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 Mary Astell by Florence M. Smith. 
 
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
 
 MARY ASTELL 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 New Yobk: 
 LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
 30-32 West 27th Street 
 
 London: 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 Amen Corner, E.G. 
 
MARY ASTELL 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE M. SMITH, Ph.D 
 
 INBTRUCTOK IN ENGLISH, HUNTER COLUEGE OP THE 
 CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1916 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 
Copyright, 19x6 
 By Columbia Univeeshy Phess 
 
 Printed from type, May, 1916 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 AND MY MOTHER 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029872433 
 
This Monograph has been approved by the Depart- 
 ment of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia 
 University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of 
 publication. 
 
 A. H. THORNDIKE, 
 
 Executive Officer. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The aim of the following study is to formulate some of 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth century ideals for the edu- 
 cation of women as they presented themselves to a woman 
 of the period, and conversely to show how her statement 
 of them re-acted upon the thought of the time. I wish to 
 thank the custodians and librarians from whom material 
 has been obtained, especially those of Columbia University, 
 Union Theological Seminary, the New York Pubhc Library, 
 and the British Museum, as well as all persons who have 
 answered questions and otherwise faciUtated my work. 
 I wish also to express my gratitude to the Columbia 
 professors who have aided me, to Professor Jefferson B. 
 Fletcher for helpful suggestions, and to Professor Carl Van 
 Doren and Professor Charles S. Baldwin for reading my 
 manuscript. Greatest of all is my debt to Professor William 
 P. Trent, who first suggested the topic to me, and whose 
 continued interest has helped to make the study to me at 
 least a living thing. 
 
 In consequence of my absence from the country while the 
 book has been passing through the press, I have been obliged 
 to rely for assistance in correcting the proofs upon several 
 persons to whom my thanks are due — notably Mr. M. M. 
 Hoover. In some cases it has been impracticable to compare 
 the citations with the text of the first editions, but it is 
 believed that, except for slight modernization, the quotas 
 tions represent the originals with substantial accuracy. 
 
 F. M. S. 
 May 15, 1915 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Biography . . ... 1 
 
 II. Educational WRrnNos .... . . 36 
 
 in. Pabcphlets on Marriage 77 
 
 IV. Religious Tracts ... ... . 104 
 
 V. Political Pamphlets . . 131 
 
 VI. Character and Influence ... . 160 
 
 Appendix I. Bibijoghaphical Note 167 
 
 Appendix II. Authorship op Essay in Defence of the Female 
 
 Sex 173 
 
 Bibliography 183 
 
 Index 187 
 
MARY ASTELL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 In its development of social and intellectual ideals 
 society has often not recognized its own progress. At 
 some later time the student tracing the evolution of 
 ideas finds them latent in the social mind but expressed 
 in single individuals who, at first sight, seem to stand 
 out from their contemporaries as intellectual "sports," 
 but prove merely to be advance spokesmen of ideals al- 
 ready forming in the race consciousness. Such was the 
 position held by Mary Astell in the growth of the idea 
 of education for women during the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. She gave utterance to thoughts that had been 
 developing through the century, but related them to life 
 more concretely than her associates had done. Yet be- 
 catise the time was not rii)e, one hundred and fifty years 
 passed before her plans were carried into execution. 
 
 The facts of her early life have been practically lost. 
 Ballard ^ has preserved in Memoirs of Several Ladies of 
 Great Britain most of these available, although his material 
 is too often based upon rumor. The later encyclopedic 
 accounts follow his work and repeat his errors, in many 
 cases amplifying them. 
 
 * Gieorge Ballard, 1705-1755. An antiquarian who studied and 
 wrote at Oxford. In 1752 he published the book named above. 
 
 1 
 
2 MARY ASTELL 
 
 The first authentic record in Mary Astell's history occurs 
 in the baptismal book of the quaint little Church of St. 
 John's at Newcastle-on-Tyne : "Mary Astell 12. Nov. 
 1666. daughter of Mr. Astell." ^ In the same record is 
 the register of the marriage of her parents, Peter Astell 
 and Mary Errington, on October 31, 1665. There were 
 two other children, William, who died in infancy, and 
 Peter, a lawyer, who lived in Newcastle until his death, 
 January 2, 1710-11. 
 
 The Astell and the Errington families to which her 
 parents belonged, were prominent in the commercial affairs 
 of Newcastle, and it is in the hostmen records that the 
 chief account of Peter Astell occurs. At this time the 
 hostmen at Newcastle held the monopoly of coal and grind- 
 stones, two products of the city not already taken over 
 by the trading guilds. To the hostmen was assigned the 
 duty of entertaining merchant strangers, of becoming 
 answerable for their peaceable conduct, and of supervising 
 their sales. In return for this service to the city, the 
 guild was given the right to furnish its guests with such 
 supplies as were not the monopolies of any regular guild 
 in the city. ' 
 
 On May 11, 1653, Peter Astell, son of William Astell 
 of Newcastle, gentleman, was enrolled under George 
 Dawson as Master.^ Mr. Dawson had been admitted 
 hostman in 1646.' In 1655 he was Collector of the Custom 
 House, and in September of the same year an order was 
 given and recorded on the 19th that the tax on grindstones 
 
 ' Church Records. St. John's Church, Newcastle. 
 
