of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent women
now competing with the rougher sex for the laurels of renown. But you know
it all better than I can tell you. You have done honour due, in your time,
to Joanna Baillie and Mrs Jamieson, to Caroline Southey and Miss Ferrier.
You praised Mrs Butler when she deserved it; and probably esteem Mary
Howitt, and Mary Mitford, and all the other Maries, at their just
value--to say nothing of the Maria of Edgworthstown, so fairly worth them
all. I make no doubt that you were even one of the first to do homage to
the Swedish Richardson, Frederika Bremer; though, having sown your wild
oats, you keep your own counsel anent novel reading.

You will, therefore, probably sympathize in the general amazement, that,
at a moment when the sex is signalizing itself from pole to pole--when a
Grace Darling obtains the palm for intrepidity--when the Honourable Miss
Grimston's _Prayer-Book_ is read in churches--when Mrs Fry, like hunger,
eats through stone walls to call felons to repentance--when a king has
descended from his throne, and a prince from royal highnesshood, to reward
the virtues of the fair partners to whom they were unable to impart the
rights of the blood-royal--when the fairest specimen of modern sculpture
has been supplied by a female hand, and woman, in short, is at a premium
throughout the universe, all this waste of sermonizing should have been
thrown, like a wet blanket, over her shoulders!

But this is not enough, dear Mr Editor. I wish to direct your attention
towards an exclusive branch of the grievance. I have no doubt that, in
your earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns
appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present
unto them the "_Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters_"--or "_Mrs
Chapone's Letters_," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately
bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided
for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have
not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the
frippery tomes which load the counters of our bazars. _This_ perception
has come of itself. If I could _only_ be fortunate enough to enlarge your
scope of comprehension!

Mr dear Mr Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through
whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language,
thought proper to defin