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Book, page 441 / 485 the duties of domestic life. I should not expect that my house affairs would be with haste despatched by a Desdemona, weeping over some unvarnished tale, or petrified with some history of horrors, at the very time when she should be ordering dinner, or paying the butcher's bill.--I should have the less hope of rousing her attention to my culinary concerns and domestic grievances, because I should probably incur her contempt for hinting at these sublunary matters, and her indignation for supposing that she ought to be employed in such degrading occupations. I have heard, that if these sublime geniuses are awakened from their reveries by the _appulse_ of external circumstances, they start, and exhibit all the perturbation and amazement of _cataleptic_ patients. Sir Charles Harrington, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, addressed a copy of verses to his wife, "On Women's Vertues:"--these he divides into "the private, _civill_, and heroyke;" the private belong to the country housewife, whom it concerned; chiefly-- "The fruit, malt, hops, to tend, to dry, to utter, To beat, strip, spin the wool, the hemp, the flax, Breed poultry, gather honey, try the wax, And more than all, to have good cheese and butter. Then next a step, but yet a large step higher, Came civill vertue fitter for the citty, With modest looks, good clothes, and answers witty. These baser things not done, but guided by her." As for heroyke vertue, and heroyke dames, honest Sir Charles would have nothing to do with them. Allowing, however, that you could combine all these virtues--that you could form a perfect whole, a female wonder from every creature's best--dangers still threaten you. How will you preserve your daughter from that desire of universal admiration, which will ruin all your work? How will you, along with all the pride of knowledge, give her that "retiring modesty," which is supposed to have more charms for our sex than the fullest display of wit and beauty? The _fair Pauca of Thoulouse_ was so called because she was so fair that no one could live either with or without beholding her:--whenever she came forth from her own mansion, which, history observes, she did very seldom,
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