blood royal; and the younger son of a royal house, that he has not those of the elder. All restraint may be considered injustice.

A right to sovereign authority is a civil right; and, of course, can be enjoyed on no other terms than those which are prescribed by the civil constitution. It would be monstrous to say that the law is unjust, because, having given much, it does not give more; because, having elevated certain females to the rank of princesses, and given them precedence over all other females, it yet withholds from them the sovereign power. The right to govern having been conferred upon certain persons or families for the public good, none are entitled to merely complain of injustice, because they are excluded from this power by a law, made centuries before they were born.

"All mankind are equal." True, as to their natural rights; but their rights, as members of civil society, are very different. In the exclusion of females from the throne, in countries where the Salic law prevails, there is neither natural nor civil injustice there is no natural injustice, because no natural right is invaded: there is no civil injustice, for the law itself, which confers civil rights, refuses to females the right in question. The law of nature does not give, and the law of the land denies.

It having been asserted that all men were equal, (which, when spoken of men in a state of nature, is true,) it was assumed that women were partakers of the equality. Now, independent of civil law, there does seem to exist a sort of natural subjection of the female sex to the other. We wish to speak with a great deal of caution, and we are almost afraid of going too far; but still we think that in every situation of life,as a daughter, and subsequently as a wife, and, even in the absence of any other relation, as a sister,-it does seem to be the intention of nature that the female should be in some degree subject to the authority of the father, the husband, the brother. Authority is not to degenerate into tyranny, nor submission into slavery. It is to be a mild and almost impalpable sway, a graceful and voluntary subjection. We are quite sure that the ladies themselves would not wish the custom of society to be otherwise. It has been thus from the beginning of the world to the present time. We have some reason, therefore, for concluding, that it is natural that it should be so.

Into the question of the intellectual equality of the sexes we have no occasion to enter. It seems to be conceded that the education of women does not qualify them for the duties of public life. Would our opponents wish them educated otherwise? Are they willing to sacrifice to the gratification of this wish (if they entertain it), that lofty purity which recoils from the approach of contamination; those retiring graces which

surround woman with a superhuman charm; that delicacy and sensibility which, though bestowed on woman by nature, are refined and matured by education? Will they be content with Spartan strength of body and Spartan energy of mind, united with Spartan coarseness and Spartan immodesty? if not, let them be satisfied with women as they are.

In all that has been said in praise of the female sex, we most cordially agree. We only contend that nature has not designed them for any empire, but that of the affections; that education does not qualify them to wield any sceptre, but that of domestic government. The few instances which occur of women displaying extraordinary talents for public rule, give no additional lustre to the female character. Where they have been marked by ambition, rapacity, or cruelty, we of course turn from them with disgust. But even where this has not been the case, the masculine character of their minds renders them unamiable; and, in the same proportion that our admiration of them as sovereigns is increased, that feeling of respectful tenderness which we entertain for them as women is diminished.

It seems somewhat strange that it should be held unjust to withhold from females the highest authority in the state, while it is not unjust to refuse them access to stations of subordinate authority. If females are entitled to be admitted of right to the highest dignity of the state, a fortiori they have a right to claim admission to the inferior. Why should not peeresses in their own right take their seats in the upper house or chamber of Parliament? and why should not female commoners be eligible to be elected members of the lower? Why may we not have female Ambassadors, and Secretaries of State; female Commissioners, Treasurers, Councillors, Prefects, Presidents, and Plenipotentiaries? Why not female Barristers and Serjeants at Law, female Judges and a female Lord Chancellor ? (a Lady Chancellor we should have said.) If there be no injustice in excluding women from these offices, there can be none in excluding them from the sovereign power.

On the policy of such exclusion, we are not now invited to give an opinion. In some countries the succession of females may not be objectionable. In this country, for instance, no evil effects have ever resulted from it. Our insular position, the constitutional limitations of the royal prerogative, and other circumstances, render our situation very peculiar. As a part of our own venerable law, it is devoutly to be hoped that the principle of female succession may long be preserved. We owe to it our preservation from one of the opposite, but equal horrors of slavery or anarchy. But there is no reason why all the nations of the earth should adopt it with implicit reverence. It may be wise and beneficial in some countries,—

directly the contrary in others. The policy of each nation must be determined by the peculiar circumstances of that nation. All that we contend for is this, that a right to a throne is unknown to the law of nature; that the civil law, when creating the right may restrain and limit its exercise in any way, and annex t it any conditions which may appear most beneficial to the community; that the law which limits the right, has precisely the same authority as that which creates it; consequently, that the exclusion of any person or class of persons is not unjust, inasmuch as it violates neither a natural nor a civil right. Indeed, so long as the law of exclusion exists, it would be unjust to admit the succession of an excluded person; because this could not be done without violating the right of some other person.

We do not mean to argue that all legislative acts become just when they acquire the force of laws. A law A law may be unjust, but then it must unnecessarily restrain the exercise of some natural right. The right to the throne is not a natural right, therefore no limitation of it can be unjust.

