"I'll prove, ye fair, that, let us have our swing, "We can, as well as men, do

any thing;

Nay better too, perhaps for now and then,

These times produce some bungling among men. "The men, who grant not much, allow us charms"Are eyes, shapes, dimples, then, our only arms? "In spite of lordly wits-with force and ease, "Can't we write plays, damn Curates when we please!” Our author, however, professes herself to be pleased with her allotted station, and to be ambitious only to fill her "appropriated niche;" to be the "best thing of her own kind," rather than an inferior of an higher order; and to be an excellent woman, rather than an indifferent man.She wishes women to disclaim that something more than nature bestows, and books can teach,

Viz. "that consummate knowledge of the world, to "which a delicate woman has no fair avenues, and which, "even if she could attain, she would never be supposed to "come honestly by."

In summing the evidence of the comparison of the sexes, she ventures to assert, that “ women "have equal parts with the men, but that they "are inferior as to mind!" She continues, puritanically and democratically, to comfort herself that whatever difference nature may have made in the rank of the sexes, that "at least in Christ Jesus they are equal, in whom is no rich nor poor, bond nor free,' male nor female!"

Whatever she has read, and she must be allowed to have read many books, she, by a reference to the authors, endeavours to bring forwards, not as quotations, but as if furnished by

her own mind, and sometimes her memory, making a literary and pedantic parade. In conversation she does not wish the ladies to "take the "lead in metaphysical disquisitions, theological polemics,

"And find no end in wand'ring mazes lost?

"In the Bangorian controversy, the seven propositions between the Jesuits and Jansenists, "to occupy the professor's chair," to "criticize by Quintilian's rules, or to regulate a dramatic piece by Aristotle's clock," to be

"Diseurs de bons mots, fades caracteres."

But she takes care that her reader or hearer shall not escape without being told that she herself, if not equal to man, is at least a virago, “ the "best thing of her own kind," by mentioning the words metaphysical disquisitions, Bangorian controversy (it is a pity the Blagdon controversy had not then existed) Jesuits and Jansenists, Quintilian's scales, Aristotle's clock!

The innumerable instances of inconsistency which an attentive and consistent reader will meet with in perusing Mrs. More's works, are the most convincing proof that the lady wrote, not because she could, but because the Cacoethes Scribendi was " upon her;" like the non-descript in his prayer, who begins a sentence, and trusts to Providence for the period, she proceeds without method or object, but writes a paragraph and wanders, nobody, no not even herself, knows where, for materials for the next. I follow her pages, I have no other thread; and wherever she

has culled a few flowers, I smell to them as I go along, being desirous of bringing her boneless pages, for the benefit of my reader, into the most compressed state; and to find wheat where there is so much chaff, is not easy.

I have frequently heard it observed, that it is ill-bred to discuss theological doctrines in company, and as often, that the introduction of politics ought to be avoided. Our author says:

"As in the momentous times in which we live it is next "to impossible to pass an evening in company but the talk "will so inevitably revert to politics, that, without any pre"meditated design, every one present shall infallibly be able "to find out to which side the other inclines; why, in the "far higher concern of eternal things, should we so carefully shun every offered opportunity of bearing even a "casual testimony to the part we espouse in religion? Why, while we make it a sort of point of conscience to "leave no doubt on. the mind of a stranger, whether we "adopt the party of Pitt or Fox, shall we chuse to leave it.

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very problematical whether we belong to God or Baal? "Why, in religion, as well as in politics, should we not act "like people who, having their all at stake, cannot forbear' "now and then adverting for a moment to the object of "their grand concern, and dropping, at least, an incidental " intimation of the side to which they belong?"

My reader is no doubt well aware, and perhaps from experience, how hopeless an attempt it is to endeavour by argument, in company, to convert a person we casually meet with to our own opinions. Men's minds are rather heated than open to conviction in such short disputes. We may get enemies, but seldom gain friends by such conduct. Matter by this proposal, however,

is furnished for two or three paragraphs, and that was something for a book maker. If it be true, for example, that she had proof of the Curate of Blagdon's preaching, or arguing against the trinitarian doctrine, or the creed, by misnomer called Athanasian, for it is yet uncertain who the author is, the Saint of that name having had nothing to do in it, how comes it that she, if he were wrong, did not bring him over to her way of thinking; for she had three arguments in her favour, the politeness of men to the women, the right to the last word, and a pair of swift rolling black eyes, which is certainly something in a debate? Or, on the other hand, how happens it that he did not convert the lady to the church? Just because few conversions of that hasty, sudden nature take place, and that men, on these occasions, argue rather for victory, than conviction and mutual edification. With such tempers, and particularly such a spirit as hers, for what purpose dispute about religion?

At her own house, I am informed, one of her sisters, when there are strangers, takes care to introduce a conversation on religion, and when the sentiments of the visitants are collected, one of the five generally withdraws, and notes them in a book kept for the purpose; and if they happen to differ from their views, particular care is taken to propagate that such a person is a Unitarian, such a person a Socinian, one an Arian, another not orthodox, and this frequently with a deliberate purpose to injure their characters. Whether the

Curate of Blagdon had ever dropped any expression that may be tortured into heterodoxy, I have not learned; but as she brought the charge, and being called on to substantiate it, there can be no doubt of its being a false and deliberately malicious charge. It is an indelible stain on her veracity.

As I am at liberty, if I think it proper, to give the name of my informant, vouching for this fact in his own person, whose veracity is unquestionable, let me from p. 56, vol. 8, transcribe a few lines, that the public may know this woman, who has passed herself so long as a candidate for

canonization.

"People avoid conversation on religion as exposing them"selves to the danger of playing with edged tools. They "conceive of religion as something which involves contro

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versy, and dispute; something either melancholy or mis. "chievous; something of an inflammatory nature, which "is to stir up ill humours and hatred; they consider it as "a question which has two sides; as of a sort of party"business which sets friends at variance. So much is this "notion adopted, that I have seen announced two works of "considerable merit, in which it was stipulated as an at"traction, that the subject of religion, as being likely to "excite anger and party-distinctions, should be carefully "excluded. Such is the worldly idea of the spirit of that religion, whose direct object it was to bring peace and good will to men !"

This is H. More.-If Mrs. More could not listen to the quotation of a text of scripture, without unjustly, illogically, as well as uncharitably, deducing the false conclusion of heterodoxy, and