 for rules of moral conduct. Yet its adoption would be a salutary check against excess in all our pursuits. If polite learning is undervalued by the mere man of science, it is perhaps over-rated by the mere man of letters. If it dignifies retirement, and exalts society, it is not the great business of life; it is not the prime fountain of moral excellence."

"Well, so much for man," said Sir John, "but, Charles, you have not told us what you had to say of woman, in your observations on society."

"As to woman," replied I, "I declare that I found more propensity to promote subjects of taste and elegant speculation among some of the superior class of females, than in many of my own sex. The more prudent, however, are restrained through fear of the illiberal sarcasms of men who, not contented to suppress their own faculties, ridicule all intellectual exertion in woman, though evidently arising from a modest desire of improvement, and not the vanity of hopeless rivalry."

"Charles is always the Paladin of the reading ladies," said Sir John. "I do not deny it," replied I, "if they bear their faculties meekly. But I confess that what is sneeringly called a learned lady, is to me far preferable to a scientific one, such as I encountered one evening, who talked of the fulcrum, and the lever, and the statera, which she took care to tell us was the Roman steel-yard, with all the sang-froid of philosophical conceit."

"Scientific men," said Sir John, "are in general admirable for their simplicity, but in a technical woman, I have seldom found a grain of taste or elegance."

"I own," replied I, "I should greatly prefer a fair companion who could modestly discriminate between the beauties of Virgil and Milton, to one who was always dabbling in chemistry, and who came to dinner with dirty hands from the laboratory. And yet I admire chemistry too; I am now only speaking of that knowledge which is desirable in a female companion; for knowledge I must have. But arts, which are of immense value in manufactures, won't make my wife's conversation entertaining to me. Discoveries which may greatly improve dyeing and bleaching, will add little to the delights of one's summer evening's walk, or winter fire-side."

The ladies, Lucilla especially, smiled at my warmth. I felt that there was approbation in her smile
