1832.] The Petticoat Parliament. 279 



called the palladium of British liberty but it was not to be endured 

 that reflections should be made upon the faces and figures of members 

 of that house : this was license, not liberty ; she therefore moved that the 

 printer and publisher of the " Times" newspaper should be ordered to ap- 

 pear at the bar. The motion was carried without a division ; not, however, 

 without experiencing some smart opposition from the young and hand- 

 some members, who felt that they possessed better means of entrapping 

 men's hearts than the meshes of an act of parliament, and were little 

 inclined to visit with severity an infringement of their privileges, accom- 

 panied with a compliment to their persons. 



Lady Barbara Boxwell gave notice, that when the " Inexpressibles 

 Prohibition Bill" was before the Committee, she would move the inser- 

 tion of a clause, reserving the privilege of that article of apparel to the 

 members of both Houses of Parliament. The member for Hunting- 

 donshire said, she should feel great pleasure in seconding that motion ; 

 her riding-dress was very inconvenient for field sports : it prevented 

 her from shewing her agility ; she did not see why a woman's leg 

 should not look as well in buckskin as a gentleman's." 



Lady Morgan said, she could see no use in any dress whatsoever ; 

 nudity was the garb of nature. (Oh ! oh /) She hoped the day was 

 not far off (Question, question /) when every lady in the land would 

 be as superior to prejudice as she was herself, and when womanhood, 

 like truth (Oh ! oh /) Here the learned member became inaudible. 



The First Lady of the Admiralty moved for leave to bring in a bill 

 for the prevention of shipwrecks. She anticipated no oppossion to so 

 humane a measure. The plan she proposed was to impose heavy penal- 

 ties on the captains of vessels leaving port in windy weather, or not 

 returning thereto within one hour after receiving orders to that effect 

 froni the Admiralty. Hon. ladies, who had never left shore, could 

 form no idea of the perils and hardships encountered by mariners. 

 Since she had accepted office, she had made it her business to undertake 

 a voyage from Dover to Calais, and she was, therefore, entitled to speak 

 upon the subject. She could say with the poet : 



" Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco." 



Here the right hon. lady was called to order by the Speaker, who con- 

 cluded a long harangue by saying she had interrupted the hon. member 

 for the University of Dublin, when about to quote Italian, and she could 

 not consistently suffer another hon. lady to quote Greek. Lady Morgan 

 could not believe the Speaker was serious ; she had thought the .ZEneid 

 was as familiar to honourable ladies as her own " Book of the Bou- 

 doir." Mrs. Somerville hoped honourable ladies had some better em- 

 ployment than reading the literary trash of the last speaker ; if they 

 wanted relaxation, they had her late work on Celestial Mechanics. 

 Lady Morgan disliked alliteration, but she could not help telling the 

 hon. and learned member for the London University, that she con- 

 siderered her a miserable mathematician. She begged to ask her e( what 

 was an asymptote ?" Mrs. Somerville said, that the less the hon. 

 and learned member said upon that subject the better for her character. 

 Would the house believe that an asymptote was defined in one of her 



silly novels to be . Here there was a general cry of order, and 



question ; all was confusion for several minutes ; and I could perceive, 

 by the violent agitation of their bonnets and feathers, that the fair repre- 

 sentatives of the two Universities were settling their differences in a way 

 which savoured more of fancy than philosophy. 



