the
authoress and her husband assumed the right of dispensing with legal
sanction until the approach of offspring brought them to a sense of their
child's interest.[392] Not a hint of such a claim is found in the book,
which is mostly about female education. The right claimed for woman is to
have the education of a rational human being, and not to be considered as
nothing but woman throughout youthful training. The maxims of Mary
Wollstonecraft are now, though not derived from her, largely followed in
the education of girls, especially in home education: just as many of the
political principles of Tom Paine, again not derived from him, are the
guides of our actual legislation. I remember, forty years ago, an old lady
used to declare that she disliked girls from the age of sixteen to
five-and-twenty. "They are full," said she, "of _femalities_." She spoke of
their behavior to women as well as to men. She {175} would have been
shocked to know that she was a follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, and had
packed half her book into one sentence.

The third work is a satirical attack on Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine.
The details of the attack would convince any one that neither has anything
which would now excite reprobation. It is utterly unworthy of Dr. Parr, and
has quite disappeared from lists of his works, if it were ever there. That
it was written by him I take to be evident, as follows. Nichols,[393] who
could not fail to know, says (_Anecd._, vol. ix, p. 120): "This is a
playful essay by a first-rate scholar, who is elsewhere noticed in this
volume, but whose name I shall not bring forward on so trifling an
occasion." Who the scholar was is made obvious by Master Launcelot being
made to talk of Bellendenus.[394] Further, the same boy is made to say,
"Let Dr. Parr lay his hand upon his heart, if his conscience will let him,
and ask himself how many thousands of wagon-loads of this article [birch]
he has cruelly misapplied." How could this apply to Parr, with his handful
of private pupils,[395] and no reputation for severity? Any one except
himself would have called on the head-master of Westminster or Eton. I
doubt whether the name of Parr could be connected with the rod by anything
in print, except the above and an anecdote of his pupil, Tom Sheridan.[396]
The Doctor had dressed for a dinner visit, and {176} was ready a quarter of
an hour too soon to set off. "Tom," said he, "I think I had better whip you
now; you are s