There are persons who think so. And there are not wanting, in the great storehouse of history, certain periods, certain individuals, certain manifestations of social life, to which such persons point as countenancing the notion, that better things have been, as regards woman's position and possibilities, than are now. There are, painted on the slides of Mnemosyne's magic lanthorn, certain brilliant and captivating figures, which are apt to lead those who are disgusted with the smoke and reek of the Phœnix-burning going on around them, to suppose that the social conditions which produced such, must have been less far from the true path than our present selves. Nay, more. There have been constellations of such stars, quite sufficiently numerous to justify the conclusion, that the circumstances of the time at which they appeared were in their nature calculated to produce them. Of such times, the most striking in this respect, as in so many others, is that fascinating dawn time of modern life, that ever wonderful "rénaissance" season, when a fresh sap seemed to rush through the tissues of the European social systems, as they passed from their long winter into spring. And in the old motherland of European civilisation, where the new life was first and most vehemently felt,—in Italy, the most remarkable constellations of these attractive figures were produced. The women of Italy, at that period remarkable in different walks, and rich in various high gifts, form in truth a very notable phenomenon; and one sufficiently prevalent to justify the belief, that the general circumstances of that society favoured the production of such. But the question remains, whether these brilliant types of womanhood, attractive as they are as subjects of study, curiously illustrative as they are of the social history of the times in which they lived, are on the whole such as should lead us to conclude, that the true path of progress would be found to lead towards social conditions that should be likely to reproduce them?