 • Extracts from the Records of the Company of Hostmen of Newcasile- 
 u-pon-Tyne. Pub. of Surtees Society, Vol. 105, Edinburgh, 1901. 
 Introduction. 
 
 * Hostmen Records, p. 285. 
 » Ihid., p. 269. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 6 
 
 should be paid into the Custom House, and should "be 
 there collected and received by Peter Astell, servant unto 
 Mr. George Dawson, Alderman, Collector there." * From 
 that time on Peter Astell's name appears frequently in 
 the list. Six years later, with two others, he is given full 
 power to distrain goods of persons indebted to the com- 
 pany.' The regular fee for his office seems to have been 
 three pounds, six shillings and eight pence, with two pounds 
 and twelve or thirteen shillings for collecting the tax on 
 grindstones. Although for some years Peter Astell had 
 been acting as clerk of the company, he was not admitted 
 hostman until February 26, 1673-4.^ Four years later 
 he died and was buried March 16, 1677-8 in the chancel of 
 St. John's Church. The record for many years hidden 
 by the re-flooring of the Church, but preserved by Brand, 
 the Newcastle historian, reads as follows: 
 
 "Here lies interred the body of Peter Astell, gentleman: 
 he departed this life 19th March 1678, and had issue by 
 Mary his wife two sons and a daughter. WiUiam his son 
 departed this life 15 March 1672." « 
 
 The hostmen on July 25, 1678, elected a new clerk and 
 "to old Mrs. Astell" the Company ordered "3 6s. 8p. 
 dureing the Companies pleasure." ^^ In January of the 
 next year appears " a record of the payment of one half 
 of this. 
 
 Further information concerning the family appears in 
 the record of the interment of Mrs. Astell October 16, 
 
 « lUd., p. 166. 
 ' Ibid., p. 121. 
 8 im., pp. 249, 250, 271. 
 
 ' John Brand, History and Antiquities of the Town and County 
 of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 2 vols. Vol. 1, p. 114. 
 '" Hostmen Records, p. 138. 
 " Ibid., p. 251. 
 
4: MARY ASTELL 
 
 1684. Tradition relates that Mary Astell left for London 
 when she was about twenty years of age; it was probably 
 the breaking up of the home through her mother's death 
 that brought about the change.*^ 
 
 The exact relationship of Peter Astell's branch of the 
 family to other Astells mentioned in the church books 
 is not always clear. In 1625 there appears in the St. 
 John's Register the record of the birth of a daughter to 
 a Mr. WiUiam Astell, followed by the records of the births 
 of several other children: Isaac, May 3, 1627, Thomas, 
 March 19, 1628-9 and Rudolph, November 2, 1631. There 
 is no account of the birth of Peter Astell, the father of 
 Mary, but, as he was the son of William Astell, gentleman, 
 according to the hostmen's records, his position as son 
 of William Astell, under sheriff of Newcastle, seems fairly 
 clear, thus making Mary Astell the granddaughter of a 
 royalist whom, however, she knew by tradition only, as he 
 died in 1658. The curious old record on WiUiam's tomb- 
 stone, blurred though it was when Brand made his copy, 
 pays enduring tribute to his loyalty to his king and 
 to his religion. 
 
 "Exuviae Gulielme Astell . . . sub die . . . resurrec- 
 tionis spe Fideliter his custodiendas Lubens deposuit . . . 
 Sept. 14 A° Domini MDCL ... Ill Iterumque die illo 
 magno . . . crucis. Hinc eum gaudia petendae. 
 
 Gloriosi induet immortalitatem." i' 
 
 This is followed by some English verses with strange 
 figures and halting meter, yet giving a picture of a noble 
 character. 
 
 " Miss Hope Dodds of Newcastle concludes that this Mrs. Astell 
 is the mother, not the wife, of Peter Astell. The decision rests upon 
 the interpretation of the term old. 
 
 " Brand, Vol. II, p. 190. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 5 
 
 "Stay, reader, stay, who would'st but cannot buy 
 Choice books come read the churches library 
 Which like Sybelline leaves here scatter'd fliea 
 Perus'd alas here by men's feet that lies 
 In single sheets, then neatly to be bound. 
 By God's own hand, when the laat trump shall sound; 
 Amongst the rest glance on this marble leaf, 
 "Tis AsteU's title page and therefore brief, 
 Here lies the reliques of a man 
 But who was truly Christian 
 Whose sounder judgment, frantic zeal. 
 Never hurried on her wheel 
 Of Giddy error, whose heart bled 
 When rebel feet cut off their head. 
 And great good Shepherd humbly lay, 
 To his ma,d flock a bleeding prey. 
 Who cheerfully sustain'd the loss. 
 Of all for his dread master's cross. 
 Triumphant Charles he's gone to see 
 For militant praise heav'ns victory." 
 
 Equally interesting is Ralph Astell, A.M., curate of 
 St. Nicholas in 1667. Brand suggests him as the uncle to 
 whom tradition ascribes the education of Mary Astell," 
 but, as he died when she was but thirteen, she can hardly 
 have received from him the full education with which she 
 has been credited.^^ Moreover, his character was not 
 above reproach, as he was suspended from his curacj' 
 December 17, 1677. The church books of Gateshead 
 record, "One pint of sack when Mr. Astell preached Is. 
 2d." Like William Astell he was a strong loyalist. At 
 the restoration of Charles II he voiced Newcastle's joy 
 at the happy event in a manner unique if not poetical. 
 In his poem, Vota non Bella, Newcastle is represented as 
 
 " Brand, Vol. I, p. 85. 
 
