“Le donne sono venute in eccellenza, Di ciascun arte ove hanno posto cura”—
with how much greater truth might the affirmative be repeated amidst the blaze of female talent, by which the present century is signalised! Not to go beyond the limits of our own land, we have had delineations of life worthy of Cervantes and Le Sage, of Fielding and Smollett, but traced with faultless purity, from that great school of writers in which the names of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Gaskell, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Oliphant, George Eliot, and Miss Mulock, are only some of the most conspicuous. Joanna Bailey and Miss Mitford have given tragedies to the stage which would have gained a rich harvest of golden opinions in the days of Massinger and Ford. In lyric poetry, we have Miss Landon, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, and Mary Howitt. Miss Martineau has made the most practical and unimaginative of studies, political economy, as attractive as the most interesting fictions of romance. In art, woman holds a distinguished place. She can dip her pencil in hues borrowed from the rainbow, and transfer her genius to canvas. The master works of Landseer are more than rivalled by Rosa Bonheur; and Mrs. Jameson is the best art-critic England has ever produced. Till recently, women could be Associates of the Royal Academy; but they were distinguishing themselves, and to the burning disgrace of the Academy, the privilege was taken from them. Do the Academicians know of what sex were the Muses and the Graces?
“Woman sister,” says Thomas de Quincey, “there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother man. No, nor never will. Pardon me, if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant, not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men’s bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you _can_ create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not?”
This passage _is_ not true. Whatever man may perform, woman taken out of his side may equal. Right truly has Ebenezer Elliott, a sincere and energetic, if not graceful bard, sung:—