Judith Drake

“ When his Eyes are set to a languishing Air, his Motions all prepar’d according to Art, his Wig and his Coat abundantly Powder’d, his Gloves Essenc’d, and his Handkercher perfum’d, and all the rest of his Bravery rightly adjusted, the greatest part of the day, as well the business of it at home, is over; ’tis time to launch, and down he comes, scented like a Perfumers Shop, and looks like a Vessel with all her rigging under sail without Ballast. A Chair is brought within the door, for he apprehends every Breath of Air as much, as if it were a Hurricane. ”

“ These are the serious and applauded Follies of Mankind, and shew the Weakness and Levity of those we call the greatest, and wisest Men, that sacrifice the Ease and Pleasure of their lives to Popular Ereath, and sounding Titles, which is like bartring a small Diamond for a large Glass Bubble. ”

“ This Accomplishment is best, if not only to be acquir’d by conversing with us; for besides the natural Deference, which the Males of every observable Species of the creation pay to their Females, and the Reasons before given for Complacence, which all hold good here, there is a tender Softness in the Frame of our Minds, as well as in the Constitution of our Bodies, which inspire Men, a Sex more rugged, with the like Sentiments, and Affections, and infuses gently and insensibly a Care to oblige, and a Concern not to offend us. Invention, improv’d by our Society. ”

“ For my part I think the Learned, and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for ’tis all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligable Sense, I am diverted and edified alike by either; the one enjoys himself less, but suffers his Friends to do it more; the other enjoys himself and his own Humour enough, but will let no body else do it in his Company. ”

“ They leave all further enquiry to the Unlearned and Mechanicks, whose business only they think it to prosecute matters of Gain and Profit. Let him contrive, if he can, to make this Silk serviceable to Mankind; their Speculations have another Scope, which is the founding some wild, uncertain, conjectural Hypothesis, which may be true or false; yet Mankind neither Gainers nor Losers either way a little in point of Wisdom or Convenience. These Men are just the reverse of a Rattle Snake, and carry in their Heads, what he does in his Tail, and move Laughter rather than Regard. ”

“ And even in France, a Country that treats our Sex with more Respect than most do, We are by the Salique Law excluded from Soveraign Power. The French are an ingenious People, and the Contrivers of that Law knew well enough, that We were no less capable of Reigning, and Governing well, than themselves; but they were suspicious, that if the Regal Power shou’d fall often into the hands of Women, they would favour their own Sex, and might in time restore ’em to their Primitive Liberty and Equality with the Men, and so break the neck of that unreasonable Authority they so much affect over us ”

“ This, Madam, is another sort of Impertinence our Sex are not liable to; one wou’d think that none but Mad Men, or highly Hypochondriacal, cou’d employ themselves at this rate. I appeal to you, or indeed to any Man of Sense, whether acts like the wiser Animal; the man that with great care, and pains distinguishes and divides the many Varieties of Grass, and finds no other Fruit of his labour, than the charging of his Memory with abundance of superfluous Names; or the Ass that eats all promiscuously, and without distinction, to satisfy his Appetite and support Nature. ”

“ This humour springs from an over fondness of our selves, and a mistaken conceit that anothers loss is an addition to our own Reputation, as if like two Buckets, one must necessarily rise as the other goes down. ”

“ Nor is Complacence the only thing these Men want, they want likewise the Gallantry of those Men that frequent our Company. This Quality is the heigth and perfection of Civility, without which it is either Languishing, or Formal, and with which it appears always with an engaging Air of Kindness, and Good Will. It sets a value upon the most inconsiderable Trifles, and turns every Civility into an Obligation. ”

“ Yet I am afraid, that upon enquiry our Sex will not be found to have so much of it as is requisite, at least not generally; Our sedentary Life, and the narrow Limits to which our Acquaintance, and Business are Circumscrib’d, afford us so little Variety, so regular a Face of things, that we want the means of obtaining the Master of so useful an Art, which no question but we shou’d as soon acquire as Men, had we but equal Opportunities. Hence it is that Women are more apt to show their Resentments upon all Provocations than Men ”

