I approach them with reverence; and were not my
countrymen, the learned, a stubborn independent race of
mortals, extremely jealous of their liberty, and unaccustomed
to subjection, I should resign into their fair hands the
sovereign authority over the republic of letters. As the case
stands, my commission extends no farther, than to desire a
league, offensive and defensive, against our common enemies,
against the enemies of reason and beauty, people of dull heads
and cold hearts. From this moment let us pursue them with the
severest vengeance: let no quarter be given, but to those of
sound understandings and delicate affections; and these
characters, 'tis to be presumed, we shall always find
inseparable.
To be serious, and to quit the allusion before it be worn
thread-bare, I am of opinion, that women, that is, women of
sense and education (for to such alone I address myself) are
much better judges of all polite writing than men of the same
degree of understanding; and that 'tis a vain pannic, if they
be so far terrified with the common ridicule that is levelled
against learned ladies, as utterly to abandon every kind of
books and study to our sex.
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