For this semi-barbarous atrocity Cain and his posterity were exiled, and cut off from all intercourse with the rest of the human race, and in this forlorn and lamentable condition, simultaneously and recklessly gave themselves up to every description of wickedness; and, it is conjectured, were, on that account, ultimately called the sons and daughters of men while the descendants of Seth, under the watchful care and tuition of Adam, having as appositely distinguished themselves, for both virtue and a regard to the Divine precepts, in process of time acquired the designation of sons and daughters of God. Moreover, according to the same traditionary writer, the family of Seth fixed its habitation on the mountain where Adam, their progenitor, was buried, and called it the Holy Mountain," because the sacred dust of the father of men was interred there; while Cain and his posterity incumbered the valley below, and failed not to riot in lewdness and debauchery without ceasing. The account given by Moses does not agree with the Oriental one, relative to the banishment of Cain, and a few other uninteresting particulars. To proceed, however.-In the time of Jared, when the family of Seth was much increased, 120 of the sons of that race, or, in other words, the sons of God, hearing the sound of music and revelling in the valley below, came to the resolution of descending from the Holy Mountain, to join in the mirth and laughter of this, the first, or beginning of fetes. They were, as it would appear, delighted, and even enchanted, with what their "human eyes" beheld—with the novelty of the "spectacle;" and so captivated were they with the extreme beauty of the women, that they yielded to their charms: nor did they return that night to the Holy Mountain. Having proceeded thus far, it was not to be expected they should draw back when in the very noon-tide of pleasure. And thus it was, they were induced to form an intimacy with the women of this ancient period, and so prevailed upon, began to marry, and ultimately to intermarry with them; and hence most likely arose the story of the commerce between the sons of God and the daughters of men: a tale which gave birth to the received opinion, that by the sons of God were meant Angels, who had so far deviated from the native dignity of their incorporeal and celestial nature, as to condescend to a profligate knowledge of terrestrial women.

But though we cannot satisfactorily ascertain the precise meaning of Moses, when he says the sons of God defiled themselves with the daughters of men, we may believe, that the expression was made use of by the prophet (or poet of that day), to characterise some kind of wickedness which had

become so great an abomination, that the Author of our being is said to have repented that he had made man, and that he should have everlastingly stamped him with his own beautiful image that is to say, man was created innocent and upright, with powers of understanding and will, after the image of God: (for it is in these respects that the Scriptures say, man was made in the image of God) almost the entire race of whom the Almighty was obliged to destroy by the flood, in order that a new and less wicked generation might succeed; which could not have been done, had the wicked been left on earth to have associated, and been rendered as bad as themselves.

Succeeding the "Flood, "there is a dark and impenetrable gloom hanging over the sea of time, by which, too, the history of woman is completely hidden from our light and knowledge. In Abraham's day they are spoken of frequently, in the Sacred Writings many of their actions are recorded - whether without prejudice, or with impartial justice and fidelity, it is impossible to pronounce. The laws, customs, and usages by which the sex were governed, are, in this patriarch's time, mentioned with apparent accuracy. These instances, together with some interesting anecdotes both of their public and private customs and habits, tend to give a better notion of their past condition; and, more especially, to throw a brighter gleam of historical light on the usages and proceedings of the ancient Israelitish women particularly, than of any other description of women, till we come down to those of immortal Greece!

Before the close of this paper, I think it proper to remark, briefly, with respect to the original education of women. If an opinion can be formed of their state in the beginning of the world, and from the state in which they appear in the infancy of every nation, I may fairly conclude that they were destitute of every institution which may be said to be consequent on civilization-of a wise, virtuous, and just government, in that state of society which denies almost every description of knowledge, or of any thing approximating to polite literature-except procuring a precarious subsistence from the rivers and forests around them. Necessarily impelled to employ their time, for the most part, in this way, they would have but little, if any leisure, and, in all probability, less inclination, to cultivate their minds. Hence it would be very long before the human mind began to extend its ideas beyond such mode of life, and those habits, which had been adopted by necessity, and continued by custom. That course of predetermined study and discipline,

that studious application to various languages and benign arts, which in our exalted and intellectual day we call "EDUCATION, was then totally unknown; and even in succeeding generations was only effected by degrees, and as fortuitous events and circumstances gave rise to new schemes and fresh employ

ments.

GENERAL HISTORY OF WOMAN.

IT must be freely and honourably admitted, that there is nothing which in nature so completely occupies our attention-so immediately governs our inclinations, or with which our best and dearest interests are so immutably blended, as with WOMAN. Notwithstanding this fact is apparent, so uncontrollable is our innate partiality to ourselves, that in no one period of our history, or in any country of maritime or continental Europe, have we demonstrated a desire much more, sufficiently attended to-the real happiness and superior comforts of those dear companions, whom from the earliest epoch of the Christian era, down to the present enlightened age, we have as men, as Christians, and as reformers of the new school, professed to love with ardour and adore with veneration: and while the splendid charms which they possess-some in a super-human degree-have at all times elicited from us the legitimate tribute of "love," they (I may say man's guardian angels on earth) have only procured, at his reckless and unkind hands, decent comportment and tolerable usage.

