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a Wollaston, an Ivory, or a Babbage, to employ his time on such a work? This is the more to be desired, as the Commercium Epistolicum is become extremely

scarce.

XXXI.-4.

The present general Diffusion of Learning among
Ranks of Persons.

all

THE circumstance which most distinguishes the present era of British literature from all others, is the general diffusion both of useful and ornamental knowledge, among every rank of society, in a manner unknown to former times, and yet unknown to every other nation. With all the faults imputable to newspapers, and other periodical effusions of the press, how much useful information is conveyed by them, to every rank of society? The author of an excellent article in the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1819, shews, that in a given time, an Englishman reads about seventyfive times as much of the newspapers of his country, as a Frenchman does of his. What a spread of information! It may be said, that the reading might be more useful and edifying; but what an exercise of the mental powers! What an excitement to better reading, to further attainment.

XXXI.-5.

General Diffusion of Literature among the Ladies of Great Britain.

BUT while the dissemination of useful and ornamental knowledge, among persons of every rank in this

country, is thus generally mentioned, it would be wrong not to take particular notice of its extensive diffusion among the purest and gentlest portion of the community. "Women," says Fenélon, in his Treatise on Female Education, "were designed, by their native elegance and softness, to endear domestic life to man, to make virtue lovely to children, to spread around them order and grace, and to give to society its highest polish. No attainment can be above beings, whose end and aim is to accomplish purposes at once so elegant and so salutary: every means should be used to invigorate, by principle and culture, such native excellence and grace." How generally, and in what a high degree, these attainments are possessed by the daughters of Albion, all persons must have observed, to whom opportunities of observing it have been given, and who have availed themselves of them. Even in the learned languages, and the abstruse sciences, several are respectably informed; those to whom the best writers of their own country, and the best in the French and Italian languages, are familiar, are numerous few are so scantily instructed, as not to listen with pleasure and advantage to the conversation of men of learning and taste, or who do not view with taste, the productions of the painter or statuary? It is rare to find among them one, who does not express herself, both in conversation and upon paper, with correctness and grace. The Letters of the late Lady Hervey are deservedly admired. Are there not many English ladies capable of writing letters, which, if compared with her's, would not suffer on the comparison ? Their mild, retiring, and unpretending manners, add

to the charm of their accomplishments. Most Gallic élégantes have something of that spirit of exhibition, which we see displayed by the Corinne of Madame de Staël, nothing of this is discoverable in our countryWith all their accomplishments,

women.

"Hide me from day's garish eye,"

MILTON.

seems to be their almost universal wish. A Frenchman once triumphantly asked the Reminiscent, whether any English lady could have written the Considerations sur les principaux Evénemens de l'Europe of Madame de Staël, a work certainly of extraordinary merit. The writer believes there are many; but that there are none who would have written the pages of egotism, with which it abounds.* We must add, that Madame de Staël, the witty protégée of the Duchess de Maine, could have written better and more interesting considerations.

Pope says,

"Most women have no character at all,"

and intended to be satyrical: but this line, in one application of it, may be considered to express a very high degree of praise. Women are never so perfect as when they possess an assemblage of excellencies, each of them suited to the rest, but no one outshining the others, and thus making it her character. Such are the women by whom Shakspeare attracts the favour of the spectators; his Desdemona, Imogen, Mi

*If the "courts of Elizabeth and James the first," had then appeared, the Reminiscent would have said that Miss Aikin could have published better considerations.

randa, and Ophelia. Such too, is the Amelia of Fielding, the Rebecca of Sir Walter Scott. Each is the perfection of female excellence, each attracts love and reverence, each excites interest; in all there is an union of charms, but no one charm predominates; none shines with surpassing glory.

Whether ladies, even with the greatest disposition for literary acquirements, should study the learned languages, may be thought a question. The contrary, was once suggested by the Reminiscent to a lady of great mental ardour: she observed that, the inferiority of the female capacity for acquiring the dead languages should not be taken for granted:" I'll engage,' she said, "that if we were sent to Eton or Harrow, we should become as good classical scholars as boys.' "True,"—it was replied, "but you are not sent to Eton or Harrow: this makes the difference?" The fact is, that the structure of the Greek and Latin differs so much from that of modern languages; their grammars are so complex and obscure, their prosody so abstruse, and, for several years, the acquisition of it is, in a great measure, so much a mere act of memory, and without a perfect knowledge of it, the real beauty of the diction is so little felt, that any thing like a competent knowledge of them can scarcely be obtained, except at a public school, where the boys acquire it much more by hearing their school-fellows repeat over and over again their daily tasks, than by learning their own. Of this advantage young ladies are necessarily deprived.

It is observable, that, at a certain time of life, even gentlemen who are most ardent in literary pursuits,

relax in their zeal for the prosecution of them, if their studies be not directed to a particular object; and that, from the want of such an object, they generally fall into a course of desultory, listless reading, which leads to nothing. This was remarked by Mr. Burke to the Reminiscent; and he acknowledged that, in one period of his life, he himself, with all his literary enthusiasm, experienced something of this paralysis. To prevent it, would it not be advisable for ladies of cultivated minds, when they begin to feel its approach, to employ their minds on some literary or historical enquiry, which will fix their attention, and, while it confines, will animate their daily application?

The late lady Crewe desired the Reminiscent to furnish her with a course of study of modern history. He inserts his answer in the appendix.* In framing it, he took care to mention, with one exception only,no work, which is not in Hookham's well-stocked catalogue.

Another, and perhaps a better course, for female reading would be, to peruse Anquetil's Abridgement of Ancient and Modern History,' attending particularly to its geography, and minuting down its chronology— Or, if modern history only be the object, to peruse, but with particular attention, and with a proper map, always to view, the "" Tableau des Revolutions de l'Europe, par M. Koch," now in 4 Vols. 8vo.

Here the Reminiscent presumes to mention an obser

Note III.

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