cause, and object of all great crimes in Europe, for fourteen centuries. "When persecution raised her iron crow, " And saw, with doting eye, her pow'r display'd; "Enjoyed the flying brains at every blow, "And blessed the knives and hooks with which he flay'd. "Grill'd, roasted, carbonaded, fricasseed “ Men, women, children, for the slightest things; "Burnt, strangled, glorying in the horrid deed; "Nay, starved and flogg'd God's 'great VICEGE66 RENTS, KINGS. "No scorn now frowneth from a Bishop's eye, "Save on the penury of ragged crape." There was a period, when the French who witnessed this scene let fall "Strange tears! that trickled down "From marble hearts! obdurate tenderness! "A tenderness that call'd them more severe; "In spite of nature's soft persuasion, steel'd; "While nature melted, superstition rav'd ; "That mourn'd the dead; and this deny'd a grave. "Their sighs incens'd; sighs foreign to the will! "Their will the tyger suck'd, outrag'd the storm. "For Oh! the curst ungodliness of zeal ! "While sinful flesh relented, spirit nurst "In blind infallibility's embrace, "The sainted spirit petrify'd the breast; "Deny'd the charity of dust, 'to spread "O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy. "What could I do? What succour? What resource? "With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ; "With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd; "Short in my duty; coward in my grief! "More like her murderer, than friend, I crept, "With soft, suspended step, and muffled deep "In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh. "I whisper'd what should echo thro' their realms ; "Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies. "Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes, "While nature's loudest dictates I obey'd?" Would a grave now be refused in France for the remains of any human being. No! not to a non-descript. The revolution, terrible as were some of its concomitant circumstances, will be beyond a doubt, productive of good. It cannot be that so much blood should be shed, without Providence designing some amelioration of human society by it. Religious bigotry, at least, will never again darken their minds, and steel their hearts against the rights of humanity; and it is to be hoped, the people of this country will have too much good sense to be seduced to non-descript superstition by H. More, however plausible her means, who has art to make "vice look so like "virtue." From the title, STRICTURES on FEMALE EDUCATION, one would expect not a censure only of the existing modes, but the suggestion, at least, of a better plan. The reigning system, she thinks, tends to weaken the principles of female virtue, by its encouragement of vanity, selfishness, and inconsideration; and that quality most important in an instructor of youth, she tells us (p. 69) is "Such a strong impression of the corruption of our "nature, as should insure a disposition to counteract it; * together with such a deep view and thorough knowledge of the human heart, as should be necessary for developing and controlling its most secret and complicated "workings." Here we see at once a scheme of mysticism, and a proof that Young and Harward would by her be considered as preferable tutors to any professor in the Universities. Now, whether man brings with him into the world a "corrupt nature " and evil dispositions," is a theological question of little use to be inculcated in our earliest years. There are innumerable other subjects to be attended to before the mind is capable of reasoning on so abstruse, sytematic, and scholastic a question as the fall of man or woman. That is but one question; and if our learning is to be confined to it only, we shall be non-descripts indeed. I believe no man or woman, but H. More, on sending for a writing master, would think the following the only question necessary to be asked, instead of a specimen of his writing and his terms, "Dost "thou believe the fall of man?" Or of a music or fencing master; " Dost thou believe in original "sin?" These are not the questions any person of common sense would ask a tutor for his son, or governess for his daughter. Languages must be learned, and the circle of the sciences described and perambulated, accompanied with religious instruction before any one particular system be adopted. These are the means to prepare him for the recovery from his fall, if he has fallen,* or to become * See Milton on Education, and an ingenious sermon by the Rev. Dr. Whitfield. excellent and good, if he shall be considered as a "creáture of education." I fear H. More's plan, if she has formed any idea of a scheme of educa tion, is too much calculated to superinduce, by puritanical zeal, a spiritual gloom, with an age of darkness. The "Phrenzy of Accomplishments" is next attacked and ridiculed. She reprobates the practice of ladies learning French and other languages, unless they were sure, before they began, they should become perfectly skilled in them; and describes the awkwardness of half-gentlewomen, curates, tradesmen, and farmers daughters, who have lost their time at a boarding school, when they ought to be otherwise employed. Whether this knowledge has been attained from what passed at her own and sisters school, I know not; but Mrs. Robinson, for one, certainly improved in dramatic science, for how could she fail under so skilful a mistress as H. More. If no man is to make a beginning, without a certainty of great progress, learning must soon be banished from the world, and every other laudable work be unattempted. "The epidemical "mania" of Sunday schools, therefore, should be cured, because, as Dr. Johnson said of the Scotch nation," every one has a smattering, but none a belly full." Mediocrity, one talent or two, is, according to her opinion, worse than nothing.— Pope's advice respecting poetical composition, "Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring," certainly applies to herself, whose poetry does scarcely rise to mediocrity: but all ought to attempt at learning, because a little is useful and needful, and a few among the many may distinguish themselves, and be useful to mankind. I would have all men and women taught to read and write, and every thing else they can reach at. It is thus they know themselves, and their duty to God and man. The world has been too much kept in darkness; and as we are blessed with that glorious art printing, let it be the vehicle of knowledge and happiness to the whole world. "Vanity, selfishness, inconsideraton," and affectation, will certainly now and then shew themselves, and render the vain and affected ridiculous. But learning is not to be despised, because a H. More, and such, now and then pretend to write on "female education," Her observation, "I do not scruple to assert, that in general, as far as my "little observation has extended, this class of females, in "what relates both to religious knowledge and to practical industry, falls short both of the very high and the very "low." The lady's observation is not only " little," but ignorant, and she was foolish in making it; for can all attain at, has she reached excellence? "If all "were head, where were the body and the feet?" There will always be wise and foolish virgins. In this observation, H. is not among the wise ones. "Hence the abundant multiplication of superficial wives, "and of incompetent and illiterate governesses." Hear this, ye wives and ye governesses! How comes it that Mrs. More and her four sisters are |