age, and almost to this age
alone of our poetry--the glory of Female Genius. We have heard and seen
it seriously argued whether or not women are equal to men; as if there
could be a moment's doubt in any mind unbesotted by sex, that they are
infinitely superior; not in understanding, thank Heaven, nor in
intellect, but in all other "impulses of soul and sense" that dignify
and adorn human beings, and make them worthy of living on this
delightful earth. Men for the most part are such worthless wretches,
that we wonder how women condescend to allow the world to be carried
on; and we attribute that phenomenon solely to the hallowed yearnings of
maternal affection, which breathes as strongly in maid as in matron, and
may be beautifully seen in the child fondling its doll in its blissful
bosom. Philoprogenitiveness! But not to pursue that interesting
speculation, suffice it for the present to say, that so far from having
no souls--a whim of Mahomet's, who thought but of their bodies--women
are the sole spiritual beings that walk the earth not unseen; they
alone, without pursuing a complicated and scientific system of deception
and hypocrisy, are privileged from on high to write poetry. We--men we
mean--may affect a virtue, though we have it not, and appear to be
inspired by the divine afflatus. Nay, we sometimes--often--are truly so
inspired, and write like gods. A few of us are subject to fits, and in
them utter oracles. But the truth is too glaring to be denied, that all
male rational creatures are, in the long run, vile, corrupt, and
polluted; and that the best man that ever died in his bed within the
arms of his distracted wife, is wickeder far than the worst woman that
was ever iniquitously hanged for murdering what was called her poor
husband, who in all cases righteously deserved his fate. Purity of mind
is incompatible with manhood; and a monk is a monster--so is every
Fellow of a College, and every Roman Catholic Priest, from Father
O'Leary to Dr Doyle. Confessions, indeed! Why, had Joseph himself
confessed all he ever felt and thought to Potiphar's wife, she would
have frowned him from her presence in all the chaste dignity of virtuous
indignation, and so far from tearing off his garment, would not have
touched it for the whole world. But all women--till men by marriage, or
by something, if that be possible, worse even than marriage, try in vain
to reduce them nearly to their own level--are pure as dewdrops or
moon