 " Richard Welford, Men of Mark Tmxt Tyne and Tweed, London, 
 1895, 3 vols. Vol. I, p. 122. 
 
6 MABT ASTELL 
 
 a "black northern lass" approaching to celebrate the 
 return of Charles II to his rightful throne." She comes 
 more simply arrayed than others with "no poweder or 
 scents to ornament her," "save Coale-duste-powder," and 
 greets him with the words, 
 
 "Venus herself is proud of her brown Mole, 
 I have my spot, too, 'tis a good round Cole. 
 This sets me off and makes me Penny-fair: 
 White Swans are common but a Black one rare." 
 
 Still other Astells in the Newcastle records of the century 
 were a Mr. John Astell, lawyer, who was buried March 20, 
 1633-4, and a Thomas Astell, B.A., vicar at Milford in 
 1621, and at Haltwhistle from 1623-4 to 1633. 
 
 If traces of heredity can be trusted, Mary Astell's family 
 provided the ideals and the characteristics that developed 
 strongly in her later. There were traditions of loyalty 
 to the church and to the king, an educational ideal, and 
 the business astuteness that made Peter Astell successful 
 as a hostman. 
 
 It is to be regretted that no record of the young woman's 
 education is preserved. Ballard and succeeding biographers 
 speak of her as learned in the classic languages, and this 
 was current among her later admirers. Henry Dodwellview 
 in writing to her did not translate his Greek quotations 
 because he thought she might imderstand the original." 
 Her own statement of her knowledge is more hmnble. 
 "My Ignorance in the Sacred Languages, besides all other 
 disadvantages makes me incapable of expounding Scrip- 
 tures with the Learned." 1' Ballard certainly misinter- 
 preted the passage in her works from which he drew the 
 
 " Vota non Bella, Gateshead, 1660, pp. 4-5. 
 " Rawlinson MS., D. 198 : 104. [Bodleian] 
 '' Christian Religion, p. 139. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 7 
 
 idea that she had mastered Plato, Hierocles, Plutarch, 
 Epictetus, Tully, and Seneca. She was enumerating names, 
 and assuming a hypothetical knowledge to prove man's 
 faith in what he did not himself know.^' Although she 
 had some knowledge of French, it seems to have been a 
 Iat€ acquisition. In An Enquiry after Wit, French phrases 
 are frequent, but are used in the manner of a beginner in 
 the language who desires to practice a newly acquired 
 knowledge. In other respects her education is rather that 
 of a wide reader than of one who had received close train- 
 ing from childhood. 
 
 Soon after her mother's death in 1684 Mary Astell, as 
 has been noted, seems to have left Newcastle for London. 
 When she settled at Chelsea cannot be discovered at this 
 late day, but by 1695, at the time the Letters Concerning 
 the Love of God were written, she was well enough ac- 
 quainted with the character of her Chelsea neighbors 
 to dedicate the volume to Lady Catherine Jones. The 
 first mention of her residence appears in the tax records 
 of Chelsea, under the date of the records commencing 
 March 25, 1712, where ]\Iadam Astell is listed as paying 
 fifteen shillings poor rate on her property in Robinson's 
 Lane. The next year the rate is given as seven shillings, 
 six pence; then the record disappears. In the entries for 
 the last haii year of 1715, Madam "AshteU," residing By 
 the Swan is recorded as paying nine pence tax. By 1719 
 the street has assumed the more dignified title of Swan 
 Walk, but the entry reads "14 Madam Astell empt . . ." 
 The residence on Swan Walk is the one given to Mary 
 Astell by Mr. Blount in Paradise Row.^" 
 
 During this period Mary Astell's prosperity can be 
 judged somewhat by the tax rate. In the rate list of 1715, 
 
 » lUd., p. 26. 
 
 *' Reginald Blount, Paradise Row, London, 1906, p. 65. 
 
8 MARY ASTELL 
 
 Michaelmas to February of the year when she is first rep- 
 resented as By the Swan, her rate is nine shillings, sixpence; 
 Lady Catherine Jones in Jews' Row was paying four 
 pounds; the highest rate was paid by the Duke of Beau- 
 fort, five pounds; and the lowest, one shilling, four pence, 
 by several.^' 
 
 There are but few accounts of Mary Astell's later resi- 
 dence in Chelsea. After the death of the Earl of Ranelagh 
 in 1711, his daughter. Lady Catherine Jones, offered for 
 sale his place "Near the College." In 1716 Lady Catherine 
 is rated under the street Jews' Row where she continues 
 to live until after Mary Astell's death, although at exactly 
 that time in the tax rate for February 18, 1730-1, her house 
 is listed as empty. A letter from Thomas Birch to Ballard 
 states that Mary Astell lived with Lady Catherine Jones 
 in Chelsea.^ One more possible trace of residence occurs 
 in a letter from Mary Astell to Sir Hans Sloane dated 
 April 25, 1724, from Manor Street.^ 
 
 The generally accepted traditions as to Mary Astell's 
 life, colored probably by her later ill-health, and by some 
 hiunorous attacks on her, report her as a recluse; on the 
 contrary, she took a part in the life of Chelsea. Her 
 most intimate friend seems to have been Lady Catherine 
 Jones, through whom she must have met many people 
 who would otherwise have been outside the social group 
 of a woman interested primarily in serious things. Lady 
 Catherine was sufficiently prominent in court circles for 
 King George I to be entertained by her at Ranelagh 
 Gardens in 1715. Her youthful sincerity and earnestness 
 are praised by Mary Astell in the dedication to Letters 
 Concerning the Love of God, but, in spite of the fulsomeness 
 
 21 Poor Bate Books of Chelsea, 1707-1731. 
 
 " BaUard MS., 37 : 49. [Bodleian.] 
 
