y out of her Original Plainness, and at
length entirely lost under Form and Ceremony, and (what we call) good
Breeding. Read the Accounts of Men and Women as they are given us by the
most ancient Writers, both Sacred and Prophane, and you would think you
were reading the History of another Species.

Among the Writers of Antiquity, there are none who instruct us more
openly in the Manners of their respective Times in which they lived,
than those who have employed themselves in Satyr, under what Dress
soever it may appear; as there are no other Authors whose Province it is
to enter so directly into the Ways of Men, and set their Miscarriages in
so strong a Light.

_Simonides_,[1] a Poet famous in his Generation, is, I think, Author of
the oldest Satyr that is now extant; and, as some say, of the first that
was ever written. This Poet flourished about four hundred Years after
the Siege of _Troy;_ and shews, by his way of Writing, the Simplicity,
or rather Coarseness, of the Age in which he lived. I have taken notice,
in my Hundred and sixty first Speculation, that the Rule of observing
what the _French_ call the _bienseance_, in an Allusion, has been found
out of later Years; and that the Ancients, provided there was a Likeness
in their Similitudes, did not much trouble themselves about the Decency
of the Comparison. The Satyr or Iambicks of _Simonides_, with which I
shall entertain my Readers in the present Paper, are a remarkable
Instance of what I formerly advanced. The Subject of this Satyr is
Woman. He describes the Sex in their several Characters, which he
derives to them from a fanciful Supposition raised upon the Doctrine of
Praeexistence. He tells us, That the Gods formed the Souls of Women out
of those Seeds and Principles which compose several Kinds of Animals and
Elements; and that their Good or Bad Dispositions arise in them
according as such and such Seeds and Principles predominate in their
Constitutions. I have translated the Author very faithfully, and if not
Word for Word (which our Language would not bear) at least so as to
comprehend every one of his Sentiments, without adding any thing of my
own. I have already apologized for this Authors Want of Delicacy, and
must further premise, That the following Satyr affects only some of the
lower part of the Sex, and not those who have been refined by a Polite
Education, which was not so common in the Age of this Poet.

_In the Beginning God made the Souls