Men in general are weak enough, even in mixed society, to utter complaints against the sex; but scarcely one of those stout and hardy gentlemen Quixotes can be found capable, or willing, to remedy the evil against which he condescends so bitterly and openly to complain. The man who

considers women only as objects of his unsubstantial pleasure, complains that, in his intercourse with her, he discovers (shrewd discovery!) she is inconstant, unfaithful, and even open to a ruinous degree of flattery.

The philosopher who delights to mingle the joys of friendship, conversation, and implicit confidence, with those of love, complains that she is void of every notion, but those that have their origin in gallantry and self-admiration; and, of consequence, incapable of reciprocating any of the more refined intellectual pleasures. The business man contends, with a sort of unrelenting hardihood, peculiar to his occu

pation, that she is not only giddy, but unthinking; and requires the plodding head and the saving hand, with a view not only to practise economy; but an ultimate, if not speedy advancement in the world, in his scale of society. And some men there are, who are heard to complain of woman's idleness-extravagance-a total neglect of every kind of admonition—and a destructive and irreparable neglect of the responsible and trying duties of domestic and social life.

These catholic, or universal complaints, may or may not be satisfactorily shown to be founded in fact; and in instances where they have been proved, I am bound to state, as I am free to confess-and to the honour of woman be it writtenthe blame, (if these complaints are positively traced to their original source,) ultimately falls on ourselves. May I be permitted to inquire of my countrymen, whether or not the men of gallantry do not, too frequently, set the example of " infidelity and inconstancy" to the females with whom they are intimate? And do not men commonly direct the steps of the other sex to the path that leads to every improper levity and unfeminine folly? What made the philosopher so susceptible of rational and intellectual pleasures? Indubitably, the education bestowed upon him; and the same education might have given his wife, or his daughter, an equal, if not a superior relish for them. It is vain, and unworthy of manhood, therefore, to expect the fruit, in the total absence of the "culture" so obviously necessary to bring it to maturity. The perseverance and business tact of the merchant is acquired and practised in his early years; and they are rendered invaluable by his being the sole owner of what his care amasses, and quite competent to dispose of his wealth as he pleases. His wife, however, is educated in no such school, and has no motives of the kind to industry, economy, and unwearied exertion; for should she even toil with unheard-of application, she cannot (according to our English laws) call what may be so procured her own property, nor can she use it as she pleases, without the sanction of her partner in life—or, in other words, her husband-and a sacred name it is. Nor is the idleness, extravagance, and neglect of domestic and other very important and filial duties, which are so commonly charged upon my fair countrywomen, so much the fault of nature as of education. Can we expect that the female child, whom we train up in every fashionable levity and folly, whom we endeavour to flatter and to amuse, shall, at the moment of her marriage, totally abandon her contemplated plan, and become the sober and economical housewife? It is almost, if not altogether, impossible. We might as well

expect to reap corn from weeds we had secreted below the surface of this beautiful and yielding earth.

If this be, as I persuade myself it is, a fair and well-founded statement, and an undeniable exposition of the unhappy source of female inaction and female weakness; if the whole may be traced either to the entire absence of, or to an improper education; and if the opportunity of neglecting education altogether, or bestowing it improperly, be confided to the hands of man, as having the management and control of the sex; then it will assuredly follow, that we should be performing a much better, and more becoming part, by remedying this incalculable evil, and by correcting their faults by a wellgrounded education, rather than to have them ignorant, and complain that they are so; or teach them folly, and malign them for having practised what we were wicked enough to have taught them. But, instead of doing this, in every age, and in every country, while men have professed a magnanimous, if not a chivalrous partiality for the charms of their country women, they have either left their minds wholly without culture, or misled them by improper education; conceiving, perhaps, that by a different method, more rational, more solid and matured instruction, would have unscaled their eyes-exposed to them their real and desolate condition, aroused them from their supineness, and, by the abandonment of their inertness, produced and established in them the laudable desire to proclaim the rights of nature" rights" which I deeply regret to think men have ever been the advocates for suppressing, and, if I might so write, confiscating, for the gratification of their own unmanly tyranny, and petty domestic government.

We do not only absolutely neglect the sex, or misdirect them in regard to education; but while youth and beauty are on their side, the scene which we present to them is all delusion, flattery, and misrepresentation; for, while we take every opportunity of persuading them to believe, when present, that their persons are divinely beautiful," and their sentiments and actions all perfection, when apart from them, we vainly pretend to laugh at their credulity, and impertinently satirise, and falsely exhibit their faults and follies.

Nor are the follies and foibles of the sex only the subject of verbal sneer and verbal criticism; such of my unkind and ungenerous countrymen as have been soured by disappointments, of any kind, and more particularly those who have been unfortunate in the pursuit of lawful-still more so that of unlawful love-like cowards, who attack every one whom they are assured will make no resistance, have, in the