will avail, unless we set our house in order, and place on a purer, more truthful, more Christian-like basis, the sacred relations of domestic life. Therefore,,my Lord, this it is which women chiefly require. If domestic life be their "proper sphere," they have some claim to be listened to when they point out those anomalies which are felt within the limits of the home; those needs which enlarge the family relations; those progressive changes in the material "conditions of our national existence which are tending to make "woman's sphere," as well as "man's sphere," a much larger and more complicated system of duties than was contemplated in the days when "Adam delved and Eve span:" only let it be perfectly understood with regard to women, as well as with regard to men, that the necessity of enlarging the merely personal into the social relations, does not imply the substituting one set of duties for any other set of duties, but the enlargement of the whole sphere of duty.

But before I enter on the "woman's sphere" (muchabused phrase !), permit me to bring to your Lordship's notice one dangerous misapprehension, because I find that it has lately caused disturbance in many weak minds, and even in one or two strong ones; and that, in spite of its absurdity, it is gaining ground by frequent iteration. It has been said in a popular, well-written review that women consider themselves, and desire to be considered, as a separate class in the community, with separate interests, pursuits, and aims, from those of men. We are reproached at once with a desire to assimilate ourselves to men, and a desire to separate ourselves from men; and we are solemnly warned against the social evils and moral perils of such an assumption to ourselves and to the community at large.

My Lord, I deny absolutely, on the part of my countrywomen, any such desire, any such assumption. No more fatal, more unjust misconception could prevail, with regard

to the views and feelings entertained by intelligent Englishwomen on their own condition and requirements. On the contrary, it is the desire and ambition of women to be considered in all the relations, all the conditions of life, domestic and social, as the helpmate. We pray not to be separated from men, but to be allowed to be nearer to them; to be considered not merely as the appendage and garnish of man's outward existence, but as a part of his life, and all that is implied in the real sense of the word. We see the strong necessity in many cases, yet we do regret that the avocations of men accustom them to dispense with much of our sympathy and society, and that thus a great number of women are thrown upon their own resources, mental and social. Every circle of men from which women are excluded supposes a certain number of women separated from them. I do not find that this state of things has, hitherto, made men uncomfortable. Now, however, they seem, all at once, to be struck with it as an anomalous state, and I am glad of it; but surely it is not to be imputed to women as a fault or as an assumption. I saw the effects of this kind of social separation of the sexes when I was in America. I thought it did not act well on the happiness or the manners of either. The men too often became coarse and material as clay in private life, and in public life too prone to cudgels and revolvers; and the effect of the women herding so much together was not to refine them, but the contrary; to throw them into various absurd and unfeminine exaggerations. This at least was my impression. I confine my observations as much as possible to our own time and country, else I might enlarge on these influences, and show that in Italy, as in America, the separation of the two sexes, arising from quite different causes, is producing even worse results. It struck me in Italy that the absence of all true sympathy, a sort of disdain felt by the men for the women

as the mere amusement of an idle hour, might be fatal to the spirit of liberty. The women, ill educated, thrown on the priests for sympathy, consideration, and companionship, were distrusted and contemned by the liberal party. The men could not live without the love of women - it is rather an abuse of the sentiment so to speak- but they aimed to live without the social "comforts locked up in woman's love," without the sympathy, esteem, or appro-, bation of women. Of the deep taint of corruption, the gross materialism, the discord between scepticism and the most ignorant superstition, and other even worse results, I forbear to say more in this place.

I thought, when I was in Italy, that it might be difficult to establish political liberty on such a rotten basis; but it is fair to add that accomplished Italians, while admitting the whole extent of this social mischief, attributed it to the anomalous state of their political and religious institutions. I write this while rumours of war are around us, and while the deepest sympathies of my nature are roused in the cause of the Italian people; but not the less do I feel that, let the issue be what it may, they cannot build up a permanent national and political existence except on a healthier social basis. I am speaking only of the general impressions I brought away from America and from Italy, and do not presume to judge either country, only I should be sorry to see the same causes prevail and produce the same effects in this England of ours. The best safeguard against ruffianism, as against profligacy, lies in the true relation between men and women. There are professions which necessarily divide us from men during some hours of the day. Lawyers, government officers, merchants, soldiers, sailors, even when they are married and have homes, spend much of their time out of them. They should be careful that it is not too much. Why should this separation be carried farther than is inevitable? Why

do clubs, academies, charitable boards, literary and scientific societies so tenaciously exclude women, except when tolerated as an occasional and merely ornamental element? Men may say they do say-"What prevents you women from having charitable, literary, scientific societies and academies of your own?" But this is precisely the state of things which every wise man, every feeling woman, will deprecate. If, where no law of expediency or necessity require it, men studiously separate themselves from us and then reproach us that we form, in mere self-defence, some resources for ourselves, what can ensue but the moral deterioration of both? Let not woman be driven to this: we do not seek it, nor does it rest with us to avoid it.

I have endeavoured in these Essays to point out some of those influences which are tending to that "separation" against which we are warned. I am glad to find that the too early and complete division between boys and girls in training and education is beginning to excite attention in England, as a possible cause of much moral evil; and how often I have heard able and distinguished men lament the want of refined accessible female society in our Universities, and stigmatise it as a remnant of those monastic ordinances which prevailed at their foundation! But, then, is not the same true with regard to young lawyers, young artists, and young medical men when they first enter on their professional life? and who can doubt that this is a state of things fraught with mischief and misunderstanding in the subsequent family relations? Who can wonder that when men and women are united in marriage and in the government of the home, there is a want of comprehension of each other's motives, a want of respect for each other's independence, fatal to domestic peace?

Young men grow up from their school and college days in total ignorance of the true condition of woman, and the education which has been given to her. With a love

tender, reverent, and protective towards a good mother, with an affectionate yet somewhat exacting and patronising feeling towards a good sister (if they are so happy as to have either one or the other), as regards women generally, they enter on manhood and its duties with a total inability to understand, or rather an inclination to misunderstand and despise, the motives which actuate us. It has become the established creed with men that women have only one object-to obtain their love; and only one aim in life—to be married; and if we show a contempt for these vulgar notions, it is attributed either to the hypocrisy of weak-minded, or the presumption of strongminded, women. To this ignorance, and not to poorness of spirit and a bad heart, I attribute the sneering tone which has prevailed of late in one or two of our popular reviews. I have seen it with deep pain, knowing, what certainly the clever men who write these reviews cannot be aware of, the injurious effect, the deep-lying, incalculable evil they may produce. It is the natural instinct of woman to look up to man, to desire his approbation, to earn his esteem, to be worthy of his friendship, though she may not obtain his love, nor need his protection. In former days women did not usually read the satires written by men against our sex; they were too gross-in some instances too atrocious even for men to endure, unless recommended by their classical latinity to the study of our school-boys, or those who instruct our school-boys: but reviews and journals are now a part of the reading of all well-educated people; they lie on every drawing-room table. A woman takes up one of these able periodicals, expecting to find instruction, moral sustenance, religious guidance. Possibly she lights upon some article, written, not in Latin, but in choice and vigorous English, by one of those many clever young writers who, it is said, have come to a determination "to put down women." Here she finds her honest endeavours to raise