It is a common rule, and liable to very few mistakes, to guess at people's Genius
by their company. To know then the capacity of the fair sex, let us but survey
their favourite companions. Eye them, and you will find them the very dregs of
our sex; fops whose whole merit is made up of dress and drivel, show and
emptiness; mere Jack-daws and parrots; nay, rather gawdy, screech-owls made
fine with plundered plumes.
Laced-waistcoats, smart toupees, light heels, and lighter heads, are all they
have to recommend them to the Ladies.
Yet they are sure to please, because eminently qualified to discuss the
weightiest arguments on country-dances, to decide the fate of fashions, square
the round of a woman's petticoat, and take the latitude of a nightcap from the
equinox of her noddle, or the longitude of two lappets by the meridian of her
whims.
Not that I the least blame the lovely female triflers who are pleased with them.
'Tis but natural for birds of a feather to associate; and since likeness ever
begets liking, why should they not be fondest of those men whose follies are
nearest their own?
But then I would not have them boast of an equality of sense with those men,
whose understanding is all they have to find fault with. It will be to little purpose
for Sophia to quote me the illustrious names of many of the greatest wits of all
ages who have admired, and been admired by, the women.
Has not the success they have met with been more owing to their being
men, than to their having sense? Anacreon, the polite, the witty Anacreon, with
all his fine parts reaped nothing from his pursuit of those unsettled things but
the contempt of his agedness.
And Theocritus himself makes no secret of the little encouragement he met with.
The lesser poets indeed, as well as Ovid and Horace, received some marks of
their favour; but what were these mighty favours if you will believe their own
boasts, but the sharing the lewdness of their mistresses with half the town. If I
leave the classics it will be an endless toil to enumerate the many instances that
that thought-abhoring sex have, at all times and on all occasions, furnished, of
the preference they give to fools before men of parts.
But where is the necessity of recurring to other times and countries for what our
own can produce? Of all our fine Ladies industrious in adorning the brows of
their husbands, where is there one who does it with a man of true wit? Of all our
pretty widows ruined by second adventures, where is there one who does it with
a man of any merit? Search but the registers of the fleet, and you shall find
numbers of our fairest, brightest heiresses charmed away from their guardians
by lacqueys, valet-de-chambres, and powdered, empty coxcombs; but scarce
one single match with a really rational creature.
In short, who are the persons who can boast of the favours of all our finest
women,
but wretches too low for the jest of our sex, and too much like theirs to differ
from them in any thing but one single circumstance.
Let the amorous billets they scribble be produced; and for every one that is
directed to a man of sense, I'll allow them a grain of understanding more than
they are entitled to.
But surely they are not all void of understanding. No; but to fathom the depth
of their understandings, remark only the objects which employ them.
Frequent their drawing-rooms, and listen to their conversation: what is it filled up
with but annoying repetitions of stale impertinencies to every new visitor?
One part of the week, the day is wasted in visiting and contriving visits to
persons they hope not to find at home, and the night in receiving visits from
persons they
would rather be almost blind than have the sight of:
The other part, their mornings, are laid out in interrupting some tradesmen
whom they know to be busy, and lulling their own time as well as murdering his in
rummaging his shop for goods they neither want nor purpose to buy; and their
evenings are eked out with tea, slander, operas, and quadrille, when the
intrigues on their hands are not interfered with.
In a word upon examining them thoroughly, it must be owned that not all the
bloom on their cheeks, nor the washes they owe it to, can make any tolerable
amends, in the esteem of a wise man, for the folly, vanity, affectation, malice,
deceit and impertinence which appear in all they say, and inspire all they do.
And yet it must be granted, there are women, who employ their understandings
on higher objects; who can try to reason; and almost succeed in it. Nay there
are some can write, can even spell; and, what is more, can turn a sophistry to
look not altogether unlike an argument.
And therefore it would be quite ungenerous not to allow a brilliancy of wit
(however false) in some of them.
Especially since my pretty smooth antagonist has given so late proof of it in
herself. And yet even she Had she been blessed with only half her sense,
None could admire too much her excellence.
But since she can make error shine so bright,
She thinks it vulgar to defend the right.
With understanding she is quite o'er-run;
And by too great accomplishments undone.
With skill she vibrates her unwearied tongue,
For ever most divinely in the Wrong
Young.
So dangerous is a little understanding to that tender sex! How happy is it for
them, that learning but seldom molests them! What strange distraction would it
not create in their poor tender heads! Is not Sophia's self a living demonstration
that to them A little learning is a dangerous thing?
And they, alas, poor pretty creatures, have neither breath nor brains to drink of
knowledge deeply.
Good sense and tea they are forced to sip alike; their heads and stomachs of
equal delicacy can best digest the shallowest draughts of all but mum and
mischief.
Let thus much then suffice to show Sophia how little room she has to complain of
want of learning in her sex; and how much less, for any parallel between her sex
and ours in point of understanding; when her own essay plainly proves how
short the brightest of them fall of man's superior wisdom. Is there nothing less
will serve the women's turn than having an equal share with us in Government
and public offices?
Let us then weigh their best pretentions to so extraordinary a privilege.
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