It will be allowed, I think, that women have reason to be satisfied with the rank they hold in modern poetry; and that the homage which has been addressed to them, either directly and individually, or paid indirectly and generally, in the beautiful characters and portraits drawn of them, ought to satisfy equally female sentiment and female vanity. From the half ethereal forms which float amid moonbeams and gems, and odours and flowers, along the dazzling pages of Lalla Rookh, down to Phoebe Dawson, in the Parish Register:[153] from that loveliest gem of polished life, the young Aurora of Lord Byron, down to Wordsworth's poor Margaret weeping in her deserted cottage;[154]--all the various aspects between these wide extremes of character and situation, under which we have been exhibited, have been, with few exceptions, just and favourable to our sex. In the literature of the classical ages, we were debased into mere servants of pleasure, alternately the objects of loose incense or coarse invective. In the poetry of the Gothic ages, we all rank as queens. In the succeeding period, when the platonic philosophy was oddly mixed up with the institutions of chivalry, we were exalted into divinities;--"angels called, and angel-like adored." Then followed the age of French gallantry, tinged with classical elegance, and tainted with classical licence, when we were caressed, complimented, wooed and satirised by coxcomb poets, Who ever mix'd their song with light licentious toys. There was much expenditure of wit and of talent, but in an ill cause;--for the feeling was, _au fond_, bad and false;--"et il n'est guere plaisant d'etre empoisonne, meme par l'esprit de rose." In the present time a better spirit prevails. We are not indeed sublimated into goddesses; but neither is it the fashion to degrade us into the playthings of fopling poets. We seem to have found, at length, our proper level in poetry, as in society; and take the place assigned to us as women-- As creatures not too bright or good, For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles![155] We are represented as ruling by our feminine attractions, moral or exterior, the passions and imaginations of men; as claiming, by our weakness, our delicacy, our devotion,--their protection, their tenderness, and their gratitude: and, since the minds of women have been more generally and highly cultivated; since a Madame de Stael, a Joanna Baillie, a Maria Edgeworth, and a hundred other names, now shining aloft like stars, have shed a reflected glory on the whole sex they belong to, we possess through them, a claim to admiration and respect for our mental capabilities. We assume the right of passing judgment on the poetical homage addressed to us, and our smiles alone can consecrate what our smiles first inspired.[156]