“It is a bad thing,” said St. Augustine, “to look upon a woman, a worse to speak to her, and to touch her is worst of all.” John Bunyan admired the wisdom of God for making him shy of the sex, and boasted that it was a rare thing to see him “carry it pleasant towards a woman.” “The common salutation of women,” said he, “I abhor, their company alone I cannot away with!” John, the great Tinker, thought with the son of Sirach, that “better is the churlishness of a man, than a courteous woman, a woman which bringeth shame and reproach.” And Menu the law-giver of the Hindoos hath written that “it is the nature of women in this world to cause the seduction of men.” And John Moody in the play, says, “I ha' seen a little of them, and I find that the best, when she's minded, won't ha' much goodness to spare.” A wife has been called a daily calamity, and they who thought least unfavourably of the sex have pronounced it a necessary evil. “_Mulier_, quasi _mollior_,” saith Varro;[3] a derivation upon which Dr. Featley thus commenteth: “Women take their name in Latin from tenderness or softness, because they are usually of a softer temper than men, and much more subject to passions, especially of fear, grief, love and longing; their fear is almost perpetual, their grief immoderate, their love ardent, and their longing most vehement. They are the weaker vessels, not only weaker in body than men, and less able to resist violence, but also weaker in mind and less able to hold out in temptations; and therefore the Devil first set upon the woman as conceiving it a matter of more facility to supplant her than the man.” And they are such dissemblers, says the Poet, as if their mother had been made Only of all the falsehood of the man, Disposed into that rib. [Footnote 3: The Soothsayer in Cymbeline was of a like opinion with Varro! The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Which we call _mollis aer_; and _mollis aer_ We term it _mulier_. Southey's favorite play upon the stage was Cymbeline, and next to it, As you like it.] “Look indeed at the very name,” said the Doctor, putting on his gravest look of provocation to the ladies.—“Look at the very name—_Woman_, evidently meaning either _man's woe_—or abbreviated from _woe to man_, because by woman was woe brought into the world.” And when a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that common word must have arisen? Who does not see that it may be directly traced to a mournful interjection, _alas!_ breathed sorrowfully forth at the thought the girl, the lovely and innocent creature upon whom the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would in time become a woman,—a woe to man!