with migration and conquest has overspread the rest of world, but which will foon disappear before the light of liberty and learning....

The rights of men begin now to be every where felt, understood, and vindicated; by and bye, I would fain hope, the rights of our fex will be equally understood, and established upon the basis of a new code of education, suited to the dignity and importance of our situation in society. And it is hard to say, whether the general welfare of the community will not be as much promoted by this last revolution as by the first. Women will then perhaps receive an education no way differing from that of men, in all things relating to the cultivation of the rational powers of the understanding: women in the higher or more opulent ranks of society, will receive every instruction in the sciences and fine arts, that may render them happy in themselves, agreeable in their families, and useful to society. A female profeffor in a college, as at Bologna, will be no longer mentioned as a folecism, nor Macaulays, Montagues, Carters or Blackburnes be stared at as wonders, or envied by the ladies, and laughed at by the gentlemen.

In the middling ranks, women will be educated to trades suited to their sex, and behaviour in society; of which there are a fufficient number to share them with the other sex without encroachment. Haberdashers, grocers, and every kind of shop-keeping, watchmaking, and all the nicer operations of the hand in sedentary occupation might be performed by them, whereby the wealth and strength of nations would be greatly increased, and a greater militia kept up (without hurting the community) to preferve order at home, and defend the property and honour of nations abroad.

I shall be told, perhaps, by some of your correfpondents, that the education of women, and particularly of gentlewomen, is now quite a different affair from what it was formerly; that young ladies are now taught to read English, French, and Italian; to play exquifite

f

t

ly on all mufical inftruments; to fing, to dance, to draw, to paint, and what not, for filling up their time agreeably, and rendering them interesting to society. To this I answer, that without the foundation of grammar, verbal and universal, without logic, without the principles of moral and political philosophy, without a just knowledge of universal history, chronology, and the study of mathematics, to lay the foundation of thought and of reafoning, all these accomplishments, as they are called, in the fex, are no more than the performances of Automatons.---But perhaps I am running here a little before the spirit of the times. I therefore check my career a little, to take a view of the world as it goes at present.

Figure to yourself one of these charming accomplished young ladies, fresh trom fix or seven years culture, at one of the best boarding schools, or out of the hands of the most capital governess, and the best instructors at home, becoming a fashionable miss, or Lady Mary in the circle of the ton; then married, and a mother. All goes on delightfully for a few years; Miss, or her ladyship, is exceedingly happy, and, no doubt, much admired; but where are her real resources at home? Is the capable of conducting herself upon found principles of wisdom? Is the capable of bearing a part in truly rational conversation among men of science, or respectable and useful members of society, either in town or country? What becomes of her after her beauty and fashion are at an end, which a dozen of years must infallibly produce? She then becomes a promoter of pleasures to a new crop of fashionable misses, under the holy mask of patronage, of chaperonship: She betakes herself to cards, to continual driving about from party to party; or she turns Demirep or Methodist, or fome itrange thing or other, to prevent her from feeling that horrid languor which must ever accompany the want of real business, where true science and the fatisfaction of rational curiofity does not interpose their aid to ob viate the dreadful consequences of idleness !

This miferable woman, who looked so charming, was so gay and happy, and was so wonderfully accomplished ten years ago, is now a troublesome, discontented, capricious, diffipated old cat, that cannot be endured even by her most servile dependants. In town, she is continually chagrined; in the country, the dies of the vapours, or must go to Summer races, to Buxton, Harrogate, or some place of public resort, or take a jaunt to the Cumberland lakes; and, in short, must either have recourse to continual amusement, to opium, or the closet.

Is there a family in Europe, Sir, that hath not experienced, or that is not at this moment experiencing in some degree the dreadful truth of my observations.

Mothers, it is to you that I ought to address myself. Unfortunately it is too late for you to remedy the mif. fortunes of your own preposterous education; but you -may, by your influence, remedy them in your daughters. With respect to yourselves, if dissipation, and the present reigning manners of Europe have left any part of yourselves behind, give me leave to recommend to you the mature confideration of the following advice of Dean Swift in the letter above mentioned.

