It must be allowed that this Lady Authoress has succeeded in what might have been supposed the most difficult of all attempts, that of starting a new heresy,—her followers in which may aptly be denominated Eveites. The novelty consists not in excusing the mother of mankind, but in representing her transgression as a great and meritorious act. An excuse has been advanced for her in Lodovico Domenichi's Dialogue upon the nobleness of Women. It is there pleaded that the fruit of the fatal tree had not been forbidden to Eve, because she was not created when the prohibition was laid on. Adam it was who sinned in eating it, not Eve, and it is in Adam that we have all sinned, and all die. Her offence was in tempting him to eat, _et questo anchora senza intention cattiva, essendo stata tentata dal Diavolo. L'huomo adunque peccò per certa scientia, et la Donna ignorantemente, et ingannata._ I know not whether this special pleading be Domenichi's own; but he must have been conscious that there is a flaw in it, and could not have been in earnest, as Miss Hatfield is. The Veronese lady Isotta Nogarola thought differently; _essendo studiosa molto di Theologia et di Philosophia_, she composed a Dialogue wherein the question whether Adam or Eve in the primal transgression had committed the greater sin. How she determined it I cannot say, never having seen her works. Domenichi makes another assertion in honour of womankind which Miss Hatfield would undoubtedly consider it an honour for herself to have disproved in her own person,—that no heresy, or error in the faith ever originated with a woman. Had this Lady, most ambitious of Eve's daughters, been contemporary with Doctor Dove, how pleasant it would have been to have witnessed a debate between them upon the subject! He would have wound her up to the highest pitch of indignation, and she would have opened the flood-gates of female oratory upon his head. CHAPTER CCVI. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.—OPINIONS OF THE RABBIS.—ANECDOTE OF LADY JEKYLL AND A TART REPLY OF WILLIAM WHISTON'S.—JEAN D'ESPAGNE.—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF THE QUORUM QUARUM QUORUM GENDER.—THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN AGREE WITH MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS, BUT ARE OF OPINION THAT THE DEVIL IS AN HERMAPHRODITE. Sing of the nature of women; and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: it shall be humourous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all and all in one. MARSTON. The Doctor had other theological arguments in aid of the opinion which he was pleased to support. The remark has been made which is curious, or in the language of Jeremy Taylor's age, _considerable_, that we read in Genesis how when God saw every thing else which he had made he pronounced that it was very good, but he did not say this of the woman.