BOOK IV.

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.

CHAP.

I.-The Past,

II. The Past and Present,

Man and his Doings in the History of Woman,

III.-The Past, Present and Future,

PREFACE.

"By record of antique times I find

That women wont in warres to beare most sway,
And to all great exploites themselves inclin'd,
Of which they still the girlond bore away;
Till envious men, fearing their rules decay,
Gan coyne streight lawes to curb their liberty:
Yet, sith they warlike armes have laide away,
They have exceld in artes and pollicy,

That now we foolish men that prayse gin eke t'envy."

The Faerie Queene.

To add in any way to the right understanding of woman's character, is to increase the general stock of the knowledge of human nature. There are strange thoughts about the component parts of this human nature. Men and women measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves, and make no end of mistakes.

The

individualism of any man is not the standard mea

sure to reduce the world to.

The elements of human nature are like water, incompressible.

The history of woman at one time, is a paradox to the same history at another time. In one age she stands trembling before her lord and brutal master, fearful lest by one blow he should strike her to the ground. In another age she is the sovereign mistress of the sphere; man is the slave doing homage to the name, and performing worship at the footstool of woman; and she leads him by the golden chain of

chivalry. One of this age says, "He who loyally serves his lady, will not only be blessed at the height of man's felicity in this life, but will never fall into those sins that prevent happiness hereafter. Pride will be entirely effaced from the heart of him who endeavours by humility and courtesy to win the grace of a lady. The true faith of a lover will defend him from the sins of anger, envy, sloth, and gluttony; and his devotion to his mistress renders the thought impossible of his conduct ever being stained with the vice of profligacy.'

"What thing she bid me do, I do,

And where she bid me go, I go,
And when she likes to call, I come,

I serve, I bow, I look, I lowte,
My eye followeth her about.

What so she will, so will I,

When she would sit, I kneel by,"-Gower.

The age, like a kaleidoscope, is changed, and immediately is presented another view. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, John Aylmer, bishop of London, as a soldier priest, and with lance in hand, or rather in tongue, makes the following attack upon the then character of woman:-" Many women are more learned, discreeter, more excellent, and more constant than a number of men; but the greater part are fond, foolish, wanton, flibbergibes, wavering, witless, tattlers, triflers, eavesdroppers, rumour-raisers, wine-bibbers, backbiters, and in every respect doltified with the dregs of the devil's

*Dame des Belles Cousines. † Bishop Aylmer's Sermons.