shown in that induction of the philosophic Aspasia, addressed to Xenophon and his wife, as related by Eschines, a disciple of Socrates. Having composed this induction for the purpose of producing a reconciliation between them, Aspasia thus concludes it:-'For when once you shall be persuaded that neither a worthier man nor a more delightful woman exists upon earth, then, most undoubtedly, will each of you seek most anxiously to repossess that which you esteem the best of its kind-thou to be husband to the most perfect of women, she to be wife to the most excellent of men.'

"Holy indeed, and more than philosophic, is this sentiment of hers,worthy, in truth, to be the offspring, not of mere philosophy, but of wisdom herself. Holy is the error, and blessed the illusion, through which a perfect affection may keep the matrimonial bond unbroken, by purity of heart yet more than of person."

HEBE.

By the old Greek mythologists, Hebe was fabled to be the presiding deity of youth-the ever-blooming wine-bearer to all the gods. She was usually represented as a young virgin, crowned with flowers and arrayed in a variegated garment.

WOMANLY VIRTUES.

WE have asserted the equality of the sexes. We demand the union of their interests. Let it not be thought that we desire a confusion of duties: though we exclaim against the offensive cant of male employments and female proprieties. It is absurd for either man or woman to attempt that for which either he or she is unqualified, under whatever sex, or name, the attempted duty may be classed; but it is far more absurd to classify the duties of humanity in the prejudiced spirit of partial experience. Do away with the artificial restrictions which prevent free action, which cripple Nature. She will grow straight out of her irons.

Are there no womanly deeds worth chronicling? Have we not read of the Royal Wife who sucked the poison from her husband's wound, saving his life at the risk of her own-a noble image of the womanly love that sucks the poison out of the wounded life of man? Shall we forget Her who fed her prisoned father from her own breast; or Her, that noble mother of patriotism, who, when she saw her dead son borne upon his shield, rejoiced that he had well served his country? The high-souled and outraged Boadicea is not her name worth a place in history? The Saviour of France, Joan of Arc, the glorious peasant-girl; and her worthy sister, the Maid of Saragossa-are these but dim lights in the galaxy of Fame? Was not Cleopatra Queen of Men, the Mistress of the Cæsars? The imperial Zenobia; England's Empress, the master-politician, the sagacious Elizabeth-verily, wise and noble men, such men as Longinus and Walter Raleigh, have knelt to these. Modest Men! whose self-esteem does not insist that Truth shall fall down and worship the clay-footed image it has set up-which of you is greater than these? Oh lend your name to the echoing of eternity, for the scroll of History holds a forged record, and Fame is hungering for truth! Will it be urged that these noble ones were exceptions? Well, and was not Napoleon an exception? Heaven be thanked, therefore, albeit his evil genius has done the world good service. There are not many Shaksperes. The world has

* Eleanor, Queen of Edward I.

more continents than epic poems. And were all men wise as Lucretius and lovely as the Divinest Shelley, they would owe something to woman's nurture. Cato died not more nobly than the heroic French woman, who, on the scaffold, asked for a pen, that she might "write the strange thoughts that were rising in her;" and the name of Angelina Grimke, the fearless abolitionist, the zealous friend of the American slave, who has not quailed under the blows of hatred or at the savage menaces of contumely and death, shall be written on the world's heart above even that of the world-honoured Washington, the patriot and, alas! the slave-holder.

And "there is no power in woman;" "her capacities are limited":-by man's arbitrary restrictions. Blame not the chained eagle if it soar not heavenward. We have certainly no record of a Great Epic Poem written by a Woman, it may be that a woman could not write a first-rate tragedy. She may do more. The life of a clear-souled woman is in itself a poem; the history of her passion and the fearful wrestling of Love and Doom is the most solemn tragedy. Which is greater the Original or the Image; the Incarnate Divinity or the grandest scriptural revelation of Beauty? Surely the performance shall out-value the conception.

We have no intention of drawing up a Table of Duties. We desire to teach; we dare to lecture. But we recommend no rules to be learned by rote. We would expel the Dogmatists and in their place enthrone the better Divines, the addressers of the heart. Learn, from the Sacred Writings of the Poets--the Greater Prophets—what all of womankind may hope to be!

BEAUTIFUL PORTRAITURES OF WOMEN.
BY THE GREAT ENGLISH POETS.

