From this, madam, you may please to obferve, that jilting is no fuch new thing as fome people would make us believe, tho' methinks these poets are dangerous perfons to jilt, fince it is remembred againft their miftreffes, near two thousand years after. And in effect, what but ruin and defolation proceeds from them? Who was the betrayer of § Samfon, but Dalilah? Who was the caufe of the destruction of * Troy, but Helen? Of + Agamemnon's death, but Clytemnestra? Of Hercules's, but Deianira? Who advised the burning of Perfepolis, but Thais? Who ruin'd Hannibal's army, but the Capuan women? Who loft Mark Antony the world, but Cleopatra? Why fhould I burden' you with inftances, when every country can furnish examples enow of their own? What made fuch confufion in Juftinian's court, but Theodora ? What caufed the revolt in the low countries, but the government of the princess of Parma? Who made fuch dreadful difturbances in || Scotland, as their queen Mary? And who raifed the greateft perfecution for religion, that ever England faw, but our own queen of the fame name? But certainly, they must have fome very great perfections to make amends for all these faults: well then, let us fee what they are! Let us view thefe pleasant comfits that are to make the poison go down: let us enjoy a litle of that converfation, that is diverfitive Judges, Chap. 16. * Vide Homer. Velleius, Lib. 1. Eufeb. Chron. Soph. in Electra. Euripid, în Orefte. Ovid. Metam. Lib. 8. Livy, Lib. 3. Dec. 3. + Procop. Arec. Buchanan and Knox. Quint. Curt, Lib. 5. *Plutarch in Vit. Anton. Strada, Bentivoglio, Garnier, &c. enough enough to make people neglect all their danger. Sit in one of their drawing-rooms all day; obferve the discourse which paffes; is it not a tedious repetition of the fame impertinencies over and over again, to every new vifitant? And is 'not one half of that spent in cenfuring all the town, and the other half in railing at those who cenfure? Do they not inveigh against the lampooners, and at the fame time talk as fcandaloufly as they can write? The horrid affectation, the ridiculous vanity, the grofs diffimulation, and the inveterate malice' that appears in all their difcourfes, are things for which I should think all the paint on their faces could not make amends. For my own part, I confefs, I have been fool enough to be in love too, and have follow'd women upon that account, but to another fort of end, than you fay you do but when that end was once fatisfied, to talk with them afterwards, was as great a penance to me, as it would be to fit in a greafy cook's fhop when my belly was full. This Misogynes is a very rude fellow, and I am fure your ladyship will be of my opinion, that his last fimile was very fulfome. It is a fign he hates women; for had he converfed with them, they would have taught him better manners. But there are doubtless, you will fay, women of understanding pray where are they? Is it your prudent woman, your good housewife, who is plaguing all the world with her management, and inftructing every body how to feed geefe and capons? Or is it your politician, who is always full of bufinefs, who carries a fecretary of ftate's office in her head, and is making her deep obfervations upon every day's news? Or is it your learned woman, who runs mad for the love of hard words, who talks a mixt jargon, or Lingua Franca, and has spent a great deal of time to make her capable of talking non-fenfe in four or five feveral languages? K 3 What What think you, Sir, do you not wish for your vifitant again, as the more tolerable folly of the two? Do not you think learning and politics become a woman as ill as riding aftride? And had not the duke of § Britany reafon, who thought a woman knowing enough, when fhe could diftinguish between her husband's fhirt and his breeches ? Do not you, in answer to these, fetch me a Sapho out of Greece; a Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, out of Rome ; an Anna Maria Schurman out of Holland; and think that in fhewing three learned women in three thousand years, you have gained your point; and from fome few particular inftances, proved a general: conclufion if I fhould bring you half a dozen magpies that could talk, and as many horfes that could dance, you would not, I fuppofe for all that, choose out the one to converfe with, or the other to walk a corant. But would you fee them to their best advantage? Would you have their wit, courage, and conduct difplay'd? Take them upon the business of luft; that can make Sapho witty, Aloifia eloquent, a country-wife politic: that can humble + Meffalina's pride to walk the ftreets; that can make tender + Hippia endure the incommodities of a fea-voyage; can fupport the queen of Sheba in a journey to Solomon, and make || Thaleftris fearch out Alexander the great: in this particular, I must confefs, we ought to fubmit to them, and with fhame allow them the preference. I cannot reflect upon the ftories of § Semiramis's lying with all the handfomest men in her army, and putting them to death § Montagne's effays, book 1. chap. 24. Mad, Gournay L'Egalite des Deux Sexes. + Vide Juvenal. 6. Sat. Quint, Curt. Lib. 6. 1 Kings x. 2. 2 Chron, ix. Diod, Sicul. Cap. 2. afterwards; ر afterwards; of her offering her fon the laft favour of * Meffalina the emprefs's proftituting herself in the public ftews; and of queen + Joan of Naples providing a bath under her window, where fhe might fee all the luftieft young men naked, and take her choice out of them, without fuch an admiration as their heroic actions deferve. Sapho, as fhe was one of the wittieft women that ever the world bred, fo the thought with reafon it would be expected the fhould make fome additions to a science in which all womankind had been fo fuccefsful: what does he then? Not content with our fex, fhe begins amours with her own, and teaches us a new fort of fin, that was follow'd not only in | Lucian's time, but is practifed frequently in Turky at this day. You cannot but be fenfible, Sir, that there is no neceffity of going fo far for inftances of their lewd. nefs, and were it civil to quote the lampoons, or write the amours of our own time, we might be furnished with examples enough nearer home. Here, madam, I could not forbear telling my friend, that his difputant grew fcurrilous. He told me, confidering him as a woman-hater, he thought it was no more than his character required; and that if I compared his difcourfe with what others had faid against them, I should think him a very, well-bred man. After this to talk of their levity or babling, what were it but trifling? All the lovers and poets who had any thing to do with them, can furnish themselves with inftances enough of the firft; and any man who will * Juven. 6. Sat. This bath is now fhewn in the ruins of her palace, a little way out of the city of Naples. Lilius Giraldus, Dial. 9. de poetis. See his dialogue between Cleonarium and Leæna. See Tavernier's travels. give himself the trouble of reading any one hiftory, shall find inftances enough of the other, if his own wisdom has hindered him from making them at his own coft. *There being a fenate called in Rome, upon fome very extraordinary occafion, one of the fenators was defired by his wife to tell her what it was? He reply'd, he was obliged to fecrecy; fhe fwears it shall never be known to any one by her means? upon that promise he informs her, that there was a lark seen flying over the senate-house with a golden helmet on his head and a fpear in one of his claws, and that they had thereupon called the foothfayers together, to know what it portended. No fooner was the hufband gone, but the wife tells it too, under a vow of fecrecy to her maid; fhe to another who was her fellow-fervant, who told it to her lover; fo that, to be fhort, it ran fo faft, that as foon as the fenator came into the market-place, one took him afide, and told it him for a great fecret; away goes he, and tells his wife she had undone him, in divulging what he had trufted with her: fhe denies it, with a true feminine impudence: how could it come to be known then? fays he. Alas (reply'd fhe) are there not three hundred fenators, and might it not come from any of them as well as you? No, fays he, for I invented it on a fudden, to fatisfy your curiofity, and thus had I been ferv'd, if I had trufted you with the fecret. It is fuch another story they tell us of young Papirius to his mother, who asking him what had been debated that morning in the fenate, told her, they were making a law for men to have a plurality of wives. But it is fomewhat a more tragical relation Plutarch gives of Fulvius. Auguftus complained to him, that he was *Plutarch of garrulity. |