 " Sloane MS., 4047 : 163. [British Museum.] 
 
BIOGRAPHY 9 
 
 of contemporary dedications, the truth is not over-stated. 
 At her father's death in 1711, Lady Catherine and her two 
 married sisters petitioned ParKament for the right to sell 
 their estate for the payment of their father's debts, con- 
 tracted whUe he was Paymaster General of the Navy." 
 The petition was granted, and Lady Catherine Jones moved 
 from her home in Ranelagh Gardens to a less pretentious 
 house in Jews' Row. 
 
 Her strong moral character, developed in spite of wealth 
 and social position, endeared her to Mary Astell, who 
 looked upon her as giving promise of what any woman 
 might attain. In The Christian Religion, also dedicated to 
 Lady Catherine, Mary AsteU, in showing how much good 
 can be done with money rightly used, undoubtedly has in 
 mind the beneficences of her young friend. The close 
 relations between the two lasted until the elder woman's 
 death. 
 
 As an observer, Mary Astell saw the court life as it 
 touched her Chelsea associates; the Duchess of Mazarine 
 was her near neighbor, and she secured, at first hand, her 
 knowledge of the need of a change in the lives of women. 
 As her reputation extended, her acquaintance widened. 
 She dined at the home of Dean Atterbury as a friend of 
 his wife, and argued with him concerning his religious 
 theories. In fact, she seems to have become somewhat of a 
 local celebrity and her house to have taken the tone of a 
 salon, as Ralph Thoresby indicates in his account of a 
 call made on her during a visit to London. 
 
 "Walked to Mr. Boxilter's at Chelsea, who was come in 
 the meantime to visit me: but met opportunely with the 
 obliging Mr. Croft, the minister, who introduced me to 
 the celebrated Mrs. Astell, who has printed many pious 
 and ciu^ous tracts, and is the same lady who corresponded 
 " ComiDons Journals, Vol. XVIII, pp. 529, 663; XXI, p. 460. 
 
10 MARY ASTELL 
 
 with Mr. Norris about Divine Love." ^^ In later years she 
 knew Lord and Lady Huntingdon of Chelsea, and with her 
 friends called upon Sir Hans Sloane to see his curiosities, 
 and to get his judgment upon some of her own curios. 
 
 A circle of women of like interests grew up about her. 
 With Elizabeth Elstob, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, she had 
 an intimate acquaintance, probably gained, or at least 
 cemented, during the latter's residence in London between 
 1709 and 1715. The fruits of this friendship remain in the 
 correspondence of Ballard with Elizabeth Elstob, when he was 
 attempting to secure material for Mary Astell's biography. 
 
 Lady Anne Coventry of Smithfield, possibly the Emilia 
 of the Spectator, a woman of charitable temper and re- 
 ligious life,^° and author of Meditations and Reflections 
 Moral and Divine, 1707, was interested in Mary Astell's 
 plans, as were several unnamed friends. 
 
 But the choicest of all her friends was Lady Elizabeth 
 Hastings, who entered fully into her ideas and contributed 
 liberally to the charity school at Chelsea. On the death 
 of Lady Betty's father Theophilus, seventh Earl of Hunt- 
 ingdon, his brother George had succeeded to the family 
 estates of Ledstone Park, Yorkshire. At his death, 
 February 22, 1704-5, the estate came to Lady Betty. 
 From her mother also, she had inherited money. Seriously 
 and conscientiously she went to work to discover the 
 best means of using her property rightly and in her suc- 
 cessful disbursement of it she became a prototype of the 
 wisely generous women of to-day. 
 
 During some of Lady Betty's winters in London she 
 came into contact with Mary Astell, although the acquaint- 
 ance was not formed as early as is thought by those who 
 ascribe to her the promise of £10,000 for Mary Astell's 
 
 2= Diary of Ralph Thoresby, London, 1830, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 161. 
 2» The Spectator, Feb. 15, 1712. No. 302. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 11 
 
 college for women, since they were not personally ac- 
 quainted when The Serious Proposal was published.''' The 
 friendship between the two women lasted through Mary 
 Astell's life, and it is in a letter from Lady Catherine Jones 
 to Lady Betty that the sole extant account of Mary 
 Astell's death occurs. 
 
 Unfortunately Lady Betty destroyed all her manuscripts 
 before her death,''* so that no trace remains of a corre- 
 spondence between the two that must have been delight- 
 fully sympathetic. The yoimg woman whom to love was 
 a liberal education,^' whose regard for friendship was 
 sacred, whose sense of honor was strict to the last degree, 
 and whose modesty and hmnility were so great that she 
 could not bear to be praised for her good qualities,'" was 
 deeply cherished by the austere woman ui search of the 
 best development of her friends. 
 
 Of the women of Mary Astell's acquaintance Lady 
 Mary Montagu is the most famous. Just when they met 
 is vmcertain, but Lady Mary visited in Chelsea. Lady 
 Cheyne of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was an aunt of hers, 
 although the relationship was somewhat strained; in her 
 girlhood, Lady Mary evidently knew Lady Ranelagh, 
 Lady Catherine Jones's mother, for Wortley Montagu 
 wrote to her before their marriage: 
 
 "But how can I speak with you there without observa- 
 tion? Do you never walk in the Queen's Gardens or 
 Lady Ranelagh's?'"! 
 
 " Enquiry after Wit, 1722. Preface. 
 
 ^ The Reverend Charles Hastings Medhurst of Leeds, relative and 
 present executor of Lady Betty's charities, is authority for this 
 statement. 
 
 » Toiler, No. 49. July, 1709. 
 
 '» Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. 10, p. 36. January, 1740. 
 
 '' "George Paston," Lady Mary Montagu and her Times. 1907. 
 p. 124. 
 
12 MARY ASTELL 
 
 As a young girl Lady Mary seems to have been fas- 
 cinated by the intellectual power and the high ideas of 
 Mary Astell, who attempted then, as later, to turn the 
 brilUant young woman to religious thoughts. A first edition 
 of The Serious Proposal, now in the British Museum, was 
 presented to Lady Mary by Mary Astell and bears an 
 inscription to her in the author's own hand. The book 
 made a strong impression on Lady Mary. Fifty years 
 later, toward the close of her wandering life, she wrote 
 to her daughter Lady Bute that her early ideal had been 
 to found such a school as Mary Astell had suggested. She 
 said, "It was a favorite scheme of mine, when I was 
 fifteen, and had I then been mistress of an independent 
 fortune, I should certainly have elected myself Lady 
 Abbess. Then would you and your children have been 
 lost forever." '^ In spite of their diametrically opposed 
 habits of thought and social ideals, Mary Astell on her 
 part was attracted by Lady Mary, who seemed to her an 
 illustration of the brilliancy which she claimed for women, 
 and she rejoiced in her friend's mental power. Perhaps 
 there was in her mind a half-formed hope of being able 
 to save the young woman from some of the pitfalls into 
 which her erratic genius was already leading her. 
 
 In the mass of anecdotes centering around Lady Mary 
 Montagu, there is difiiculty in separating the true from the 
 false, especially when many of them come with the au- 
 thority of her family behind them. For example, Mary 
 Astell has been credited by "George Paston" with having 
 written the eulogistic article in The Plain Dealer concerning 
 Lady Mary's achievement in introducing inoculation into 
 England.'' On the score of mere style the ascription might 
 
 '^ Letters and Works [edited by Lord Whamcliffe. With a memoir 
 by M. Moy Thomas] 1893, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 300. 
 " "Paston," Ufe, pp. 305-307. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 13 
 
 pass, but Aaron Hill, we now know, has to be given 
 the credit for this particular glorification of the famous 
 traveller.'^ 
 
 Although Lady Mary's Turkish letters were not intended 
 for publication, several copies were made for her friends. 
 In 1724 a preface signed "M. A." was written for the col- 
 lection and in 1725 a poem was added. The letters with 
 the preface were published without authorization in 1763, 
 but, according to Mr. Dallaway's memoirs of Lady 
 Mary, the preface had [later] received her authorization, 
 although Mr. Dallaway himself gives the incorrect date. 
 He says, "Another copy of them [the letters] but not in 
 her own handwriting Lady Mary had given to Mr. Moles- 
 worth, which is now in possession of the Marquis of Bute. 
 Both in the original manuscript and in the last mentioned 
 manuscript the preface printed by Becket is inserted, 
 written in 1728 by a lady of quality. It is given in this 
 edition as having at least been approved by her ladyship." ^^ 
 This preface, showing as it does the spirit and character of 
 Mary Astell's mature judgment, is worth quoting entire: 
 
 "I was going, like common editors to advertise the reader 
 of the beauties and excellencies of the work laid before 
 him: To tell him that the illustrious author had oppor- 
 tunities, that other travellers, whatever their quality or 
 curiosity may have been, cannot obtain; and a genius 
 capable of making the best improvement of every oppor- 
 tunity. But if the reader, after perusing one letter only, 
 has not discernment to distinguish that natural elegance, 
 that delicacy of sentiment and observation, that easy 
 gracefulness, and lively simplicity (which is the perfection 
 of writing) and in which these Letters exceed all that have 
 
 '* Dorothy Brewster, Aaron Hill, New York, 1913, p. 159. 
 " Works. [Edited with memoir by James Dallaway]. 1803, 5 vols. 
 Vol. I, p. XX. 
 
14 MAHY ASTELL 
 
 appeared in this kind, or almost in any other, let him lay 
 the book down, and leave it to those who have. . . . 
 
 "There is not anything so excellent, but some will carp 
 at it, and the rather, because of its excellency. But to 
 such hypercritics, I shall only say ... I confess, I am 
 malicious enough to desire, that the world should see, to 
 how much better purpose the LADIES travel than their 
 LORDS; and that, whilst it is surfeited with Male-Travels, 
 all in the same tone, and stuft with the same trifles; a 
 lady has the skill to strike out a new path, and to embellish 
 a wornout subject, with variety of fresh and elegant 
 entertainment. For besides the vivacity and spirit which 
 enlivens every part, and that inimitable beauty which 
 spreads through the whole; besides the purity of the style, 
 for which it may be justly accounted the standard of the 
 English tongue; the reader will find a more true and accu- 
 rate account of the customs and manners of the several 
 nations, with whom this lady conversed, than he can in 
 any other author. But as her ladyship's penetration dis- 
 covers the inmost follies of the heart, so the candour of 
 her temper passed over them with an air of pity rather 
 than reproach; treating with the politeness of a court, and 
 the gentleness of a lady, what the severity of her judgment 
 could not but condemn. 
 
 "In short, let her own sex at least, do her justice, lay 
 aside diabolical Envy, and its Brother Malice, with all their 
 accursed company, sly whispering, cruel back-biting, spite- 
 ful detraction, and the rest of that hideous crew, which I 
 hope are very falsely said to attend the Tea Table, being 
 more apt to think they frequent those public places where 
 virtuous women never come. Let the men malign one 
 another, if they think fit, and strive to pull down merit when 
 they cannot equal it. Let us be better natured, than to 
 give way to any unkind or disrespectful thought of so 
 
BIOGRAPHY 15 
 
 bright an ornament of our sex, merely because she has 
 better sense; for I doubt not but our hearts will tell us, 
 that this is the real and pardonable offense, whatever may- 
 be pretended. Let us be better Christians, than to look 
 upon her with an evil eye, only because the giver of aU 
 good gifts has entrusted and adorned her with the most 
 excellent talents. Rather let us freely own the superiority 
 of this sublime genius, as I do in the sincerity of my soul, 
 pleased that a woman triumphs, and proud to follow in 
 her train. Let us offer her the palm which is so justly her 
 due: and if we pretend to any laurels, lay them willingly 
 at her feet. 
 
 December 18, ^I. A. 
 
 1724. 
 
 "Cbann'd into love of what obscures my fame, 
 If I had wit, I'd celdirate her name. 
 And all the beauties of her mind proclaim. 
 TBI malice deafen'd with the mighty sound. 
 It's ill-concerted calumnies confound; 
 Let fall the mask, and with pale Envy meet. 
 To ask, and find, their pardon, at ha feet. 
 May 31, 1725." » 
 
 ^Ir. Cleland, the editor, cannot resist one of the com- 
 ments to which ^lary AsteU in her lifetime was often 
 subject. "This fair and el^ant prefacer has resolved," 
 he says, "that Malice should be of the Masculine gender. 
 I believe it is both masculine and feminine, and I heartily 
 wish it were neuter." " Lady Louisa Stuart, grand- 
 daughter of Lady !Mary, in her introductory anecdotes to 
 Lady Mary's Life, speaks of this note in a way that gives 
 a clew not only to ^Marj- AsteU's spirit, but to her personal 
 appearance as well. "This fair and el^ant lady of qual- 
 
 " Letters of the Bight Honourable Lady M — W — y M — e. Xew 
 York, 1766, pp. V-IX. 
 " Ibid., p. ^11, note. 
 
16 MARY ASTELL 
 
 ity," according to Lady Louisa Stuart, "was no less a 
 person than Mistress Mary Astell, of learned memory, the 
 Madonella of the Tatler, a very pious, exemplary woman, 
 and a profound scholar, but as far from fair and elegant 
 as any old school-master of her time: in outward form, in- 
 deed, rather ill-favored and forbidding, and of a humor to 
 have repulsed the compliment roughly, had it been paid 
 her while she lived." '* 
 
 Lady Louisa Stuart is also authority for the statement 
 that Lady Mary's commonplace book of material collected 
 before 1730 contained a poem Of Friendship presented 
 to Lady Mary by Mary Astell and according to Lady 
 Louisa, written by her.'' The same poem is mentioned 
 in Boswell's Life of Johnson under the year 1743, as having 
 appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine in somewhat dif- 
 ferent form, with Boswell's single comment that it was an 
 early poem of Johnson's.*" 
 
 Some lines seem especially appropriate to express Mary 
 Astell's friendship for her younger friend. 
 
 "Friendship! peculiar gift of Heav'n, 
 The noble mind's delight and pride. 
 To Wortley and to angels giv'n, 
 To all the lower world denied: 
 
 While Love, unknown among the blest, 
 Parent of rage and hot desire, 
 The human and the savage breast 
 Inflames alike, with equal fire. 
 
 With bright but oft destructive gleam 
 Alike o'er all his lightenings fly; 
 
 =" Letters and Works. [Edited by Lord Whamcliffe] 1837, 3 
 vols. Vol. I, pp. 49-50. 
 
 " IMd., pp. 53-64. 
 
 •" Proof as to its authorship is lacking. Miss Symonds ("George 
 Pastons") found no trace of it in Lady Mary's manuscripts. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 17 
 
 Thy lambent glories only beam 
 Around the fav'rites of the sky. 
 
 Thy gentle flow of guiltless joys 
 On fools and villains ne'er descend. 
 In vain for thee the monarch sighs 
 Who hugs a flatt'rer for a friend. 
 
