popery? We had them in usum Sarum, &c. &c. The exercises of that sort, sometimes pre-conceived, and by long and constant practices generally extemporaneous, performed by a Doctor Robertson, a Blair, a Campbell, a Leechman, a Dalrymple, a Doddridge, a Lardner, a Kippis, a Rees, and a Hunter, all of them an honour to their country, and ornaments to their profession, being elegant, pure, and pious, can be an object of derision only to the ignorant or the impious. That man, or minister, who cannot pray without book, is not only ignorant of his profession, be he in or out of the church, but of genuine religion. I conceive every man prays several times a day; and I imagine he will not wait till a book is brought. There is not an hour of the day passes but I put up some prayer. "Sursum corda!" When I open my eyes, it is my heaven to pray; when I dress, eat, drink, stand, or sit, I put up some petition, or return thanks for some mercy; and I always fall asleep perhaps in the middle of some secret prayer. And I confess, I am far from thinking myself one of the best christians, or without many faults and infirmities, and this poor Lady Mac Sarcasm very well knows, and often reminds me of it. But it is when I walk or ride out alone, or climb some fair hill, and prospects delightful as Elysian arise to my view, that I enjoy the raptures of the blessed: I am all praise and adoration, and I seem to long for the day when I shall call the treasures of eternity my own, form a juster idea of the universe and the attributes of God,

and revel in the plenitude of bliss. Sometimes viewing his works, lost in wonder, I say with the poet,

"Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise."

Now my reader may call me an enthusiast if he likes; but I deny it; I read the liturgy according to authority; but there is no oath of conformity that does, or can, or shall forbid me this secret converse with my God.

Now to this right I think every man is entitled, and this I think the wise and the humblest may and ought to practise individually. But if a member of the church will publicly pray to a congregation by extemporaneous, or rather without any forms, I think such a person ought to secede, take a license, and, as a dissenter, be protected by law. I do not approve of ignorant persons praying to a congregation without a form committed to memory. When this is the case, there is danger of enthusiasm and extravagance. It was H. More's fault, while she declared herself of the church, to encourage these practices in an injudicious manner. King Charles the martyr, in Eikon Basilikon, ascribed to him, allowed of private devotion in the manner I have described, but was a steady friend to the liturgy in public, for which he died a martyr under the axe of the ancient non-descripts, whose system Mrs. Hannah is most indefatigably resuscitating.

VOL. VIII.

THE 8th vol. contains observations to ladies on the management of their household, and on practical affairs. Arithmetic is recommended, as necessary to œconomy, and her opinion is enforced by the authority of Dr. Johnson, who said that 66 woman cannot have too much arithmetic." Young ladies are warned against becoming authors, until they have read much and studied long; as thereby, instead of coming forward too soon, vainly boasting of their early genius, their works will prove less defective, and they themselves more humble and diffident! Study is more earnestly recommended, because the more learned the woman, the more nearly will they approximate an equality with the men. Smatterers, therefore, have no pretensions to this rank; it is "higher "minds" (such as herself!) who are worthy of co-operation and competition with the male sex.

Mrs. More draws a parallel between the woman of personal beauty, and the woman who possesses beauties of the mind. The beautiful woman exerts herself to be a beauty, a queen, for life; whilst the female of wit and learning, combats patriotically for the whole sex, destroying all distinction, and abrogating every Salique law, which renders man superior to and head of the woman; and enthroning women, every where making them queens, to govern the men.

"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