ingly, or else very coarfe at beft; whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarfe food for the child; for as the blood, fo is the milk; and hence I am very well affured proceeds the fcurvy, the evil, and many other diftempers. I beg of you, for the fake of the many poor infants that may and will be faved by weighing this cafe ferioufly, to exhort the people with the utmost vehemence to let the children fuck their own mothers, both for the benefit of mother and child. For the general argument, that a mother is weakened by giving fuck to her children, is vain and fimple: I will maintain that the mother grows ftronger by it, and will have her health • better than fhe would have otherwife: She will ⚫ find it the greatest cure and prefervative for the vapours, and future mifcarriages, much beyond any other remedy whatsoever: Her children will be like giants, whereas otherwife they are but like living fhadows and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is ftrong enough to bring forth a child, fhe is beyond all doubt ftrong-enough to nurfe it afterwards. It grieves me to obferve and confider how many poor children are daily ruined by careless nurfes; and yet how ⚫ tender ought they to be of a poor infant, fince the leaft hurt or blow, especially upon the head, may make it fenfelefs, ftupid, or otherwife miferable for ever? But I cannot well leave this fubject as yet; for it seems to be very unnatural, that a woman that has fed a child as part of herself for nine months, fhould have no defire to nurfe it farther, when brought to light and before her eyes, and when by its cry it implores her afliftance and the office of a mother.. Do not the very cruelleft of brutes tend their young ones with all the care and delight imaginable? For how can fhe be called a mother that will not nurfe her young ones? The VOL. III. Ff earth earth is called the mother of all things, not becaufe fhe produces, but because the maintains and nurfes what the produces. The generation ⚫ of the infant is the effect of defire, but the care of it argues virtue and choice. I am not igno' rant but that there are fome cafes of neceffity 'where a mother cannot give fuck, and then out of two evils the least must be chofen ; but there are fo very few, that I am fure in a thousand there is hardly one real inftance; for if a woman ⚫ does but know that her husband can spare about 'three or fix fhillings a week extraordinary, (althơ' this is but feldom confidered) fhe certainly, with ⚫ the affistance of her goffips, will foon purfuade the good man to fend the child to nurse, and eafily impofe upon him by pretending indifpofition. This cruelty is fupported by fashion, and nature gives place to custom. Sir Your humble fervant,' T Their untired lips a wordy torrent pour. WE are told by fome ancient authors, that Se crates was inftructed in eloquence by a woman, whose name, if I am not mistaken, was Afpafia. I have indeed very often looked upon that art as the moft proper for the female fex, and I think the univerfities would do well to confider whether they should not fill the rhetorick chairs with the profeffors. It has been faid in the praife of fome men, that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honour of the other fex, that there are many among them whọ can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I 339 have known a woman branch out into a long extempore differtation upon the edging of a petticoat, and chide her fervant for breaking a china-cup, in all the figures of rhetorick. Were women admitted to plead in courts of ju dicature, I am perfuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubt this, let him but be present at thofe debates which frequently arise among the Ladies of the British fishery. The firft kind therefore of female orators which I shall take notice of, are thofe who are employed in ftirring up the paffions, a part of rhetorick in which Socrates his wife had perhaps a greater proficiency than his above-mentioned teacher." ་ The fecond kind of female orators are thofe who deal in invectives, and who are commonly known by the name of the cenforious. The imagination and elocution of this set of rhetoricians is wonderful. With what a fluency of invention, and copi oufnefs of expreffion, will they enlarge upon every little flip in the behaviour of another? With how many different circumftances, and with what vari ety of phrafes, will they tell over the fame ftory? I have known an old Lady, make an unhappy marriage the fubject of a months converfation. She blamed the bride in one place; pitied her in a nother; laughed at her in a third; wondered at her in a fourth; was angry with her in a fifth; and in fhort, wore out a pair of coach-horses in expreffing her concern for her. At length, after having quite exhaufted the fubject on this fide, fhe made a visit to the new-married pair, praised the wife for the prudent choice fhe had made, told her the unreasonable reflections which fome malicious people had caft upon her, and defired that they might be better acquainted. The cen fure and ap probation of this kind of women are therefore only to be confidered as helps to difcourse. F f 2 A third A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word Goffips. Mrs. Fiddle Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this part of eloquence; the launches out into defcriptions of christenings, runs divifions upon an head-drefs, knows every difh of meat that is ferved up in her neighbourhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy, before he is able to fpeak. The coquette may be looked upon as a fourth kind of female orator. To give herfelf the larger field for difcourfe, the hates and loves in the fame breath, talks to her lap-dog or parrot, is uneafy in all kinds of weather, and in every part of the room: She has falfe quarrels and feigned obligations to all the men of her acquaintance; fighs when fhe is not fad, and laughs when she is not merry. The coquette is in particular a great miftrefs of that part of oratory which is called action, and indeed, feems to fpeak for no other purpose, but as it gives her an opportunity of stirring a limb, or varying a feature, of glancing her eyes, or playing with her fan. As for news-mongers, politicians, mimicks, ftory-tellers, with other characters of that nature, which give birth to loquacity, they are as commonly found among the men as the women; for which reafon I fhall pass them over in filence. I have often been puzzled to affign a caufe whywomen fhould have this talent of a ready utterance in fo much greater perfection than men. I have fometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of fuppreffing their thoughts as men have, but that they are neceffitated to fpeak every thing they think, and if fo, it would perhaps furnifh a very strong argument to the Cartefians, for the fupporting of their doctrine, that the foul always thinks. But as feveral are of opinion that the Fair Sex are not altogether ftrangers to the art of of diffembling and concealing their thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to feek after fome better reason. In order to it a friend of mine, who is an excellent anatomift, has promised me by the firft opportunity to diffect a woman's tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain juices which render it fo wonderfully voluble or flippant, or whether the fibres of it may not be made up of a more finer or pliant thread, or whether there are not in it fome particular mufcles which dart it up and down by fuch fudden glances and vibrations; or whether, in the laft place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and the heart; to this little inftrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluency of animal fpirits. Nor muft I omit the reafon which Hudibras has given, why thofe who can talk on trifles fpeak with the greateft fluency; namely, that the tongue is like a race-horfe; which runs the fafter the leffer weight it carries. ». Which of thefe reafons foever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's thought was very natural, who after fome hours converfation with a female orator, told her, that he believed her tongue was very glad when the was afleep, for that it had not a moment's reft all the while fhe was awake.. That excellent old ballad of The Wanton Wife of Bath, has the following remarkable lines: I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues And Ovid, though in the defcription of a very barbarous circumftance, tells us, That when the tongue of a beautiful female was cut out, and thrown upon the ground, it could not forbear muttering even in that posture. Ff3 Comprenfam = |