 When virtues, kindred virtues meet, 
 And sister-souls together join, 
 Thy pleasures, lasting as they're sweet. 
 Are all transporting, all divine. 
 
 Oh! may this flame ne'er cease to glow 
 Till you to happier seats remove! 
 What raised your virtue here below 
 Shall aid your happiness above." *^ 
 
 The verses To Clio, occasioned by her verses on Friend- 
 ship, although not given in the Whamchffe edition of 
 Lady Mary's works, appeared in the 1766 and 1811 editions 
 as by Lady Mary, and are so ascribed in the latest biog- 
 raphy.*^ The heading suggests them as a reply to the 
 foregoing ode On Friendship. Unfortunately they appear 
 undated in all editions. 
 
 While, Clio, pondering o'er thy lines I roll. 
 Dwell on each thought and meditate thy soul, 
 Methinks I view thee in some calm retreat, 
 Far from all guilt, distraction, and deceit; 
 Thence pitying view the thoughtless fair and gay. 
 Who whirl their lives in giddiness away, 
 Thence greatly scorning what the world calls great, 
 Contenm the proud, their tumults, power, and state, 
 And deem it thence inglorious to descend 
 For aught below but virtue and a friend. 
 
 « Letters and Works [Wharncliffe ed.] 1837. Vol. I. Introductory 
 Anecdotes, pp. 53-54. 
 
 « "Paston," Ufe, p. 548. 
 
18 MART ASTELL 
 
 How com'st thou fram'd, so different from thy sex, 
 Whom trifles ravish, and whom trifles vex? 
 Capricious things, all flutter, whim, and show, 
 And light and varying as the winds that blow; 
 To candour, sense, to love, to friendship blind. 
 To flatterers, fools, and coxcombs only kind! 
 Say whence those hints, those bright ideas came. 
 That warm thy breast with friendship's holy flame, 
 That close thy heart against the joys of youth, 
 And ope thy mind to all the rays of truth, 
 That with such sweetness and such grace unite 
 The gay, the prudent, virtuous and polite? 
 As heaven inspires thy sentiment divine. 
 May heaven vouchsafe a friendship worthy thine; 
 A friendship plac'd where ease and fragrance reign. 
 Where nature sways us and no laws restrain, 
 Where studious leisure, prospects unconfin'd. 
 And heavenly musing, lift th' aspiring mind. 
 There with thy friend, may years on years be spent. 
 In blooming health, and ever gay content; 
 There soothe the passions, there imfold your hearts. 
 Join in each wish, and warming into love. 
 Approach the raptures of the blest above." *' 
 
 The friendship between the two women continued xintil 
 Mary Astell's death in 1731. She seems to have attempted 
 to turn Lady Mary's attention from the vanities of the 
 world to matters of more serious importance to herself. 
 One of the conversations reported by Lady Louisa Stuart 
 concerned immortality, of the truth of which Mary Astell 
 was trying to convince her friend.*^ 
 
 As late as 1753 Lady Mary wrote a letter from Italy 
 that showed how Mary Astell's theories, tempered by her 
 own experiences, were still vital in her thought. In reply- 
 ing to compliments paid her books in Italy, she had merely 
 laughed when she said, "... the character of a learned 
 
 " Letters and Works. [Thomas ed.] 1887, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 524. 
 » Letters andWorks. [Wharncliffeed.] 1837. Vol. I, p. 52. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 19 
 
 woman is far from being ridiculous in this country, the 
 greatest families being proud of having produced female 
 writers; and a Milanese lady now being professor of Mathe- 
 matics in the University of Bologna. ... To say truth, 
 there is no part of the world where our sex is treated 
 with so much contempt as in England. I do not com- 
 plain of men for having engrossed the government. In 
 excluding us from all degrees of power, they preserve us 
 from fatigues, many dangers, perhaps many crimes . . . 
 but I think it the highest injustice to be debarred the 
 entertainment of my closet: and that the same studies 
 which raised the character of a man should [be supposed 
 to] hurt that of a woman. We are educated in the grossest 
 ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our natural reason; if 
 some few get above their nurses' instructions, our knowl- 
 edge must rest concealed, and be as useless to the world 
 as gold in the mine. I am now speaking according to our 
 English notions, which may wear out some years hence, 
 along with others equally absurd." ^' 
 
 In 1694 Mary Astell's first work was published: A 
 Serious Proposal To the Ladies For the Advancement of their 
 True and greatest Interest. Part II followed in 1697, and 
 other editions show the immediate popularity of the book. 
 Meanwhile in 1695 the correspondence between Mary Astell 
 and John Norris, Rector of Bemerton, entitled Letters Con- 
 cerning the Love of God, had been published at his earnest 
 request, to which Mary Astell acceded only because she 
 felt that women might be led to read a book written 
 by a woman. 
 
 In 1700 appeared Some Reflections upon Marriage Occa- 
 sioned by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case. The 
 imhappy Duchess who had come to Chelsea after the 
 separation from her husband, had recently published the 
 « "Paston," lAfe, p. 486. 
 
 Kl 
 
20 MARY ASTELL 
 
 account of her marital troubles. This seems to have 
 aroused the sympathy of Mary Astell for her Chelsea 
 neighbor, and at the same time to have furnished her 
 with the text for a pamphlet on marriage. 
 