“ Nor can I imagine for what good Reason a Man skill’d in Latin, and Greek, and vers’d in the Authors of Ancient Times shall be call’d Learned; yet another who perfectly understands Italian, French, Spanish, High Dutch, and the rest of the European Languages, is acquainted with the Modern History of all those Countries, knows their Policies, has div’d into all the Intrigues of the several Courts, and can tell their mutual Dispositions, Obligations, and Ties of Interest one to another, shall after all this be thought Unlearned for want of those two Languages. ”

“ Thus, when they hear us talking to, and advising one another about the Order, Distribution and Contrivance of Houshold Affairs, about the Regulation of the Family, and Government of Children and Servants, the provident management of a Kitchin, and the decent ordering of a Table, the suitable Matching, and convenient disposition of Furniture and the like, they presently condemn us for impertinence. Yet they may be pleased to consider, that as the affairs of the World are now divided betwixt us, the Domestick are our share, and out of which we are rarely suffer’d to interpose our Sense. ”

“ Our Sex seldom arrive to this Pitch of Envy, our Ambition is more bounded, and our Desires sooner satisfied. Hence it is that we are les troubl’d at the Prosperity of others; for not giving our selves the Liberty of aiming at things far out of our Power, they are the sooner compass’d, and we the sooner at Ease. He, that thinks himself Happy, is incapable of Envying another’s Felicity, since he sees him possess’d of nothing which either he has not or despises not. ”

“ Thus I have endeavour’d to vindicate our Sex, from the unjust Imputations with which some unreasonable, malicious Men wou’d load us: For I am willing to think the greater, or at least the better Part of their Sex, more generous than to encourage their Scandal. ”

“ Yet I hope I have troubled you with nothing but what was necessary to make my way clear, and plain before me; and I am apt to think I have made it appear, that nothing but disencouragement or an Idle Uncurious Humour can hinder us from Rivalling most Men in the knowledge of great Variety of things, without the help of more Tongues than our Own; which the Men so often reproachfully tell us is enough. This Idleness is but too frequently to be found among us, but ’tis a Fault equally common to both Sexes. ”

“ The Question I shall at present handle is, whether the time an ingenious Gentleman spends in the Company of Women, may justly be said to be misemploy’d, or not. I put the question in general terms; because whoever holds the affirmative must maintain it so, or the Sex is no way concern’d to oppose him. On the other side I shall not maintain the Negative, but with some Restrictions and Limitations; because I will not be bound to justifie those Women, whose Vices and ill Conduct expose them deservedly to the Censure of the other Sex, as well as of their own. ”

“ These are the most considerable Imperfections, or at least those which with most Colour of Reason are charg’d upon us, as general Defects; and I hope, Madam, I have fairly shown, that the other Sex are both by Interest and Inclination more expos’d, and more Subject to ’em, than we. Pride, Lust, Cruelty, and many more, are by the Declaimers against us thrown into the Scale to make weight and bear us down, but with such manifest Injustice, that without giving my self any further trouble, I dare appeal to any reasonable Man, and leave him to decide the Difference. ”

“ The Italians, a People as delicate in their Conversation as any in the World, have a Maxim, That our selves, our Neighbours, Religion, or Business, ought never to be the Subject. There are very substantial Reasons to be given for these Restrictions, for Men are very apt to be vain, and impertinent, when they talk of themselves, besides that others are very jealous, and apt to suspect, that all the good things said, are intended as so many arguments of preference to them. ”

“ But there are other Quallifications, which are as indispensably necessary to a Gentleman, or any Man that wou’d appear to Advantage in the World, which are attainable only by Company, and Conversation, and chiefly by ours. Nor can the greatest part of Mankind, of what Quallity soever, boast much of the use they make, or the benefit they reap from these acknowledg’d Advantages. So that Schollars only, and some few of the more thinking Gentlemen, and Men of Business, have any just claim to ’em. ”

