Charles L. Gildon published in 1694 a volume of miscellaneous letters and essays. Two of these letters were entitled "Chloe to Urania, against Womens being Learn'd," and "An Answer to the foregoing Letter in Defence of Womens being Learn'd." Chloe but transmits the arguments of her lover Lysander. "Learning will add fresh Pride to the Sex," he asserts, and will kindle in them an ambition of absolute Mastery. His second objection is the fundamental one. "Women were by their Creator design'd for OBEDIENCE not RULE; to be instructed by their Husbands, not to instruct them; and to Study nothing but their Household Affairs." If learning were added to the personal charms of women, not deity itself, Lysander thinks, could maintain the divinely ordained overlordship of man. A final argument is that learning will tend to make women unfaithful to their husbands, will give them "wandering desires." Lysander's antidote for the new ideas that seem to be perverting women's minds is Halifax's _Advice to a Daughter_, the authority of which was so well established that Chloe dares utter no protest against it. Urania, however, easily demolishes Lysander's objections, asserting that learning makes women humble, that no wise woman would ever think so wildly as to "attempt the inverting so prevalent, and inveterate a Custom of the Sovereignty of the Men." The _Advice to a Daughter_ is a book Urania has little esteem for. Especially is she indignant at Halifax's advice to women to remain in the religious faith in which they have been brought up, since, even if such faith be error, says Halifax, women are not expected to do the voluminous reading necessary to find out the truth. Women, Urania maintains, should not govern their actions merely by what a corrupt age "expects." They have souls to save and must learn the truth and must have the learning that will guide them to the truth. Both Lysander and Urania make the curious assumption that learning would render women more attractive. Lysander thinks it would add unduly to their power. Urania explains the tendency of the learned woman to conjugal infidelity by the statement that her uncommon learning results in an uncommon number of admirers. Let more ladies have learning and the charm of novelty would vanish. Urania is so easily superior to Chloe and her lover that we must recognize in Gildon one of the champions of female learning. [Sidenote: The Ladies' Dictionary (1694)] One of the most curious books of the late seventeenth century is _The Ladies' Dictionary; Being a General Entertainment for the Fair-Sex: A Work Never attempted in English_. It was printed for "John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultry, 1694," and is signed by "N. H." who lays claim to the authorship in the following passage which may be quoted at length, since from it we also get a characterization of the book, its proposed scope and aim: