he, how I love my country; ENGLAND is the only spot in the world, in which this argument can be properly debated!—Very sly—Was it not?
I made nothing of Mr. Selby. I called him the tyrant of the family. And as little of Mr. Deane,

Lord L. and still less of my own Lord, who was as eager in the debate as if it concerned him more than any-body to resist me; and this before my brother; who by his eyes, more than once, seemed to challenge me, because of the sorry creature's earnestness. All those, however, were men of straw with me; and I thought myself very near making Mr. Selby ask pardon of his Dame for his thirty years usurpation. In short, I had half-established our Sex's superiority on the ruin of that of the sorry fellows, when the debate was closed, and referred to Mrs. Shirley, as moderatrix; my brother still excluded any share in it.—She indeed obliged me to lower my topsails a little.

'I think, said the venerable Lady, women are generally too much considered as a species apart. To be sure, in the duties and affairs of life, where they have different or opposite shares allotted them by Providence, they ought not to go out of their own sphere, or invade the mens province, any more than the men theirs. Nay, I am so much of this opinion, that tho' I think the confidence which some men place in their wives, in committing all their affairs to their care, very flattering to the opinion both of their integrity and capacity; yet I should not choose (and that not out of laziness to avoid the trouble) to interfere with the management without doors, which I think more properly the man's province, unless in some particular cases.


'But in common intercourse and conversation, why are we to be perpetually considering the Sex of the person we are talking to? Why must women always be addressed in an appropriated language; and not treated on the common footing of reasonable creatures? And why must they, from a false notion of modesty, be afraid of shewing themselves to be such,and affect a childish ignorance?


'I do not mean, that I would have women enter into learned disputes, for which they are rarely qualified:

But I think there is a degree of knowlege very compatible with their duties; therefore not unbecoming them, and necessary to make them fit companions for men of sense: A character in which they will