Coming down to recent times, we still find the current anecdote and proverb in all lands bearing hardly upon the sex. A few kindly and appreciative sayings pass current in Scotland; and the literatures of Germany, England, and the United States teem with the noblest and tenderest homage to the excellence of women. But most of these belong to the literature of this century, and bear the names of men who may be said to have created the moral feeling of the present moment. It is interesting to notice that in one of our latest and best dictionaries of quotation, that of Mr. M. M. Ballou, of Boston, there are one hundred and eleven short passages relating to women, of which only one is dishonorable to them, and that dates back a century and a half, to the halcyon day of the British libertine--"Every woman is at heart a rake.--POPE." So thought all the dissolute men of Pope's circle, as we know from their conversation and letters. So thought the Duc de Rochefoucauld, who said, "There are few virtuous women who are not weary of their profession;" and "Most virtuous women, like concealed treasures, are secure because nobody seeks after them." So thought Chesterfield, who told his hopeful son that he could never go wrong in flattering a woman, for women were foolish and frail without exception: "I never knew one in my life who had good sense, or who reasoned and acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together." And so _must_ think every man who lived as men of fashion then lived. "If I dwelt in a hospital," said Dr. Franklin once, "I might come to think all mankind diseased." [Illustration: "Where are the diamonds exhibited?" "I haven't the least idea; but I let myself be guided by my wife. Women get at such things by instinct."--CHAM, _Paris_, 1868.]