You will excuse, I know Madam, this short, but necessary Digression. I call it necessary, because it shews a probable Reason, why We are at this time in such subjection to them, without lessening the Opinion of our Sense, or Natural Capacities either at present, or for the time past; beside that it briefly lays open without any Scandal to our Sex, why our Improvements are at present so disproportion’d to those of Men. I wou’d not have any of our little, unthinking Adversaries triumph at my allowing a disproportion between the Improvements of our Sex and theirs; and I am sure those of ’em that are ingenious Men, will see no reason for it from what I have said. After having granted so great a disparity as I have already done in the customary Education, and advantagious Liberties of the Sexes, ’twere Nonsense to maintain, that our Society is generally and upon all accounts as Beneficial, Improving and Entertaining, as that of Men. He must be a very shallow Fellow, that resorts to, and frequents us in hopes by our means to make himself considerable as a Schollar, a Mathematician, a Philosopher, or a States-man. These Arts and Sciences are the result only of much Study and great Experience; and without one at least of ’em are no more to be acquir’d by the Company of Men, however celebrated for any or all of them, than by ours. But there are other Quallifications, which are as indispensably necessary to a Gentleman, or any Man that wou’d appear to Advantage in the World, which are attainable only by Company, and Conversation, and chiefly by ours. Nor can the greatest part of Mankind, of what Quallity soever, boast much of the use they make, or the benefit they reap from these acknowledg’d Advantages. So that Schollars only, and some few of the more thinking Gentlemen, and Men of Business have any just claim to ’em. And of these the first generally fall short enough some other way to make the Ballance even. [Sidenote: _Character of a Pedant._] For Schollars, though by their acquaintance with Books, and conversing much with Old Authors, they may know perfectly the Sense of the Learned Dead, and be perfect Masters of the Wisdom, be throughly inform’d of the State, and nicely skill’d in the Policies of Ages long since past, yet by their retir’d and unactive Life, their neglect of Business, and constant Conversation with Antiquity, they are such Strangers to, and to ignorant of the Domestick Affairs and manners of their own Country and Times, that they appear like the Ghosts of Old Romans rais’d by Magick. Talk to them of the _Assyrian_, or _Perssian_ Monarchies, the _Grecians_ or _Roman_ Common-wealths. They answer like Oracles, they are such finish’d Statemen, that we shou’d scarce take ’em to have been less than Confifidents of _Semiramis_, Tutours to _Cyrus_ the great, old Cronies of _Solon_ and _Lycurgus_, or Privy Councellours at least to the Twelve _Cæsars_ successively; but engage them in a Discourse that concerns the