"6 Early in 1710, a new edition of the Tale of a Tub was in great forwardnefs. The Author's Apology, dated June 3, 1709, had been fome time in the bookfeller's poffeffion; and the cuts (then first added) were delayed, for Sir Andrew Fountaine's approbation of the defigns. In a letter to Ben. Tooke from Dublin, June 29, 1710; (printed in Vol. xvi. p. 1.) Jonathan complains much of the liberty taken with his character in the Key; talks of trying to obtain redress; and adds, I cannot but think, that little Parton Coufin of mine is at the bottom of this; for, having lent him a copy of fome parts of, &c. [N. B.] and he fhewing it, after I was gone for Ireland, and the thing abroad; he affected to talk fufpiciously, as if he had fome fare in it. If he fhould happen to be in town, and you light on him; I think you cught to tell him gravely, that if he be. the author, he fhould fet his name to the &c. and railly him a little upon it, and tell him, if he can explain fome things, you will (if he pleafes) fet his name to the next edition. I fhould be glad to fee how far the foolish impudence of a Dunce could go. I fhal!, at the end, take a little contemptible notice of the thing you fent me.' This he performed, in a fingle page of Poftfcript to the Apology. To Dr. Swift's letter, B. Tooke anfwered, July 10; that Coufin of yours, which you fpeak of, I neither know him; nor ever heard of him, till the Key mentioned him.' Thus, we fee, Thomas envied his Coufin the reputation of this performance and fpeaks of him contemptuoufly enough; as knowing little of his own profeffion, Divinity; and as little better than Mad: but Jonathan is even with him. And the world feems to be of Jona'than's fide; and to know nothing of Thomas. Lord Oxford, when he wanted to teaze or provoke Jonathan, affected to call him Thomas.-The latter feems to have had no correfpondence with the -former."

as to

"The Widow and her Cat" may amufe our political as well as our poetical readers. As Mr. Nichols has not pofitively afcribed this Fable to Swift; he very poffibly had not feen what is faid of it by Abel Boyer, in the Political State for 1720, p. 539. "Dr. Jonathan Swift (or, as fome pretend, Mr. Prior) publifhed a copy of verfes, called A Fable of the Widow and her Cat, wherein the Duke of Marlborough was charged with breach of truft."

A widow kept a favourite cat,

At first a gentle creature ;
But when he was grown fleek and fat,
With many a moufe, and many a rat,
He foon difclos'd his nature.

The fox and he were friends of old,
Nor could they now be parted;
They nightly flunk to rob the fold,
Devour'd the lambs, the fleeces fold;
And Pufs grew lion-hearted.

He

He fcratch'd her maid, he stole the cream,

He tore her best lac'd pinner;
Nor Chanticleer upon the beam,

Nor chick, nor duckling, 'fcapes, when Grim
Invites the fox to dinner.

The dame full wifely did decree,

For fear he should dispatch more,
That the falfe wretch fhould worried be;
But in a faucy manner he

Thus fpeech'd it, like a Lechmere :

"Muft I, against all right and law,
Like pole-cat vile be treated?
I! who folong with tooth and claw
Have kept domeftic mice in awe,
And foreign foes defeated!

Your golden-pippins, and your pies.
How oft' have I defended!
'Tis true, the pinner which you prize
I tore in frolick; to your eyes
I never harm intended.

I am a cat of honour"-" Stay !"
Quoth fhe, "no longer parley;
Whate'er did in battle flay,
you

By law of arms became your prey:
I hope you won it fairly.

Of this we'll grant you stand acquit,
But not of your outrages:
Tell me, Perfidious! was it fit
To make my cream a perquifite,
And steal, to mend your wages?

So flagrant is thy infolence,

So vile thy breach of trust is;
That longer with thee to dispense,
. Were want of power, or want of fenfe-
Here, Towzer!-do him juftice."

The following poem to Francis Bindon, Efq. was written in 1744, by Deane Swift, and appears, for the first time, in the collection now before us.

"When coxcombs rush to arts in heaven's defpight,

They and their works are doom'd to endless night.
We know there are, by fancy led aftray,
Who love to praise the phantoms of a day,
Capricious in their tafte. But, what is fame?
'Tis somewhat lasting that secures a name :
VOL. XI.

Bbb

"Tis

'Tis thine, my Bindon! thine, whofe piercing mind
Surveys the manners, paffions of mankind:
You, like Prometheus, bid the quickening foul
Wake into life, and animate the whole.

"Obferve that lovely form! See Boulter's* hand
Stretch'd out, to fave from wretchedness the land!
Behold that groupe, now freed from all complaint;
They praise, they blefs, they hang upon the faint.
"Firm to his country, fee where, full expreft,
Contemning flaves, the Patriot stands confeft:
With civic crown triumphant on his right,
The goddefs Liberty attracts the fight:
She waves her wand; the makes Oppreffion feel
The guilt-avenging juftice of her heel,
Trampling the monster down; with hideous pain
He writhes his form, fcarce able to complain :
Tortures, like blafts from hell, transfix him round;
He tears his flesh, and strives to bite the ground.

"Forgive thefe wild, thefe undefcriptive lines;
You fee I cannot reach thy vaft defigns;

Nor dare I praife, where arts with arts contend,
The Scholar, Painter, Architect, and Friend!"

We fhould gladly annex a few of the Editor's inftructive and entertaining remarks; but muft defer them to a fucceeding Review; when we fhall not fcruple to point out fuch corrections as have occurred in our perufal of this volume,

The History of Women, from the earliest Antiquity to the present Time; giving fome Account of almost every interefting particular concerning that Sex, among all nations, Ancient and Modern. By William Alexander, M. D, 2 vols, 4to. Price 11. 10s, Cadell.

All general hiftories, and indeed almost all particular histories, may be faid to contain the hiftory of men only, as men are the only, or at least the chief, perfonages that figure on the great theatre of war and politics. We have, it is true, the hiftory of fome particular women; nay, we have collections of the lives of many of the most eminent women: but this, we believe, is the first attempt, in our language, to give us a general hiftory of women of all ages and all nations, and is

*This alludes to a picture of the primate of all Ireland, now in the poorhoufe of Dublin. The primate, in a time of diftrefs, expended five-and-twenty pounds -day for fix weeks in fupporting the poor.

D. S.

This alludes to a picture of Dr. Swift, in Lord Howth's collection. D. S. there

therefore entitled to a favourable reception from every one, who is a friend to, or an admirer of, the fair fex. As we profefs ourselves of that character, we fhall treat the work with all poffible indulgence, and fhall readily excufe any defects in the execution, on account of the merit of the defign.

The author. prefixes to his work the following advertise

ment.

"As the following work was compofed folely for the amusement and instruction of the fair fex; and as their education is in general lefs extenfive than that of the men; in order to render it the more intelligible, we have ftudied the utmoft plainnefs and fimplicity of language; have not only totally excluded almost every word that is not English, but even, as much as poffible, avoided every technical term. As we perfuade ourselves, that nothing could be more perplexing to the fex, or to which they would pay less attention, than a long lift of authors on the margin, to fhew from whence we have derived our information, and as a great part of such lift would refer to books in other languages. we have entirely omitted it, and contented ourselves with fometimes interweaving into our text, the names and fentiments of fuch authors as have more peculiarly elu-, cidated the fubjects we werein veftigating. We have not vanity enough to recommend our work to the learned; they must have met with every anécdote related in it: but as the generality of the fair fex, whofe reading is more confined, now spend many of their idle hours in poring over novels and romancès, which greatly tend to mislead the understanding, and corrupt the heart, we cannot help expreffing a wifh, that they would fpare a part of this time to look into the hiftory of their own fex: a hiftory, which, we flatter ourselves, will afford them no irrational amufement, and which will more gratify the curiofity of the female mind in whatever relates to themfelves, than any thing that has hitherto been published. We do not mean by this to praife ourselves: we fubmit, with the utmost diffi- * dence, to the judgment of the public. If we have any merit, it is only in collecting together, and prefenting in one view, a variety of anecdotes concerning the fex, which lay fcattered in a great number of authors, ancient and modern, and not within the reading of the fex themselves. Recourfe to larger libraries might have nade these anecdotes more numerous, and better judgments would have felected them more judicioufly. On thefe accounts, none can be more fenfible of the imperfections of the work than we are; but we hope our candid readers will make fome allowances for our having trod a path which has never been attempted before; and the ladies, we flatter ourselves, will treat us with fome indulgence, when we affure them that we have exerted our utmost abilities, to put their history into the most engaging drefs, and to mingle pleasure with inftruction."

After refuting the charges that were brought against the fair-fex by the ancient fatirifts, the doctor proceeds in his Bbb 2 intro

introduction, to inform us, that the reign of chivalry was the period when women were held in the higheft eftimation, and when works, of fomewhat fimilar nature with his own, were published in their praise in foreign countries.

"Boccace," fays he, "feems to have been the first who started the idea of writing any thing larger than a fong or fonnet in praise of the fex. He published a Latin treatife, entitled, "Of illuftrious Women;" and in fearch of them he ranfacked the whole circuit of fable, of the facred, of the Greek and Roman hiftories. The idea was too happily adapted to the taste of the times, to be allowed to fink into oblivion; it was foon, therefore, taken up by a numerous herd of imitators. Francis Sordonati improving upon it, collected from every polished, and from every barbarous nation, to the number of one hundred and twenty, the names of fuch as had efcaped Boccace. This mode of writing now became fashionable; in a few years, not less than twenty authors had published in praise of women. The heroine, the religiofa, and the learned, stood foremoft in the catalogue. But the inferior virtues did not pass unnoticed; and, at last, even the making of an excellent pudding, and every other fpecies of culinary merit, came to be the fubject of panegyric; and, in fpite of all their natural phlegm, even the Dutch felt the enthufiafm, and contributed their mite to the praise of the fex. Subjects of writing upon, like modes of drefs, have their turns of being fashionable: this was the period in which the fashionable topic was to extol all the virtues, and to varnish over all the vices of women. Much had already been faid and wrote on the subject: but Hilario da Cofta, a monk, refolving to exceed all who had gone before him, published two quarto volumes, of eight hundred pages each; containing, according to his account, the panegyrics of all the women of the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries, who had diftinguifhed themfelves by any remarkable talents or virtues. But as if no talent, nor any virtue, could exift without the pale of the .Catholic church, the partial ecclefiaftic paffes in filence over every woman of other principles; and while he loudly praises the virtues of Mary Queen of England, whofe memory fucceeding ages have held in contempt; of her fifter Elizabeth, whom her country ftill remembers with gratitude, he makes no mention. The eulogies of this monk amount to one hundred and feventy. But who can enfure to himfelf, in this delufory world, the fummit of greatnefs or of fame? The voluminous labours of our monk were soon after greatly furpaffed by Paul de Ribera, who was delivered of a monftrous work, which he called "The Triumphs and heroic Enterprizes of eight hundred women."

No fooner, however, was that fpirit of gallantry, which had prevailed during the reign of chivalry, extinct, than men returned to their former railing against the fair fex.

"When this kind of gallantry," fays Dr. Alexander, "which taught every man to confider every woman as a kind of fuperior being, had wore itself out by the most extravagant exertions, the

4

minds