The Virginia woman, at the period of which we write, felt keenly the disadvantage of her remoteness from that centre of knowledge and courtly usage, the mother country. Men who were educated abroad began to accumulate books for ambitious libraries, but these books were largely in the Latin tongue, and the Virginia girl had not the courage of Queen Elizabeth, and did not address herself to the study of the Classics that she might "match the men." She had good, strong sense, and the faculty known as mother-wit, but I am afraid I must confess she had small learning. What time had she--married at fifteen--to read or study? As to Mary Washington, her library, for ought we know to the contrary, seems to have begun and ended with "Sir Matthew Hale." In 1736 Mr. Parks published his _Virginia Gazette_ for fifteen shillings a year. Beverley & Stith had published their "Histories," and William Byrd his "Pamphlets." These she may have read; but it is extremely doubtful whether she read the poems and other society doings, records of races and other happenings, which appeared weekly in the _Gazette_, or approved of seeing the names, qualities, and fortunes of the ladies recorded as frankly as at the present day. These ladies were the daughters, sisters, and wives of men of brilliant genius and attainments. They could hardly sustain such relations with such men without becoming themselves superior women. Dr. Archibald Alexander knew Mrs. Meredith, the sister of Patrick Henry. "She was, in my judgment, as eloquent as her brother; nor have I ever met with a lady who equalled her in powers of conversation." Something then was said of a woman besides what she wore, whither she went, and whom she entertained at dinner and tea. There were women of whom the _Gazette_ kindly said they possessed "amiable sweetness of disposition, joined with the finest intellectual attainments," but I am constrained to challenge the latter if it presupposes the attainments to have been literary. How could it be otherwise when Thomas Jefferson prescribed that his daughter's time should be divided between dancing, music, and French? And when Charles Carter, of "Cleve," after ordering that his sons, John and Landon, then in England, should master languages, mathematics, philosophy, dancing, fencing, law, adds, "And whereas the extravagance of the present age, and the flattering hopes of great Fortunes may be a temptation to run into unnecessary Expenses of Living, it is my positive Will and desire that my Daughters may be maintained with great frugality, and _taught to dance_." The young women whose brothers had tutors at home were fortunate. They learned to "read and write and cypher." Then there were men "Glad to turn itinerant to stroll and teach from town to town"