REVIEWS—HISTORICAL PICTURES RETOUCHED. 533 
social duties and privileges, we have no thought of entering. We 
doubt not it will right itself, under the same divine guidance which 
can be traced through all the social changes, by means of which we 
now see on our own American Continent the contrasting pictures of 
the Indian savage, with woman as the tiller of his fields, the 
bearer of his burdens, his meek uncomplaining slave and household 
drudge ; and on the other hand woman in the happy domestic circles 
of English and American social life, the sunshine of his hearth, and 
the true helpmate of man. Weare well content to leave woman to 
work out her destiny, with all the aids that philanthropy and the 
earnest, wisely directed christian zeal of womanhood can bring to bear 
on a cause best left in such hands: 
Let her make herself her own, 
To give or keep, to live and learn, and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undeveloped man, 
But diverse. Could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain, His dearest bond is this, 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
In the “Studies”? which occupy the larger part of this volume, we 
have critical and biographical sketches ot “‘The Women of the House 
of Montefeltro,”’ ‘‘ of the Women of Bologna,” and of various remark- 
able selected examples of noble womanhood, from Aspasia to Madame 
de Stael and Margaret Fuller. Let us select one example from the 
fair and gifted daughters of Italy, to whom so mae a share of the 
volume is devoted. 
The name of Properzia dei Rossi is not now introduced for the 
first time to English readers. A brief notice of the learned Isotta 
Nogarolo, of Bologna, concludes in this characteristic fashion : 
“When one of the Foscarini became Podesta of Verona in 1451, 
Isotta entertained the learned company around her with a discussion 
upon the comparative guilt of Adam and Eve. Her thesis, which 
proved Eve to have been the seduced rather than the seducer, was 
printed a century after her death. She never married. Lady Mor. 
gan says it was to show her contempt for that sex of which Adam. 
was an example; but a masculine critic wickedly suggests, that the 
countenance which hangs in the library at Bologna could never have 
found many admirers. She died about 1466,—1it is generally thought 
at an early age; and left a large number of manuscripts, chiefly 
orations and epistles, in Latin.” 
