persons of the same sex, to some original differences in the substance or organization of the corporeal frame. The celebrated Bonnet was so decidedly of this opinion, if we recollect rightly what we read of him, many years ago, that he goes so far as to say, that if the soul of Newton had been placed in the body of a Californian, with a Californian brain to work by, he would never have been any thing more than a mere Californian; perhaps not the most distinguished of his tribe. Other philosophers think the difference is in the soul, and not in the body. The simple truth is, we know nothing of the matter; and the world will probably go on wrangling and disputing on the subject till doomsday, as it has already gone on, we dare say, since its creation, without getting nearer to an end. Mad Woltmann proceeds:

'A woman cannot, like a man setting out from a given position, deduce conclusion from conclusion, and make herself mistress of an endless domain of ideas, drawing them on, as it were, by an invisible chain of necessity. She cannot retain various and intricate combinations steadily present to her mind.

'But as the sensible power of perception is more delicate and more various in women than men, so also is the power of mental perception. The power of combination (wit) of the female mind, is weaker than the power of combination of the male mind; but it is more rapid, more exciteable. The conclusion which the female mind forms, is always only one, and the most immediate, the remainder of the series is wanting; but a crowd of single conclusions suddenly spring up, and in the female judgment, supply the place of the legitimate series, and on these the judgment sustains itself. p. 7.

We have given this specimen of the philosophical language of M. Woltmann, and we fear it will hold out but slender encouragement to such ladies as have foundered in the third volume of Madame de Staël's Germany, to encounter similar difficulties in a language which, even in a novel, is not the very easiest reading in the world. Nevertheless, Madame Woltmann's sentiments and observations, in the metaphysical parts of her work, are, as far as we took the trouble of interpreting them, correct and just; and she really appears to be more at home in the business, than the lastmentioned learned lady.

After tracing out, at some length, the peculiar nature of the female sex, our fair philosopher proceeds to consider the state of women, under the different forms of society that have prevailed in the world. In the lowest stages of the social state, such as it is among the tribes towards the north pole, the condition of the female is one of unmitigated severity: among tribes inhabiting a milder region, her lot is a gentler one, and she approaches near to the man in consideration. When the character of the tribe is sensual, and their minds coarse, so long as youth and beauty are in their bloom, the female enjoys a considerable degree of power; but this short period is succeeded by a lengthened one of the most op

pressive slavery. 'In general,' continues M. Woltmann, physical strength is more highly prized, as the wants of a people are of a rougher kind: the natural destination of the female to the maternal state is less valued when in a lower sphere of mental culture: a man, as such, is of less value: mind and morals have most sway among the noblest and most cultured nations; and in proportion to them, are the situation and relation of females among all nations.' The next state considered, is that of females among the orientals. Here a woman is chiefly regarded in her maternal character, for a tribe advances in power as it increases in number. Hence women enjoyed some consideration: hence arose the practice of polygamy, which M. Woltmann regards as conducive to population in states like those of the Asiatic hordes of Nomades; though it may have the contrary effect, in stages of society which are more advanced. Speaking of polygamy, we take this opportunity of recommending, to such of our readers as may have been disturbed by the arguments in favour of it in the lately discovered work of Milton, arguments to which we have seen no good reply, a very able essay on the subject among those of Hume, where, in our opinion, the question is completely set at rest.

家

The maternal character exalted woman in the East; the practice of polygamy depressed her. The harem was, and is, the seat of envy and jealousy; and, in the unchanging East, under every religion and government, whether patriarchs, kings, caliphs, sheikhs, or sultans, the condition of females has been always the same.

After the East, comes Greece. Here polygamy disappears: instead of the harem we meet the gyneceum; and the women merely inhabited a separate part of the house, but were not confined by bars and bolts; they might also enjoy the society of their brothers, and of their nearest relations; and, though M. Woltmann does not notice it, had the privilege of frequenting the tragic theatre, and of partaking in other amusements and solemnities: we speak here of the Ionic states, for in the Doric ones, females seem to have enjoyed a higher degree of consideration, more approaching to their condition among the Romans.

