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FEMALE WRITERS.

MY DEAR FRIend,

You are too intimately acquainted with our venerable martyrologist, not to remember an amusing incident in his account of the degradation of that stout old martyr Dr. Rowland Taylor, how he kept even the fists of the bloody Bonner from giving the accustomed blow by the menace, "If you strike me, I will strike again."

I much fear that you will think me animated by something of the same pugnacious spirit-but no— it is not pugnacity, it is not the love of clenched fists and a battery of blows, that induces me to take up the pen. Seriously and soberly, dear friend, it is just this: there are some passages in your review of my last little work on "Female Writers," on which I wish to offer a few explanatory observations; and if to those observations you think proper to append a dissentient note, I can only say in the fearless spirit of one of old, that I will incur the punishment of being struck, in return for the privilege of being heard. The enquiry too is an interesting one, and the consideration of the cultivation of the powers of the female mind with a view to usefulness, cannot surely be discussed any where with greater propriety than in the "Christian Lady's Magazine." Irrespective therefore of my own desire to explain my meaning to the many individuals who may read your re

view, without perusing the work that was reviewed; there is the earnest wish to consider a question of very wide interest and great importance, with a view to the eliciting of truth, and the direction of conduct.

The first point on which I would offer a remark, is your dissent from the opinion which I ventured to give on the importance to such women as are likely to devote themselves to literary pursuits, of a more comprehensive education, and a more solid and extensive course of reading than can be required for those who continue in the sweet retirement and calm duties of domestic life. Your fear is that "much reading "will" check originality." I did not recommend multifarious reading, but I recommended a solid course of good reading as a preparatory groundwork and forgive me, if respectfully but firmly, I maintain my opinion. We do not like to surrender a favourite opinion lightly, just as a child will grapple hard to retain a treasured plaything, though that plaything be nothing but a straw or a rattle.

It would however be most uncourteous to acknowledge adherence to a contested opinion without assigning some reason. I have no fear myself that good reading, or even diversified reading, will check originality of genius where that high endowment really exists. I should be inclined to the contrary opinion. I acknowledge that they are the heaviest writers who have a mass of knowledge without imagination to vivify it; but I would maintain also, that for the imaginative faculty to have its full play, the memory must be well stored. I support this opinion by the authority of the grave Dr. Johnson, who in the life of Butler, goes so far as to assert, that "Imagination is useless without knowledge; nature gives in vain

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the power of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be combined." I will not further pursue the metaphysical consideration of the question, nor do I mean to assert that the materials for the workings of imagination are to be gathered from books only, or from books chiefly. Study in youth, observation of life, men, manners, with habits of reflection, and intellectual employments are all necessary, whatever may be the natural gifts, to form a truly accomplished writer. I believe that it will be found, that all who have risen to any degree of eminence in literature from Homer to the present day, have been men of very general knowledge. I would go one step further. Perhaps the most truly original writer of our own time, was the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and he was a man of most extensive reading.

I perfectly agree in the remark, that originality is a grand desideratum in a writer, but I assign the abundant lack of it in our days, of which you justly complain, to a different cause. First perhaps, (truth being to be spoken) that numbers write without the necessary natural endowments. Ideas are retailed without change of form; there exists within the mind no laboratory in which to analyze and examine, no intellectual blow-pipe to reduce substances to ashes, and form new and wondrous combinations. Add to this, that the present habits of society have a tendency to assimilate individuals, and even in some degree different classes; there is a good deal of attrition, and the peculiarities are rubbed off. If society is on this account more polished, and less likely to offend our feelings, it is, on the other hand, decidedly more tame and less interesting to a philoso

phic observer. It would lead me too far to discuss the probable causes of this assimilation of mind and character; it is with the effects that I have to do, and they are felt upon our literature.

I must now proceed to the second point, and that is the observations on "the polluted filth, called the classics." My remarks on the high value, in a literary point of view, of the ancient languages were brief, and were made with a view to one class of female minds, and that, comparatively speaking, a limited one. Mrs. More in her "Hints for the Education of a young Princess " recommends the study of the Latin language in far stronger terms, and at much greater length than I have ventured to do, she dwells on its importance in connexion with a sound knowledge of our own language, and she speaks much of its value, as being the only true key to an exact knowledge of the state of the heathen world, at the time of our Saviour's birth. And it is indeed interesting to a reflective mind, to observe that the most polished nations of antiquity with all their boasted wisdom knew not God, and in no other way perhaps can the necessity of a Revelation, and the truth of the glorious Gospel that we have received, stand forward so prominently.

It is most affecting too, and most interesting, to observe the glimpses of beautiful moral truth which not unfrequently break forth like rays of light rendered more vivid by the contrast of the surrounding darkness. The pious and elegant Leighton has proved how these gems may be sanctified even to the adornment and illustration of solemn Christian truth.

I never dreamt, I never for one moment thought of recommending impurity. I could almost say that

I would have the mind of woman as pure as the ermine, which, it is said, will choose death rather than pollution. Some of the most valuable remains of antiquity may be read with very little retrenchment, and in the case of other Authors, there are plenty of revised editions. Who that is endowed with common sense would drink muddy water, when that very useful contrivance, a filtering machine is at hand?

With you, dearest friend, I look forward to the day of the church's peace and joy, when all will be changed, and there will be new heavens and a new earth, but to that state we are not yet arrived. The ordinary occupations of life will go on until the very day of our Lord's appearing. We are to be found waiting and watching, but let it not be forgotten that we are constituted with minds that require some change of occupation. Elegant literature, when kept within due bounds, furnishes a legitimate source of recreation, and while I would earnestly desire that all the powers of every child of God, of every human being, of every creature whether in heaven or earth should be devoted to the Saviour's glory, I do not myself hesitate to acknowledge that, when respite from heavy duties affords me the opportunity of relaxation, I can admire a glowing sentiment, peruse a fine poem, catch the stirring interest of some historical detail, or follow the reasoning of some wellpoised argument with the same feeling of thankfulness to the Giver of every good gift, as that with which only last evening, after ascending a part of Shakespeare's Cliff, I looked over the wide expanse of sea and land, peacefully reposing in the light of the setting sun, and glancing from cliff to ocean, and

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