe, unreluctantly

bow

bow to. If man have imposed chains upon himself, he feels not the weight of them: he is happier in the participation of power and influence with the female, than when he held her under his absolute dominion, when she was the slave of his will, or the passive instrument of his selfish pleasures.

This generous sympathy of our northern progenitors with the partners whom nature and God designed for them, happily coincided with the equal and liberal spirit of Christianity; and to these two powerful agents, which were nearly cotemporary, we owe that wonderful revolution of social and moral sentiment, which constitutes the distinction of later Europe. Woman has now been permitted to resume her proper rank in society, and to her we are greatly indebted for the present polish of ruder man; for that ease, propriety, grace, attention, and desire to please in the manner of every intercourse, which offends the cynic eye of Rousseau. To ev ry thing that is human some accusation may be brought, whether

in consequence of defect, excess, or association, and therefore it is not wonderful if politeness committed to the management of men should be subjected to censure; but be her errors and excesses what they will,

Look on her face, and you'll forgive them all!

To her this generous acknowledgement is due, that she smooths the asperities of life, veils the deformities of selfish vice, and gives to ingenuous virtue and goodness its highest lustre.

I do not mean however in this part of my essay to be the advocate of politeness, but to prove that learning is perfectly innocent of its birth, in modern as well as antient times, and, let its present character be what it will, to fix the filiation upon its proper parents. If it be true that the politeness of modern Europe derives itself from the restoration of woman to her proper rank in society, and that woman is the legislator of politeness, there is a circumstance in the character of woman, which demonstratively

proves the folly of Rousseau in ascribing to learning either the blessings or the curses of politeness. In no day, not even in the present day, has woman been eminently distinguished for learning; and therefore the empire of politeness, sovereign as Rousseau supposes it to be, neither derives itself from, nor is maintained by, learning.

I return to the direct subject of the essay. Having rescued learning from the imputation of politeness; I wish also to rescue politeness from the more odious charge of insincerity and dissimulation, as if they were her necessary and appropriate character. Dissimulation and artifice may and often do assume the attractive form of politeness, but they are not her natural offspring; they have their origin in those interested passions, which are common to man in every age and nation, and which pure and spotless innocence, if it have ever existed on this earth, is alone exempt from. The savage, the rustic and illiterate know to deceive under a fair exterior, whenever a selfish end awakes the desire, and deceive as artfully and

as