nature. One sees this especially in children. Mark them in their play-hours, in their holiday freedom, when they are left to themselves to find matter of enjoyment,—how much more pleasure does the girl evidently derive from any beautiful or living thing that comes before it than the boy! We have an instance of it almost as we write. There is a group of children on the beach. The little girl is in perfect ecstasies, as she looks at the sparkling waves that come bounding to her feet; she shouts, she leaps, she herself bounds towards them, then springs back as they approach, half frightened and half pleased—she knows not how to express her delight at this great playfellow she has found. Meanwhile the boy, her brother, does nothing but throw stones at it—of that he seems never wearied. The beach is a perfect armoury to him, and he pelts the graceful waves remorselessly. What is their grace to him? So, too, in an inland scene, a garden or a lawn, we have often noticed what exquisite pleasure a little girl will feel, as she watches a sparrow alight near her upon the ground, in search of crumbs or other food. Her little frame quite thrills as this other little piece of life comes hopping and pecking about her. She loads it, but with suppressed voice, with all the endearing epithets her vocabulary supplies. She is evidently embarrassed that they are so few: she makes up by their frequent repetition. She absolutely loves the little creature, with all whose movements she seems to have the keenest sympathy. Her brother, the boy, he has nothing for it but his unfailing stone, or he flings his hat at it. Unfailing, fortunately, the stone is not; for, if his skill as a marksman responded to his destructive zeal, there is nothing that a stone would kill that would be left alive, or that a stone would break that would be left whole. A mere blind animal-activity seems, at that very interesting age, to distinguish the future lord of the creation.

At an after period of life, when thought has educated the youth into feeling, the picture is often entirely reversed. Then, unless the man be bred up a mere pleasure-hunter, seeking what he calls amusement in town or country, the superior education he has received makes him the more feeling, the more imaginative, because the more reflective of the two. That brother who once shocked his little sister by his stupid and cruel amusements, now looks with something like contempt at the frivolous tastes and occupations—at the system of poor artificial enjoyments—to which that sister has betaken herself. Now, if they are at the sea-side together, it is he who finds companionship in the waves, who finds thought grow more expanded, freer and bolder, in the presence of the boundless ocean. She, too, dotes upon the sea, and sits down beside it—to read her novel. Now, if they ride or walk through the country together, it is his eye that sees the bird upon the bough—hers is on the distant dust some equipage is making.

But matters are mending, and will continue to mend. There are so many women of richly cultivated minds who have distinguished themselves in letters or in society, and made it highly feminine to be intelligent as well as good, and to have elevated as well as amiable feelings, that by-and-by the whole sex must adopt a new standard of education. It must, we presume, be by leaders of their own starting out of their own body, that the rest of the soft and timid flock must be led.

Yes, we are mending. Very different are our times from those when Madame de Genlis published her little work, De l'Influence des Femmes sur la Littérature Française comme Protectrices des Lettres, et comme Auteurs. She had to contend, with the same acrid energy, for the privilege of a lady to write, as a Turkish dame of the present century might be supposed to display, who should contend for the privilege of walking abroad unveiled, or rather unmuffled. And even she herself thinks it necessary to give certain rules to young women who write—as she would to young women who dance—how to comport themselves with consummate propriety; as not to enter into controversy, or use big words—in short, to deal with printer's ink without soiling the most delicate fingers. As to that argument drawn from the supposed neglect of domestic duties—which it seems, in those days just emerging from barbarity, was still heard of—she dismisses it very briefly. "Comme ces devoirs dans une maison bien ordonnée, ne peuvent jamais prendre plus d'une heure par jour, cette objection est absolument nulle." As there is much implied in that "maison bien ordonnée," and as Madame de Genlis did not write for simple gentle-folks, it is to be hoped that the one hour per diem may admit of extension without any forfeiture of literary privileges. In her time, too, there was thought to be a sort of feud between authors and authoresses—a thing which in our day, is quite inconceivable—for she writes, apropos of a charge of plagiarism, against La Fontaine, in the following indignant strain:—"Quelles que soient le bonhomie et la candeur d'un auteur, il sait que, par une loi tacite mais universelle, il est toujours dispensé de convenir qu'il doit à une femme une idée heureuse. Dans ce cas seulement le plagiat et le silence sont également légitimes."

We have changed all that: we have had too many instances of women of talent and of genius to doubt their ability to excel—we make no exception—in any branch of literature whatever. We give them, on the other hand, no monopoly of elegance or grace, or delicacy of touch, as some affect to do. These qualities they are very likely to display; but they will be superior in them to authors of the male sex, only just so far as they are superior to those authors in genius and talent. There is still a practice in many critics to detect the style feminine from the style masculine. The sooner this is laid aside the better. There are styles which, speaking metaphorically, one may say have a feminine grace, or a feminine weakness. Such an observation has been made, by Sir James Mackintosh, on the style of Addison. But to pretend to say of a given page of composition whether a man or a woman has penned it, is absurd. We often hear it said, that none but a woman could have written the letters of Madame de Sévigné. If Cowper had been a woman, people would have said the same thing of his letters. They are unrivalled, at least in our own language, for grace and elegance, and wit and playfulness. No woman, we believe—and the epistolary style is supposed to belong by especial right to the female pen—has ever written such charming letters as those to Lady Hesketh, and his old friend Thomas Hill. As to the letters of Madame de Sévigné, they so evidently come from a mother to a daughter, that it is impossible to forget for a moment the sex of the writer. But if the qualities which have given them literary celebrity are, to be pronounced feminine, half the literature of France is of the same gender. Still less can we tolerate the affectation that pretends to discern a certain weakness, a tremulousness of the hand, when the pen is held by a woman. There is grace and elegance, but, forsooth, a certain hesitation—a want of vigour and certainty of touch. Nonsense. Take Our Village, by Miss Mitford, and the Sketch-Book, by Washington Irving: they are both of the graceful and elegant order of style; but the lady writes the English language with far more freedom, ease, and vigour, than the gentleman. The poetic element is mingled in her diction with far more taste and judgment. It glitters through her prose as the sunlight in the green tree—throwing its gold amongst the foliage, yet leaving it the same green, and simple, and refreshing object as before.

No—we will grant to woman no monopoly in the lighter elegancies, and presume nothing against her ability to excel in the graver qualities of authorship. We have said that Mrs Hemans