lave of
impulse, and tells him he is too full of himself, and even compares his
love for the English Constitution to the brutal affection of weakness
built on blind, indolent tenderness, rather than on rational grounds.
Sometimes she grows eloquent in her sarcasm.

"... On what principle you, sir," she observes, "can justify the
Reformation, which tore up by the roots an old establishment, I
cannot guess,--but I beg your pardon, perhaps you do not wish to
justify it, and have some mental reservation to excuse you to
yourself, for not openly avowing your reverence. Or, to go further
back, had you been a Jew, you must have joined in the cry, 'Crucify
him! Crucify him!' The promulgator of a new doctrine, and the
violator of old laws and customs, that did not, like ours, melt
into darkness and ignorance, but rested on Divine authority, must
have been a dangerous innovator in your eyes, particularly if you
had not been informed that the Carpenter's Son was of the stock and
lineage of David."

But vituperation is not argument, and abuse proves nothing. This is a
fault, however, into which youth readily falls. Mary was young when she
wrote the "Vindication of the Rights of Man," and feeling was still too
strong to be forgotten in calm discussion. It was a mistake, too, to
dwell, as she did, on the inconsistency between Burke's earlier and
present policy. This was a powerful weapon against him at the time, but
posterity has recognized the consistency which, in reality, underlay his
seemingly diverse political creeds. Besides, the demonstration that
sentiments in the "Reflections" were at variance with others expressed
some years previously, did not prove them to be unsound.

Because of these faults of youth and haste, Mary's "Letter" is not very
powerful when considered as a reply to Burke; but its intrinsic merits
are many. It is a simple, uncompromising expression of honest opinions.
It is noble in its fearlessness, and it manifests a philosophical insight
into the meaning and basis of morality wonderful in a woman of Mary's
age. It really deserves the praise bestowed upon it in the "Analytical
Review," where the critic says that, "notwithstanding it may be the
'effusion of the moment,' [it] yet evidently abounds with just sentiments
and lively and animated remarks, expressed in elegant and nervous
language, and which may be read with pleasure and improvement when