to be
proud of raising her spirits 'than of raising all the plants and
ripening all the minerals in the earth.' He will fly to her in Italy at
the least notice and 'from thence,' he adds, 'how far you might draw me
and I might run after you, I no more know than the spouse in the song of
Solomon.'

This was the foible of an age in which women were addressed as though
they were totally devoid of understanding; and Pope, as might have been
expected, carried the folly to excess.

Against another French custom Addison protests in the _Spectator_,
namely, that of women of rank receiving gentlemen visitors in their
bedrooms. He objects also to other foreign habits introduced by
'travelled ladies,' and fears that the peace, however much to be
desired, may cause the importation of a number of French fopperies. But
the proneness to follow the lead of France in matters of fashion is a
folly not confined to the belles and beaux of the last century.

If a chivalric regard for women be an indication of high civilization,
that sign is but faintly visible in the reigns of Anne and of the first
Georges. Sir Richard Steele paid a noble tribute to Lady Elizabeth
Hastings when he said that to know her was a liberal education, but his
contemporaries usually treat women as pretty triflers, better fitted to
amuse men than to elevate them. Young takes this view in his _Satires_:

'Ladies supreme among amusements reign;
By nature born to soothe and entertain.
Their prudence in a share of folly lies;
Why will they be so weak as to be wise?'

and Chesterfield, writing to his son, treats women with similar
contempt.... 'A man of sense,' he says, 'only trifles with them, plays
with them, humours and flatters them as he does with a sprightly,
forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with,
serious matters, though he often makes them believe that he does both,
which is the thing in the world that they are proud of.... No flattery
is either too high or too low for them. They will greedily swallow the
highest and gratefully accept of the lowest.'

Nearly twenty years passed, and then Chesterfield wrote in the same
contemptuous way of women in a letter to his godson, a 'dear little boy'
of ten.

'In company every woman is every man's superior, and must be addressed
with respect, nay, more, with flattery, and you need not fear making it
too strong ... it will be greedily swallowed.'

Even Addison, while