Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/29

 those of rank and fashion. It is also interesting as an instance of the humility with which she estimated her own accomplishments.

"A kind of Literary Academy for ladies (for that is what you seem to propose), where they are to be taught in a regular systematic manner the various branches of science, appears to me better calculated to form such characters as the 'Precieuses' or the 'Femmes sçavantes' of Moliere, than good wives or agreeable companions. Young gentlemen, who are to display their knowledge to the world, should have every motive of emulation, should be formed into regular classes, should read and dispute together, should have all the honours and, if one may so say, the pomp of learning set before them, to call up their ardour:—it is their business, and they should apply to it as such. But young ladies, who ought only to have such a general tincture