s laid up for want of
employment.

I remained two hours perched upon the top of the mountain. I should not
have staid so long, perhaps, had they not brought me a basket of
cherries, so that I could gratify more senses than one. I felt
becomingly classical whilst sitting on the precise birth-place of
Jupiter, attended by Pomona, with Troy at my feet, and Mount Olympus in
the distance; but I was obliged to descend to lumber and gin-slings, and
I set off for Albany, where I had an engagement, having been invited to
attend at the examination of the young ladies at the seminary.

Here again is a rivalry between Albany and Troy, each of them glorying
in possessing the largest seminary for the education of young ladies,
who are sent from every State of the Union, to be finished off at one or
the other of them. Here, and indeed in many other establishments, the
young ladies now quitting it have diplomas given, to them, if they pass
their examinations satisfactorily. They are educated upon a system
which would satisfy even Miss Martineau, and prepared to exercise the
rights of which she complains that women have been so unjustly deprived.
Conceive three hundred modern Portias, who regularly take their
degrees, and emerge from the portico of the seminary full of algebra,
equality, and the theory of the constitution! The quantity and variety
crammed into them is beyond all calculation. The examination takes
place yearly, to prove to the parents that the preceptors have, done
their duty, and is in itself very innocent, as it only causes the young
ladies to blush a little.

This afternoon they were examined in algebra, and their performance was
very creditable. Under a certain age girls are certainly much quicker
than boys, and I presume would retain what they learnt if it were not
for their subsequent duties in making puddings, and nursing babies. Yet
there are affairs which must be performed by one sex or the other, and
of what use can algebra and other abstruse matters be to a woman in her
present state of domestic thraldom.

The theory of the American constitution was the next subject on which
they were examined; by their replies, this appeared to be to them more
abstruse than algebra: but the fact is, women are born tories, and admit
no other than petticoat government as legitimate.

The next day we again repaired to the hall, and French was the language
in which they were to be examined, and the examination afford