98 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



And this was written by that "mirror of politeness and 

 chivalry" whose name has for two centuries been synony- 

 mous with that of a perfect gentleman! And Lady Mon- 

 tagu was compelled to pen her caustic and pathetic plaints 

 during the age of Pope, Steele, Addison, Swift, 1 Johnson, 

 Dryden and Goldsmith the most brilliant pleiad of liter- 

 ary men that England had known since the days of Shake- 

 speare. 



So unnatural for women were literary and scientific 

 pursuits regarded by all classes that the few who attained 

 any eminence in them were classed as abnormal creatures 

 who deserved no more consideration than did the Pre- 

 cieuses across the Channel. And so great was the power 

 of public sentiment against women writers that Fanny 

 Burney was afraid to acknowledge the authorship of Eve- 

 lina. Even in Jane Austen's days, the feeling that a 

 woman, in writing a book, was overstepping the limitations 

 of her sex was so pronounced that she never actually 

 avowed the authorship of those charming works which 

 have been the delight of three generations of readers. It 

 was this same sentiment that caused the Bronte sisters and 

 George Eliot, as well as many other notable women, to 

 write under pseudonyms. They feared to disclose their 



afraid of her becoming a good poetess, but he was afraid of the 

 disadvantages which were likely to be suffered by her, if she were 

 supposed to be a lady of literary attainments. ' ' 



i It was Swift who had such a low opinion of woman 's intellect 

 that in writing to one of his fair correspondents he told her that she 

 could "never arrive in point of learning to the perfection of a 

 schoolboy. J; Lady Pennington, strange to say, seems to have shared 

 his views, for in a manual of advice to young ladies, she declares: 

 "A sensible woman will soon be convinced that all the learning the 

 utmost application can make her master of will be in many points 

 inferior to that of the schoolboy.' 7 "At the time the Tatler first 

 appeared in the female world any acquaintance with books was dis- 

 tinguished only to be censured," and it was then considered "more 

 important for a woman to dance a minuet well than to know a for- 

 eign language." 



