decided, that learning was silver to the Commonalty of a State, gold to Nobles, and diamonds to Princes.

The Public Professors of both Universities may at present have little to do, merely because there is more to do now than formerly, under the system of private tuition and College exercises, and in preparing the young men for those exercises and examinations, which are indispensably necessary to the attainment of a degree; but no public Professor, if I am rightly informed, and I have taken some pains to enquire, would nowa-days be found to slink from his duties, if the statutes, rules, or regulations of the University, would enable him at all times to command an audience: many public Lectures are delivered in the course of every year, and more, in all probability would be read, if those who might be auditors, were not continually engaged in studies. and pursuits, judged to be more regularly academical; of which studies who can be expected to be better judges than the heads of the Society? In different Universities, different modes of education have very generally prevailed; and it would not be difficult I think to prove, that more is to be accomplished under the system of pri

vate study and private tuition, than by a general attendance on Public Professors only. If this be the case, as I am told it is, such improvements should be noticed. I know not how many editions Dr. Smith's celebrated work may have passed through, but as I find the above passage in the fourth, it may have been many times repeated spite of the changes that have taken place.

I am entirely confident that whatever may be said against the present studies and discipline of our two southern Universities, a very great deal of learning is cultivated there, and a very creditable attention paid to the morals, habits, and good conduct of the students in general. Exceptions there must be; but to return to the figure adopted by the ingenious author of the Lettres Persannes, I should decide that our King's daughters, ancient as they are, so far from being superannuated or in dotage, are rather getting younger, and at the present time are in a very promising state of vigour and activity; not however so far renovated perhaps as to be incapable of further improvement.

FEMALES,

THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES.

HAVING already said much about the rank of women, I need not perhaps be very particular as to their rights and privileges; only I must have leave to tell them, that they have really very few; in the eye of the law I mean. The first thing I read about them in some of our law books is, that "women in England, with all their moveable goods, as soon as they are married, are wholly in potestate Viri;” that is, at the will and disposition of the husband. They "cannot let, set, sell, give away, or alienate any thing without their husband's consent"-" a lady's most necessary apparel by the law, is not her's in property, but she must hold in capite of the husband; he being Caput Mulieris, the Head of the Woman."

Exalted however as this "Head" is by the law, there can be no doubt, but that it would be more exalted if it had a crown upon it. Here then the ladies of England have a fair opportu

nity of gaining a superiority, for by a law more ancient and more sacred than even our own British laws, it is declared, that a VIRTUOUS WOMAN is a CROWN to her husband." What a parcel of Kings we must have amongst us! But to return. All the moveable goods of a married woman are clearly ascertained to be, “" in potestate Viri;" as has been shewn; in the power of the husband; for so the words strictly imply. But whether the female tongue is to be reckoned among the moveables, wholly in potestate Viri, after marriage, does not seem to be clearly settled, unless indeed it be included, in another plain maxim of the law, to the following effect, "Sine Viro non respondere potest;" which is as much as to say, without the consent of her husband, a woman has no right to make any reply. In plain words, she must not presume to answer. But I believe this is entirely matter of law, and not of conscience; it does not seem to extend to any private or domestic arrangements. Though the female tongue be certainly a moveable, I believe it is pretty generally held to continue "in potestate Mulieris," even after marriage, and I know nothing to prevent it. To what extent the female tongue may be accounted a moveable,

F

Ovid, fond as he was of the ladies, has taught us, who speaks of the tongue of a beautiful female, which kept murmuring and complaining after it was cut out, and thrown on the ground. In the old ballad of the Wanton Wife of Bath are the following lines,

"I think, quoth Thomas, Women's tongues

Of aspen leaves are made;"

which of all moveables in nature, are decidedly the most so. Gay's Pippin Woman, in his Trivia, is of a piece with the case cited from Ovid.

"The crackling chrystal yields, she sinks, she dies;
Her head chopp'd off, from her lost shoulders flies.
Pippins she cried, but death her voice confounds,
And pip-pip-pip along the ice rebounds."

The Chinese seem to go farthest in their restrictions on the "moveable goods" of women, in the custom they observe of crippling their feet, that they may not gad abroad, and in the law which enacts that talkativeness in a married woman shall be accounted a fit cause of divorce. Vide Ta Tsing Leu Lee.

1. There seems to be some odd insinuation in the account the Spectator gives us, of the few successful Candidates for the Flitch of Bacon, dur