462 
rough inelegant husband may shock 
her taste without destroying her 
peace of mind. She will not model 
her soul to suit the frailties of her 
companion, but bear with them: 
his character may be a trial, but not 
an impediment to virtue. 
If Dr. Gregory confined his re- 
mark to romantic expectations of 
constant love and congenial feelings, 
he should have recollected that ex- 
perience will banish what advice can 
never make us cease to wish for, 
when the imagination is kept alive 
at the expence of reason. 
I own, it frequently happens that 
women who have fostered a romantic 
unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste 
their lives in imagining how happy 
they should have been with a hus- 
band who could Jove them with a 
fervid increasing affection every day, 
and all day: but they might as well 
pine married as single—and would 
not be a jot more unhappy with a 
bad husband than longing for a good 
one. That a proper education, or, 
to speak with more precision, a well 
stored mind would enable a woman 
to support a single life with dignity, 
I grant; but that she should avoid 
cultivating her taste, lest ber hus- 
band should occasionally shock it, is 
quitting a substance for a shadow, 
To say the truth, I do not know of 
what use is an improved taste, if the 
individual is not rendered more in- 
dependent of the casualties of life ; 
if new sources of enjoyment, only 
dependent on the solitary operations 
of the mind, are not opened. People 
of taste, married or single, without 
distinction, will ever be disgusted by 
various things that touch not less ob- 
serving minds. On this conclusion 
the argument must not be allowed 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1792. 
to hinge; but, in the whole sum of. 
enjoyment, is taste to be denomin- 
ated a blessing ? } 
The quesiion is, whether it pro- 
cures most pain or pleasure? The 
answer will decide the propriety of 
Dr. Gregory's advice, and shew how 
absurd and tyrannic it is thus to lay » 
down a systeny of slavery; or to at- 
tempt to educate moral beings by 
any other rules than those deduced 
from pure reason, which apply to 
the whole species. 
Genileness of manners, forbear- 
ance, and long-suffering, are such 
amiable God-like qualities, that in 
sublime poetic strains the Deity has 
been invested with them; and, per- 
haps, no representation of his good- 
ness so strongly fastens on the hu- 
man affections as those that repre- 
sent himabundant in mercy and will- 
ing to pardon. Gertleness, consider- 
ed in this point of view, bears on its 
front all the characteristics of gran- 
deur, combined with the winning 
graces of condescension; but what 
a different subject it assumes when 
it is the submissive demeanour of 
dependence, the support of weakness 
that loves, because it wants protec- 
tion; and is forbearing, becaus eit 
must endure injuries; smiling un- 
der the lash at which it dare not 
snarl! Abjectas this picture appears, 
it is the portrait of an accomplished 
woman, according to the received 
opinion of female excellence, sepa- 
rated by specious reasoners from 
human excellence, Or they * kind- 
ly restore the rib, and make one 
moral being of a man and woman! 
not forgetting to give her all the 
* submissive charms.’ 
How women are to exist in that 
state where there is neither marry~- 
% Vide Rousseau, and Swedenborg. 
ing 