Madame Woltmann dwells, with complaisancy, on the state of females among the latter people during the time of the republic, on the sacred obligation of marriage, and the various rights which the women possessed. She thus eloquently commences her account of the great corruption of domestic manners under the empire:

When under the emperors, the laws which had been given and accepted for the maintenance of the republic, served as implements for its destruction, freedmen and eunuchs acted in the interior of houses, as the eunuch acts in the harems of the east; within the narrow compass of the great families which the Roman republic presented, in an ever repeated circuit, the vengeance due to his offence seized and destroyed the criminal before those eyes which had seen him perpetrate the crime: then lawful marriage became more and more rare. The woman moved in forcible ex

change, herself full of desire, and the object of it, from Penates to Penates, and bore her part in the extortions and persecutions of the men. Adoption gave creation to child-murder, and replenished the halls of the houses which had been desolated by that crime. All natural feeling was now annihilated; and the Julian Claudian family presents a series of instances of this destruction of domestic relations, and degeneration of the female sex. pp. 61, 62.

The Germanic nations are distinguished, M. Woltmann affirms, by a superior sense of the ideal, especially in morals. To this leading trait of their character, she ascribes not merely the fondness for, and longing after, the beautiful in every form, but even their want of decision, and their helplessness. It also established, from the most early times, the relative station of the woman among them; and she pays our own nation the compliment of saying, that it is amongst us, of all the nations of Germanic origin, that woman has most firmly retained her original high estimation. Among the Germans, she says, this part of the national character is, like every part of it, less perceptible; as, instead of manifesting itself in the whole community, it is only to be found among individuals. She continues to illustrate the feminine and maternal character of the women of Germanic race, and the energy and vigour, joined with the female virtues, which they have on various occasions exhibited, by copying examples, from Tacitus, down through the middle ages.

As among the Germans in the north and north-east, the original inclination to domestic life has, does, and will exist; so in Italy, since the times of its earliest communities, and Rome, the inclination for associating in towns, has prevailed. His house is, for the German, the Briton, the Scandinavian, the asylum of content; for the Italian, the asylum of necessity.'

To this town-life of Italy, M. Woltmann thinks may be ascribed the higher intellectual character of the Italian ladies during the middle ages, and the greater share which they took in important public affairs; and she notices it as a curious circumstance, that an Italian (Boccaccio) was the first who wrote a work dedicated expressly to the female sex. The excessive and deep-seated passions of Petrarca and Tasso, for two strictly-virtuous females, and the noble dames of the court of Hyppolito of Este, from whom Ariosto drew his Bradamante Flordelis and Isabella, as also the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, are adduced as instances of the elevation attained by the female character in Italy.

The character of the French women, from the most ancient times down to the present day, is treated at some length, and with considerable ability; and the influence of the state of female society in France on the rest of Europe, particularly Germany, where it became unfortunately the mode to imitate France in every thing, is well and powerfully delineated. We have not, that we can recollect, met any thing superior to it in Madame de Stäel, and we trust

it will produce its full effect upon all females who may happen to peruse it.

The character of the Slavonian women is less generally known, and we will give it in the words of one of themselves (for we presume M. Woltmann is a Bohemian), lest in our abridgment we might lose some important traits.

Nature is continually of herself flinging away rules, that they may not become fetters. Creatures in whom the peculiarities of two species run together, dissolve the limits of the peculiarity of species. Sexual peculiarities are done away with by individuals.

In France, may be observed a great individual approximation of the females to the condition of the men. Among the Slavonians, the two sexes almost exchange their peculiar natures.

'The Slavonian man is generally weaker in his power of conception, in will, and in determining the will by his conceptions, than other men; but his feelings and his fancy are stronger. The Slavonian woman, on the other hand, exceeds all other women in strength of mind, of will, and of determining the will by her conceptions. The man freely receives the impulse, in all his actions, from the woman; as the man of the Germanic race desires to give it to the actions of the women.