"If you are in company with men of learning, though they happen to discourse of arts and sciences, out of your compass, yet you will gather more advantage by listening to them, than from all the nonsense and frippery of your own sex; but if they be men of breeding as well as learning, they will feldom engage in any conversation where you ought not to be a hear. er; and in time have your part. If they talk of the laws, manners, and customs of the several kingdoms of Europe, of travels into remoter nations, of the state of their own country, or of the great men of Greece or Rome; if they give their judgment upon English and French writers, either in verse or profe, or of the nature and limits of virtue and vice, it is a shame for an

English lady not to relish such discourses, nor to improve by them, and endeavour, by reading and information, to have her thare in those entertainments, rather than turn aside, as it is the custom, to confult the woman who fits next her about a hat, a bonnet, or a muflin."

Fall, if it be poffible, into the train of some innocent and useful employment, to fill up all your leisure time, and prevent you from being troublesome to your families, and to fociety, when you grow old, by your cankered tempers, which are the infallible followers of

idleness.

I am, Mr. Editor, with regard, your constant reader and well-wisher,

SIR,

To the Editor of the Bee.

SOPHIA *.

As chemistry and botany are favourite and fashionat studies at present, and many who reside in the country cannot have it in their power to attend the lectures of professors at the university, several of your readers, as well as myself, of the above defcription, wishing not to remain entirely in the dark with regard to those branches of science, which you also touch upon at times in the Bee, are defirous, that, if it could be done with any degree of propriety, you would point out a path or plan of study, and such books as would enable us ruftics, with a little application on our part, to understand the terms of art, and something of the nature of those two branches of knowledge. Your complying with the above request, especially if you think it will be of any advantage to us, will very much oblige, Sir, your's, A COUNTRY READER †. A Description of Norfolk Island, extracted from the Papers respecting Botany Bay, communicated to Parlia

ment, April 8th, 179, a.

Our readers have often heard of Botany Bay, and the great expence of that fettlement. The island that forms the subject of the present article, is in the neighbourhood of that fettlement, and is several times mentioned in Governor Phillip's letters, as the most fertile spot they had yet observed. In his letter, dated April 11th, 1790, he says: "The "goodness of the foil of Norfolk Island, and the industry of those em"ployed there, rendered that island a resource, and the only

one that offered, when, from the time that had passed since my " letters might be supposed to have been received in England, there

was reason to suppose some accident had happened to the store-ships

" fent out.

" I therefore ordered two companies of marines to be ready to em" bark, with a number of convicts, by the 5th of March, if no ship ar"rived before that time; and a proportion of what provifions and stores " remained in this settlement, being put on board the Sirius and Sup

ply, fixty-five officers and men, with five women and children from "the detachment and civil department, one hundred and fixteen male, "and fixty-seven female convicts, with twenty-feven children, em"barked and failed the 6th of March.

"The advantage I expected, by sending away

fuch a number of

people, was from the little garden-ground they would leave, and "which would affift those who remained; and the fish which might " be caught in the winter, would go the farther; at the fame time, " those sent to Norfolk Island would have resources in the great abun" dance of vegetables raised there, and in fish and birds, which this " settlement could not afford them; and it was my intention to have " fent more convicts to this island, if there had not been this neceffi

ty. The provifions fent, with what was on the island, and the wheat " and Indian corn raifed there, more than would be necessary for feed, " was calculated to last full as long as the provifions in this place; and " at Norfolk Island, from the richness of the foil, a man may "fupport himself with little afsistance from the store, after the timber is "cleared away."

By the accounts laid before parliament, it appears, that the expences already incurred by this establishment, preceding the the 9th February 1791, besides contingencies that cannot as yet be stated, amounts to 374,090 1.15 s. 8 d. The total number of convicts fent out, is 2029.

The description of Norfolk Island, is as follows.