4 | Quotation from Hum:.... Plant and Infeét. 
Io the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sim, i) 
J DO not take up my pen to renew 
the controverfy with your fair cor- 
refpondent, refpecting the Talents of 
Women—I can affure her, that I am 
neither fo old, nor poffeffed of fo little 
gallantry, as not to wifh viétory in fuch 
a conteft to my antagonift.—May it be 
proved to the fatisfaétion of all your 
readers—That the talents of women 
have improved, are improving; and con- 
fufion to the man who would wifh them 
to be diminifhed or reprefied ! 
1 would not, however, be underitood 
as admitting that the talents of women 
have been proved to be perfeétly upon 
an equality with thofe of men ;—I mean 
no farther, than to exprefs my good 
wifhes that it may be proved; but as 
far as it is a queftion of fact, I fear 
faéts are againfi the affirmative of the 
propofition. My wifhes, in truth, were 
always favourable to the fair fex, and I 
entered the lifls only to counteract, what 
I could not but deem a monftrous doc- 
trine, which your fair correfpondent’ 
had by fome means forced into the con- 
troverfy; viz. * That the talents cf all 
mankind are perfeé&tily equal, and only 
altered by the influence of external 
caufes.”—But let this doétrine alfo re- 
pofe tranquilly in the “vault of all the 
Capulets;” the only deftiny to which it 
ought to be configned. 
My reafon for troubling you with 
this letter, is, to correét a ftatement in 
your fair corref{pondent’s letter, which 
is extremely injurious to the reputation 
of an author of fome credit: I fhould 
not have troubled you or myfelf on the 
occafion, had I found fhe had correéted 
it in her own Erratum in your laft Num- 
ber. 
It would have been candid in your 
fair corre{pondent, to have mentioned 
that what fhe gives as ‘¢ a quotation” 
trom Mr. Hume, is a feries of detached 
rs 2 
jentences connected together by her, 
own ingenuity ; but I have moft care- 
fully looked over my edition of Hume’s 
Effays, which is that of 1753, printed 
for Milier, and I have not been able to 
find in the Effay on National Charaéter, 
any fuch affertion as that, “ it is a maxim 
in all philofophy, that caufes which do 
not appear, are to be confidered as not 
exifting.”’ 
The faét is, if Hume had written the 
fentence unqualified as it ftands here ; 
he would have written a fentence which 
fo far from being “a maxim in all phi- 
i 
_ [Jan. 
lofophy,”’ muft excite a file upon the 
countenance of every philofopher; a 
fentence which is contradiéted by every 
principle of fcience, by every obferva- 
tion of our fenfes. The caufe of gravi- 
tation, or of magnetifm, does not appear, 
and yet will any man fay, that no caufes 
exift for. thefe effets? The afcent of 
vapour, the vegetation’ of plants, the 
emiffion of the eleétric matter by fome 
bodies, and the power of conduéting it 
in others, depend upon caufes which are 
not apparent. Is there a phyfician who 
knows the proximate caufe of one third 
of the difeafes for which he prefcribes ? 
In a word, fir, we know the aétual 
caufe of very few things; but, as a real 
philofopher, though not in petticoats, 
obferved many centuries ago, ‘* the wife 
only are con{fcious of their own igno- 
rance.”’ / 
January 3, 1797. 
SSE 
e.0); 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANT AND 
INSECT, mentioned in page 722 of our 
Magazine for November. 
Commurnicaicd by Dr. BEDDOES. 
CARbuusS {pinofifimus folis bifa- 
riam’ pinnatifidis, femi-decurrenti- 
bus, calycibus folitariis, ovatis, lanatis. - 
CuRCULIO anti-odontalgicus breyi- 
roftris, oblongus, fufcus, thorace punétato, 
elytris punéiato-firiatis, fupra maculis 
aureis undique adfperfus, fubtus luteo- 
villofus. Caput cum roftro thorace brevius. 
Roftrum craffum, planum, breviflimum. 
Oculi vix protuberantes, nigri. Anten- 
nz, clavate, roftro longiores, interrupte 
flavefcentes, clava apice cinerea. Thorax 
punctuculatus. Elytra leviter ftriato-punc- 
tata. Ale pallide flavefcentes, hyaline, 
unicoftate. Femora murica. Pedes ely- 
tris concolores. Corpus fupra futco-ni- 
grum maculis villofis aureis inordinate 
ad{perfum, fubtus nigro-cceruleum |a- 
nugine tenuiffima lutefcente undiqie vet- 
titum. . Habitat in floribus Card. Spi- 
nofifs, Sub finem Augufii. 

Io the Editsr of the Monthly Magazine. 
, SIR, 
AM obliged to your correfpondent 
Meirion, for the information he af- 
forded me in your lait Number; will he 
have the goodnefs to inform me likewife 
where the Poems of Hywel, fon of Owain 
Gwynez are to be found, and if they 
have been tranflated? One I have met 
with, among the valuable contents of the 
‘ Cambrian 