At meaté was she well ytaught withal:
She let no morsel from her lippés fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her saucé deep;

Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep,
That not a droppé fell upon her breast;
In courtesy was set full much her lest; (2)
Her upper lippé wipéd she so clean,
That in her cuppé was no farthing seen

Of grease, when she drunken had her draught:
Full seemély after her meat she raught; (3)
And certainly she was of great dispórt,
And full pleasant, and amiable of port:
It painéd her to counterfeit the cheer
Of Court; and to be stately in mannér,
And to be held commanding reverence.
But, for to speakén of her conscience-

Madame Roland.

(1) A Saint of the Romish Calendar.

(2) Pleasure.

(3) Reached.

She was so charitable and so piteous,
She wouldé weep if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trap, if it were dead, or bled;
Of smallé houndés had she, that she fed

With roasted flesh, and milk, and wassail-bread : (4)
But sore wept she if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a yardé (5) smart;
And all was conscience and tender heart!
Full seemély her wimple (6) pinchéd (7) was;
Her nose was straight; her eyén gray as glass;
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red;
And certainly she had a fair forehead-
It was almost a spanné broad, I trow;
For hardély she was not undergrow. (8)
Full proper was her cloak, as I was 'ware;
Of small corál about her arm she bare

A pair of beadés, gaudéd (9) all with green;

And thereon hung a brooch, of gold full sheen,(10)

On which was first ywritten a crowned "A,"

And after-" Amor vincit omnia."(11)

(PARTIALLY MODERNISED FROM THE) Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.

Miranda.

MIRANDA.

(FROM SHAKSPERE.)

Enter FERDINAND, bearing a log.

You look wearily.

Ferdinand. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me
When you are by at night. I do beseech you,

(Chiefly, that I might set it in my prayers,)

What is your name?
Mira.

Miranda :-O my father,

I have broke your hest to say so!

Fer.

Admir'd Miranda!

Indeed, the top of admiration; worth
What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have ey'd with best regard, and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues
Have I lik'd several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
And put it to the foil: But you, O you,
So perfect, and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best.

I do not know

Mira.
One of my sex; no woman's face remember,
Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen
More that I may call men, than you, good friend,
And my dear father: how features are abroad,
I am skill-less of; but, by my modesty,
(The jewel in my dower,) I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you;
Nor can imagination form a shape,

(4) Bread made of the finest flour.

(8) Undergrown. (9) Trimmed.

(5) Rod.

(10) Bright.

(6) A neck-kerchief.

(7) Plaited.

(11) "Love conquers all things."

Besides yourself, to like of: But I prattle
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts
Therein forget.

Fer.

I am, in my condition,

A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king;

(I would, not so!) and would no more endure
This wooden slavery, than I would suffer

The flesh-fly blow my mouth.-Hear my soul speak:
The very instant that I saw you, did

My heart fly to your service; there resides,
To make me slave to it; and, for your sake,
Am I this patient log-man.

Mira.

Do you love me?

Fer. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
And crown what I profess with kind event,

If I speak true; if hollowly, invert
What best is boded me, to mischief! I,
Beyond all limit of what else i'the world,
Do love, prize, honour you.

Mira.

I am a fool,
To weep at what I am glad of.
Fer.

Wherefore weep you?.

Mira. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer
What I desire to give; and much less take,

What I shall die to want: But this is trifling;
And all the more it seeks to hide itself,

The bigger bulk it shews. Hence, bashful cunning!
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence !
I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no.

Fer.

And I thus humble ever.

Mira.

My mistress, dearest,

My husband then?

Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing

As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand.

Mira. And mine, with my heart in 't.

The Tempest: Act I, Scene 1.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.

When I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best:
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded; wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanced, and like folly shews;
Authority and reason on her wait;

and, to consummate all,

Greatness of mind, and nobleness, their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe

About her, as a guard angelic placed.

Paradise Lost: Books IV and VIII.

(FROM SHELLEY.)

THERE was a Power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace

Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream,
Was as God is to the starry scheme.

A Lady, the wonder of her kind,

Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind

Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,

Tended the garden from morn to even:
And the meteors of that sublunar heaven,

Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth,
Laugh'd round her footsteps up from the Earth!

She had no companion of mortal race,

But her tremulous breath and her flushing face
Told, whilst the morn kiss'd the sleep from her eyes,
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:

As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake
Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake,
As if yet around her he lingering were,

Though the veil of daylight conceal'd him from her.

Her step seem'd to pity the grass it prest;
You might hear by the heaving of her breast,
That the coming and going of the wind
Brought pleasure there and left passion behind.

And wherever her airy footstep trod,
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod
Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep,
Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep.

I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet;
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came
From her glowing fingers through all their frame.