st chase.

A dissertation on the comparative merits of Manton's, Lancaster's, and
Moore's guns, and the advantage of percussion locks, it is true,
generally diversifies the conversation.

Then how edifying it is to hear the pedigrees of horses--the odds for
and against the favourite winning such or such a race--the good or bad
books of the talkers--the hedging or backing of the betters! Yet all
this are women condemned to hear on the eve of a race, or during the
shooting or hunting season, should their evil stars bring them into the
society of any of the Nimrods or sportsmen of the day, who think it not
only allowable to devote nearly all their time to such pursuits, but to
talk of little else.

The woman who aims at being popular in her county, must not only listen
patiently, but evince a lively interest in these _intellectual_
occupations; while, if the truth was confessed, she is thoroughly
_ennuyee_ by these details of them: or if not, it must be inferred that
she has lost much of the refinement of mind and taste peculiar to the
well-educated portion of her sex.

I do not object to men liking racing, hunting, and shooting. The first
preserves the breed of horses, for which England is so justly
celebrated, and hunting keeps up the skill in horsemanship in which our
men excel. What I do object to is their making these pursuits the
constant topics of conversation before women, instead of selecting
those more suitable to the tastes and habits of the latter.

There is none of the affectation of avoiding subjects supposed to be
uninteresting to women visible in the men here. They do not utter with
a smile--half pity, half condescension,--"we must not talk politics
before the ladies;" they merely avoid entering into discussions, or
exhibiting party spirit, and shew their deference for female society by
speaking on literature, on which they politely seem to take for granted
that women are well informed.

Perhaps this deferential treatment of the gentler sex may not be wholly
caused by the good breeding of the men in France; for I strongly
suspect that the women here would be very little disposed to submit to
the _nonchalance_ that prompts the conduct I have referred to in
England, and that any man who would make his horses or his field-sports
the topic of discourse in their presence, would soon find himself
expelled from their society.

Frenchwomen still think, and with reason, that they govern the tone of
the circ