290 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
Ty your laft Number, in the Enquirer, 
No. IIT, are fome obfervations relative to 
the talents of women, and the propriety of 
their application to inemruee and feience. 
I admit the juftnefs of fome of thefe obfer- 
vations, but do not concur in the whole of 
them. Iam fully convinced, that women 
ought to be better educated than they are ; 
that they havea right to the enjoyment of 
intelle€iual pleafures ; and that they are 
capable of attaining to confiderable literary 
excellence : but I am not convinced, that 
women are ‘* capable of rivalling men in 
aay thing, except bodily ftrength;”’ and I 
am fill farther from admitting, that ‘ wo- 
man has more mind than man;” or that 
fhe is “capable of higher refinement’ of 
intelleét.” There have certainly been fe- 
male writers, of very confiderable merit 5 
but no evidence has yet appeared, that 
they poffefs powers equal to thofe of men. 
We have never yet feen a Female Homer, 
er Virgil, or Bacon, or Newtcn. Much 
is faid, and certainly with reaion, of their 
difadvantages with refpeét to education 5 
but great numbers of women have received 
a much better education than Shakfpeare 
ever enjoyed; and yet, I believe, we may 
venture to afk, whether the works of all 
the female authors whe ever exifted, taken 
colleétively, are equalin value to the works 
of Shakfpeare, an uneducated man? But 
though I am not inclined ‘ to concede to 
woman fo unjuft a monopoly, as that of 
being at once he moft lovely and the 
wifeft part of the human fpecies,” T think 
highly of the talents of fome female writ- 
ers of the prefent age, as well as of former 
periods; and with to fee the intelieétual 
powers of women more diligently 2 and more 
generally cuitivated. 
qty * 
Tay, 12; 
As Bs 
1790. 

To the Editor of the Meo 
SIR, 
3 as 
bly Mazazine. 
& 
N your Magazine for March laf, were 
fome juft obfervations on the fubject of 
Cee ees BioGrapruy. Je as cer- 
tainly much to be regretted, that, of many 
very eftimable c charaéters, {carcely any me- 
morials fhould have bec D preferved. Among 
other refpeétable writers, of whom we 
have but a very flender account, one Is, 
Dr. Ricwarp Lueas, author of feveral 
volumes of Sermons, which poffefs confi- 
derable merit, and cf “ An Inquiry con- 
cerning Happinefs,’’ which has pafled 
Women inferior.to Men .. 
Dr. R. Lucas, [May 
through at Jez eight editions. He was 
the fon of Richard ‘Lucas, of Prefteigne, in 
_Radnorfhire, and born in that county about 
the year 1648. In’ 1664, he was fent to 
Jefus College, Oxford; and after taking 
both the degrees in arts, he entered into 
holy orders, about the year 1672. For 
fome time, he was mafter of the free-{chool 
at Abergavenny; but, in 1683, he be- 
came vicar of St. Stephen’s, Coleman- 
ftreet, and was alfo chofen le€turer of St. 
Olave. in Southwark, He took the de- 
gree of do€tor in divi inity in 1691, and was’ 
infialied prebendary of W 7eftmintter in. 
1696. About this time, he lott his fight, 
but lived many years after that misfortune. 
He wrote his “ Inquiry after Happinefs” 
after he became blind, or nearly fo; and, 
in his preface to that oie he fays, It 
has pleafed God, that, in a few years, I 
fhould finifh the more pleafant and delight- 
ful part of life, if fenfe were to be he 
judge and fiandard of pleafure; being con - 
fined (1 will not fay condemned) by well 
nigh utter blindnefs, to retirement and 
folitude. In. this fake, converfation has 
lof much of its former air and brifknefs ; 
bufinefs (wherein I could never pretend 
to any great addrefs) gives me now more ~ 
trouble than formerly; and that too with- 
out the ufual difpatch or fuccefs. Study, 
whick is the only employment left me, is 
clogged with this weight and incumbrance, 
that all the affiftance I can receive from 
without, muft be conveyed by another's. 
fenfe, not my own; which, it may eafily 
be believed,. are +i vans nents or organs as 
ill fitted, and as anya managed by: 
me, as wooden legs and hands by the 
maimed.’ 
In the fame p preface, he fays, as a rea- 
fon for his undertaking to write his In- 
quiry after Happinefs, “ The vigour and 
activity of my mind, the health and 
ftrength of my body, being now in the 
fides of my age, continuing unbroken, - 
under this affliction, I founid, that if I 
did not provide fome employment that 
might entertain it, it would weary out it- 
felf with fruitlefs defires of, and vain at- 
tempts after, its wonted: objects; and fo 
that ftrength and vivacity of nature, which ~ 
would render my ftate more comfortable, 
would make it more intolerable.” 
Dr. Lucas was the author of feveral 
theological pieces, befides thofe which have 
been already mentioned.- He died in 1735, 
and was buried in Weftmintter-abbey ;-but 
no ftone has been put there ‘to point out 
the place of >his interment. 
May 3> 1796, fi. S. 
T3 
