circumstances, where moral sentiments call some attention, and persons have some choice in their conduct. And here, although I cannot pretend to have had many opportunities of observation, yet I have had some. I can venture to say that it is not in Russia, nor in Spain, that woman is, on the whole, the most important as a member of the community. I would say, that in Britain her important rights are more generally respected than any where else. No where is a man's character so much hurt by conjugal infidelity—no where is it so difficult to rub off the stigma of bastardy, or to procure a decent reception or society for an improper connection; and I believe it will readily be granted, that the share of the women in successions, their authority in all matters of domestic trust, and even their opinions in what concerns life and manners, are fully more respected here than in any country.
I have long been of the opinion, (and every observation that I have been able to make since I first formed it confirms me in it,) that woman is indebted to Christianity alone for the high rank she holds in society. Look into the writings of antiquity—into the works of the Greek and Latin poets—into the numberless panegyrics of the sex, to be found both in prose and verse—I can find little, very little indeed, where woman is treated with respect—there is no want of love, that is, of fondness, of beauty, of charms, of graces. But of woman as the equal of man, as a moral companion, travelling with him the road to felicity—as his adviser—his solace in misfortune—as a pattern from which he may sometimes copy with advantage;—of all this there is hardly a trace. Woman is always mentioned as an object of passion. Chastity, modesty, sober-mindedness, are all considered in relation to this single point; or sometimes as