IN REPLY, the Opener most candidly admitted, that, if the strength of his opponents' arguments were at all proportionate to their ingenuity, they were entitled to a decision in their favour. Unless a plain statement of what appeared to his humble mind the observations fairly rising out of the ques. tion could succeed, he was completely hopeless; for, in ingenuity, the contest would be quite unequal.

The construction of the Salic law was not very material to the present question; but, as his opponents had thought proper to deny the meaning he conceived it conveyed, he would make one or two observations on that part of the subject. They had said, the law did not mention "land" until the 6th article; and, therefore, the former ones, admitting females to succession, must apply to another species of property. If, however, the first article were examined, no difference would appear in the species of property mentioned throughout. Si quis homo mortuus fuerit, et filios non dimiserint, si pater aut mater superfuerint ipsi in hæreditatem succedant. From this it was clear that, if a man had died, leaving a son, that son would have obtained the hæreditatem: if he had not a son, according to the language of the law, the father or the mother would attain it. Now, there could be no reason for excluding the son from the possession of land; therefore, if the hæreditatem meant any thing, it meant land, as that was the estate the son was to receive; but, on the failure of her son's male issue, or the death of her husband, the mother was to succeed to the hæreditatem; therefore, she was to succeed to the same estate, as would her grandson, had such a person been in existence.

But this estate was land, therefore the law admitted the possibility of a woman succeeding to land. If, then, hæreditatem meant land in the first article, there could be no reason why it should not have the same sense in the second, third, fourth, and fifth. The admirers of the Salic law had fallen into the same error as the French jurists, in the time of Philip of Valois, and many other writers since that period. They did not perceive that the five first articles referred to those cases where men died without children; and the sixth, to those where children of both sexes were left. Then, as to the argument, that no natural right to property existed, it proved too much, or too little; mankind either had, or had not, a right to property: if they had a right, that right must be equal, and therefore women could not be excluded with justice; if they had not a right, they could not justly take that on which they had no claim, and say, "we will deprive more than one half of our race of an opportunity to take a share of it," for that would be to introduce the title of brute strength. The Opener would not contend that women had a natural right to a throne: no human being had such a right; but, since all human beings were without a right to a throne, it must be unjust for one order of beings to arrogate to themselves an advantage over the other. He did not blame the limitation of the crown to one family, but he did blame the limitation to one sex of that family. The peace and happiness of kingdoms required the former, as experience shewed: the peace and happiness of kingdoms did not require the latter, as experience also shewed. In the natural subjection of the female sex, something like inconsistency existed. If this subjection meant anything, it meant the right vested in men of commanding the other sex. It was strange, then, that a man should not have a natural right to eat an apple, and yet he should have a natural right to make slaves of the other sex. If this principle had become old, it communicated by its antiquity other feelings than veneration. The observation that women would not be so pleasing as at present, if they were educated in a manner which should enable them to fill a throne, was purely selfish. It was much more convenient for usurpers to have the other sex as their pretty baubles, than to give them an education; which would prove that the superiority of the former only arose from their greater share of impudence. What indeed was the present degree of superhuman respect commonly paid to women, but a refined species of contempt, and not the lasting respect which education and improvement inspired. Still he was not an advocate for women learning the masculine exercises of the Spartan school, nor assuming Spartan indelicacy. He would only wish that, when it was found expedient to limit the succession to one

family, such an education might be received by the females of that family as would fit them for government. It was no more necessary for all females to receive a political education than for all males. As to the minor offices of the state, they depended on a different principle. There was no greater necessity for having female barristers or female chancellors, than male semptresses, or male laundresses.

Several of the subordinate duties of society had been so long confined to the male sex in all nations, that, however just the claims of the other sex, on the ground of abstract right, great inconvenience and injury would result to society from laying aside the established custom. It was different with a throne; no inconvenience had been found to result from permitting a woman to be its occupant. The custom only prevailed in that country, where the obsolete principle of the feudal system had been foisted on the world as the true interpretation of the Salic law. The idea of the insular situation of England being the main cause of our policy on this point differing from that of other nations, was, to the opener's weak comprehension, unintelligible. Surely the situations of Spain, Russia, Hungary, and Naples, were not insular: their policy on this head would, according to all reasonable calculation, be the same as that of France, if continental dominions required such a policy; yet queens were there admitted to sovereign power, and no disadvantage had thence resulted.

These were, the Opener believed, all the arguments his opponents had employed, and he hoped the answers he had given were satisfactory. Until it could be proved that one sex had a right to exclude the other from a privilege, to which that other had an equally powerful claim, and the enjoyment of which could produce neither injury nor inconvenience to society, he hoped he should remain entitled to a decision.

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STANZAS ON A SLEEPING CHILD.

Rosy cherub, sweetly smiling,

In the downy arms of sleep,

What may be the dream beguiling,

While thine hours unconscious creep!

Are thy little pleasures rising

O'er thine infant vision now;

Or do fancied ills surprising

Blanch with new found fears thy brow?