Among the Slavonian nations, we also frequently see the female sex overstep the limits of the circle of duties assigned to them by their natural condition, and enter on an immediate share of the active duties of public life; their physical circumstances alone seem to prevent their taking a general and legal participation in them.

The Slavonian women possess and manage their own property, as soon as they are of age, in all respects, independently of the men. In their territorial possessions, they exercise all the seignorial rights and obligations with the same independence and the same immediate duties to the state, as he does. The law does not require that, in the judicial transactions which they perform, a man should be present as their assistant.

In the higher ranks, I have, as far as my experience has gone, perceived the most salutary consequences to result from this independence of the sex. I have seen women, who were the most faithful wives, the fondest and tenderest mothers, manage alone a property which required the activity and circumspection of men; nay, more, bring that property into complete order; and I have heard the testimony of perfectly impartial men, whose situations qualified them to deliver an opinion on the subject, declare that they had managed and regulated it with astonishing firmness, penetration, and circumspection.

"In the middle ranks, where there is less of education and of property, I have scarcely met any but examples proving that the perfect independence of the property of women, and the distinction of goods, during marriage, which results from it, is highly detrimental to the closeness of connubial relations, and exerts, in general, an evil influence on the female character.

"I take not upon me to decide how much of this may be attributed to the incomparably more careful education of females, in the higher ranks, compared with the neglected one of these latter,

Christianity has been introduced, among almost all nations, by women. But it was brought by St. Olga into Russia, and by St. Ludmilla into Bohemia, in a very different manner from that in which it was into Lom

bardy and England, by the above-mentioned Germanic queens. St. Olga and St. Ludmilla, were also very different from them in character and in rank. The former, under the guidance of the clergy, converted one man, their husband, or their son, and the nation followed him; the latter were apostles themselves-charmed with the divine humanity of the doctrine, they acknowledge it, are converted to it, and die for it.

As remarkable male characters, in Slavonian history, ex gr., St. Wenzel, or king Winzel the third, united liveliness, tenderness, fullness of feeling and of the ideal sense, with the distinguishing properties of the manly character, with physical strength, strength of mind and will; and thus presented the phenomenon of perfect humanity, though in a weaker degree, of the united powers that nature grants; yet the same union is not to be met among the Germanic nations.

'Nevertheless, this exchange of the natural characters of the two sexes, which facilitates this union, was the probable cause of the destiny of lost political independence, which, in Europe, has chiefly befallen nations of Slavonian origin.

6

By it came such great restlessness in public life; and private life, which should have served as its point of support and counterpoise, lost its opposite pure and internal character, became too impotent to take from it activity and interest, too corrupt to be able strongly to secure and develop the moral principle of humanity.

In general, the independence of an empire is then least secure, when women do not confine themselves within the circle which their nature points out to them, that is, the house; there most secure, when within their own circle, they are inspired by the most lively, the most immediate interest for the state. In this respect, we may oppose ancient Germany and modern England, to Poland.'-—pp. 137-141.

This extract affords as fair a specimen as we could select of M. Woltmann's mode of thinking. În style she appears to aim at rivalling M. de Stäel; and she seems a tolerable adept in the art so common in Germany, of enveloping the most simple ideas in the most tortuous and involved language, giving a strain to the mind in the perusal hardly to be equalled by any difficulties to be met with in Greek authors. We wish the good sense of the German nation would rise superior to this paltry artifice, and that la metaphysique tudesque may be no longer the laugh of France and England.

ART. IX. 1. Aben-Hamet, the last of the Abencerages; a Romance; by the Viscount de Chateaubriand. Translated from the French. 12mo. pp. 207. 7s. London: Treuttel & Würtz. 1826.

2. The Natchez; an Indian Tale. By the same Author. 3 vols. 12mo. London: Colburn. 1827.

THE first of these productions was written, we are told, twenty years ago; the second is of a still older date, and if we may judge from its style, we should think that it was among the earliest efforts of M. de Chateaubriand's muse. In his preface he calls it ' a poem,' probably hoping, when he wrote it, to create a rival to Telemachus.