There are some reasons why learning seems more adapted to the female world, than to the male. As in the first place, because they have more spare time upon their hands, and lead a more sedentary life. Their employments are of a domestic nature, and not like those of the other sex, which are often inconsistent with study and contemplation. The excellent lady, the lady Lizard, in the space of one summer furnished a gallery with chairs and couches of her own and her daughters' working; and at the same time heard all doctor Tillotson's sermons twice over. It is always the custom for one of the young ladies to read, while the others are at work; so that the learning of the family is not at all prejudicial to its manufactures. I was mightily pleased the other day to find them all busy in preserving several fruits of the season, with the Sparkler in the midst of them, reading over the Plurality of Worlds. It was very entertaining to me to see them dividing their speculations between jellies and stars, and making a sudden transition from the sun to an apricot, or from the Copernican system to the figure of a cheesecake. There is another reason why those especially who are women of quality, should apply themselves to letters, namely, because their husbands are generally strangers to them. It is a great pity there should be no knowledge in a family. For my own part, I am concerned, when I go into a great house, when perhaps there is not a single person that can spell, unless it be by chance the butler, or one of the footmen. What a figure is their young heir likely to make, who is a dunce both by father's and mother's side![428] [Sidenote: The Ladies' Library (1714)] Addison and Steele had in mind some publication such as _The Ladies' Library_ at least three years before it appeared. On April 12, 1711 (No. 37), Addison described in _The Spectator_ the library of a lady called Leonora.[429] She had assembled her books partly in accordance with her own taste, partly on the principle that there were some books no library could do without. The list is an interesting one: _Ogleby's Virgil._ _Dryden's Juvenal._ _Casandra._ _Astræa._ Sir _Isaac Newton's_ Works. The _Grand Cyrus_: with a Pin stuck in one of the middle Leaves. _Pembroke's Arcadia._ _Lock_ of Human Understanding: with a Paper of Patches in it. A Spelling book. A Dictionary for the Explanation of hard Words. _Sherlock_ upon Death. The fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Sir _William Temple's_ Essays. Father _Malebranche's_ Search after Truth, translated into English. A Book of Novelles. The Academy of Compliments. _Culpepper_'s Midwifery. The Ladies' Calling. Tales in Verse by Mr. _Durfey_: Bound in Red Leather, gilt on the Back, and doubled down in several Places. All the Classick Authors in Wood. A Set of _Elzivers_ by the same Hand.