“ Almost all Men that have had a liberal, and good Education know, what is due to Good Manners, and civil Company. But till they have been us’d a little to Our Society, their Modesty sits like Constraint upon ’em, and looks like a forc’d Compliance to uneasie Rules, and Forms of Civility. Conversing frequently with us makes ’em familiar to Men, and when they are convinc’d, as well of the Easiness, as the Necessity of ’em, they are soon reconcil’d to the Practice. ”

“ Impertinence is a humour of busying our selves about things trivial, and of no Moment in themselves, or unseasonably in things of no concern to us, or wherein we are able to do nothing to any Purpose. ”

“ They tax us with a long List of Faults, and Imperfections, and seem to have taken a Catalogue of their own Follies and Vices, not with design to correct them, but to shift of the Imputation to us. There is no doubt, but particular Women may be found upon whom every charge may be justified; but our Sex is not answerable for them, till they prove there are no such Men, which will not be before Dooms-day. However, like ill Neighbours they bring the Dirt out of their own Homes not out of neatness, but out of Envy to their Neighbours, at whose Doors they lay it. ”

“ Dissimulation is nothing but the hiding or disguising our secret thoughts, or Inclinations under another appearance. I shall not endeavour to absolve our Sex wholly from all use of this Quality, or Art (call it which you please) because I think it may upon many ocsieaons be used with Innocence enough, and upon some can’t without great Imprudence be omitted. The World is too full of Craft, Malice, and Violence, for absolute Simplicity to live in it. ”

“ They look upon us as Things design’d and contriv’d only for their Pleasure, and therefore use us tenderly, as Children do their Favourite Bawbles. They talk gayly, and pleasantly to us, they do, or say nothing that may give us any Disgust, or Chagrin, they put on their chearfullest Looks, and their best Humour, that they may excite the like in us: They never oppose us but with a great deal of Ceremony, or in Raillery, not out of a Spirit of Opposition, (as they frequently do one another) but to maintain a pleasant Argument, or heigthen by variety of Opinions an agreable Entertainment. ”

“ Thus you shall have ’em allow a Man to be a wise Man, a good Naturalist, a good Mathematician, Politician, or Poet, but not a Scholar, a learned Man, that is no Philologer. For my part I think these Gentlemen have just inverted the use of the Term, and given that to the knowledge of words, which belongs more properly to Things. I take Nature to be the great Book of Universal Learning, which he that reads best in all, or any of its Parts, is the greatest Scholar, the most learned Man ”

“ As the World grew more Populous, and Mens Necessities whetted their Inventions, so it increas’d their Jealousie, and sharpen’d their Tyranny over us, till by degrees, it came to that height of Severity, I may say Cruelty, it is now at in all the Eastern parts of the World, where the Women, like our Negroes in our Western Plantations, are born slaves, and live Prisoners all their Lives. ”

“ Yet because they have learnt Latin and Greek, reject with Scorn all English Books their best helps, and lay aside their Latin ones, as if they were already Masters of all that Learning, and so hoist Sail for the wide World without a Compass to Steer by. Thus I have fairly stated the difference between us, and can find no such disparity in Nature or Education as they contend for; but we have a sort of ungenerous Adversaries, that deal more in Scandal than Argument, and when they can’t hurt us with their Weapons, endeavour to annoy us with stink Pots. ”

“ He is a Passionate Admirer of his own Works without a Rival, and superciliously contemns all Answers, yet the least Objection throws him into the Vapours. He sets up for a grand Philosopher, and palms Hypotheses upon the World, which future Ages may (if they please) expect to hear his Arguments for; at present he is in no humour to give ’em any other satisfaction than his own word, that he is infallible. Yet those that have a Faith complacent enough to take a Gentleman’s word for his own great Abilities, may perhaps be admitted to a sight of his grand Demonstration, his Raree Show ”

“ Love, why so soon cold.
This is indeed the true Reason, why Love, which is generally so hot at first, cools commonly so suddenly; because being generally the Issue of Fancy, not Judgment, it is grounded upon an over great Opinion of those Perfections, which first strike us, and which fall in our Esteem upon more mature Examination. ”