e two husbands,
rather than one man have two wives. The senate honoured the young Papirius
with a special law in his favour; they should rather have conferred honour
upon his mother and the other matrons for their disinterested virtue, who
were content to submit themselves to so great an evil, I may say _wrong_,
as to have imposed upon them two masters instead of one. Not that you,
Eusebius, ever entertained an idea that women are wronged by not being
admitted to a share of legislation. I will not suppose you to be that
liberal fool. But you are aware that such a scheme has been, and is still
entertained. I believe there is a Miss Somebody now going about our towns,
lecturing on the subject, and she is probably worthy to be one of the
company of the "Ecclesiagusae." This idea is not new. The other day I hit
upon a letter in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1740 on the
subject, by which you will see there was some amusement about it a century
ago:--

"TO CALEB D'ANVERS, Esq.

"Sir,--I am a mournful relict of _five husbands_, and the happy mother of
_twenty-seven_ children, the tender pledges of our chaste embraces. Had
_old Rome_, instead of _England_, been the place of my nativity and abode,
what honours might I not have expected to my person, and immunities to my
fortune? But I need not tell you that virtue of this sort meets with no
encouragement in our northern climate. _Children_, instead of freeing us
from _taxes_ increase the weight of them, and matrimony is become the jest
of every coxcomb. Nor could I allow, till very lately, that an old
bachelor, as you profess yourself to be, had any just pretence to be
called a patriot. Don't think that I mean to offer myself to you; for I
assure you that I have refused very advantageous proposals since the
decease of my _last poor spouse_, who hath been dead near _five months_. I
have no design at present of altering my condition again. Few women are so
happy as to meet with _five good husbands_, and therefore I should be glad
to devote the remaining part of my life to the good of my country and
family, in a more public and active station than that of a _wife_,
according to your late scheme for _a septennial administration of women_.
But I think you ought to have enforced your project with some instances of
_illustrious females_, who have appeared in the foremost classes of life,
not only for heroic valour, but likewise for several branches of learning,
wisdom, and