 From 1704^1705 she was engaged in political and re- 
 ligious controversy. She attacked Defoe in A Fair Way 
 with the Dissenters and their Patrons; she opposed Shaftes- 
 bury,^^ in Bart'lemy Fair or an Enquiry after Wit, and she 
 defended the royaUst party and the Established Church 
 in. An Empartial Enquiry into the Cause of Rebellion and 
 Civil War in this Kingdom, and in Moderation truly Stated. 
 In 1705 she closed her active career as a pamphleteer by 
 a siunmary of her religious and educational theory in The 
 Christian Religion As Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church 
 of England, although she continued her religious contro- 
 versies in a letter to Henry Dodwell concerning the non- 
 juror controversy, and helped Dr. John Walker collect 
 material for his work on The Sufferings of the Clergy. 
 
 Her importance, however, to-day, when the religious and 
 political controversies of the seventeenth century have 
 lost their vitality, lies in her suggestion made in A Serious 
 Proposal that a foundation should be established for the 
 education of women along not only rehgious but secular 
 hues. This suggestion for a woman's college received 
 wide notice immediately and was looked upon favorably 
 in many quarters. Through it Mary Astell became suffi- 
 ciently well enough known to be mentioned by Evelyn 
 in Numismata among the women whose names should 
 be handed down to fame. In 1697 Thomas Burnet of 
 Kemney wrote to the Electress Sophia *' telling of Mary 
 Astell's "zeal and Judgment in the advyces given to her 
 
 " Mary Astell wrote under the impression that Swift was the author 
 of the Letter Concerning Enthitsiasm. 
 " Cf. Chap. Ill, p. 70. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 21 
 
 sex, for the reformation of manners, living, studies, and 
 conversations of the ladies;"*' in the same year Defoe 
 suggested his variation of the plan, with less room for 
 rehgious exercises and more emphasis upon secular train- 
 ing; *^ and for many years men interested in the improve- 
 ment of social conditions commented upon her proposal. 
 Whether opposed or not, all those discussing the project 
 seemed to feel that Mary Astell had struck out into a 
 new field. Unfortunately, the opposition to so new an 
 idea was greater than the interest in it, and came not 
 only from the satirists of the day, who, like the wits of 
 all ages, foiind the progressive woman a source of laughter 
 and made Mary Astell the subject of stock jokes in com- 
 edies of the Femmes Savantes types, but from churchmen, 
 who saw in the plan an attempt to bring back popery. 
 The strongest opponent of the idea was a celebrated 
 bishop, who, as Ballard asserts, prevented a prominent 
 lady from subscribing £10,000 to the plan. Ehzabeth 
 Elstob gave to Ballard the name of this celebrated bishop 
 in reply to an inquiry from him. 
 
 "I don't remember that I ever heard Mrs. Astell men- 
 tion the Good Lady's name you desire to know, but 
 very well remember she told me it was Bishop Burnet 
 that prevented that good Design by dissuading that Lady 
 from encouraging it.^" 
 
 "Eversham. 
 "July 13, 1738." 
 
 Bishop Burnet's opposition was not to the education 
 of women, but to what he beheved was a Romanist 
 
 « Cf. Chap. Ill, p. 70. « Cf. Chap. Ill, p. 70. 
 
 6» Ballard MS. 43:29. Miss Fox-Bourne says that no traces of 
 Bishop Burnet's connection with the matter appear m any manuscript 
 surviving from him, but Elizabeth Elstob's letter seems sufficient proof 
 that he was the bishop concerned. 
 
22 MARY ASTELL 
 
 tendency in Mary Astell's proposal. He helped in the 
 education of Lady Mary Montagu, praised the intellectual 
 power of his wife, Elizabeth Burnet, and admired the 
 mental vigor of Queen Mary II. Toward the end of his 
 life he expressed himself, in terms reminiscent of Mary 
 Astell's suggestion, as being in favor of a more serious 
 education for women. Under the date of June 2, 1708, 
 he wrote: 
 "" "The ill method of schools and colleges gives the chief 
 rise to the irregularities of the gentry as the breeding 
 young women to vanity,, dressing, and a false appearance 
 of interest, and behaviour, without proper work or a due 
 measure of knowledge and a serious sense of religion, 
 is the source of the corruption of that sex: something 
 like monasteries without vows would be a glorious design, 
 \ and might be set on foot as to be the honour of a Queen on 
 \_the throne, — but I will pursue this no further." '' 
 
 Both the Princess Anne and Lady Elizabeth Hastings 
 
 have been given credit for the subscription which Bishop 
 
 Burnet hindered. But from the preface to A Serious 
 
 \ Proposal it is clear that the Princess Anne was the great 
 
 I lady whom Mary Astell thought of as a benefactor of 
 
 [the proposed foundation. In the original work published 
 
 in 1694 Mary Astell may not have had the Princess Anne 
 
 in mind as a prospective patroness. The second part, 
 
 j however, published in 1697, was dedicated to her Royal 
 
 Highness in terms that are more sincere than those 
 
 employed in many of the dedications of the time. 
 
 "And when I consider you Madam as a Princess who is 
 sensible that the Chief Prerogative of the Great is the 
 Power they have of doing more Good than those in an 
 inferior station can, I see no cause to fear your Royal 
 
 " Gilbert Burnet, History of Our Own Times, Edinburgh, 1728, 4 
 vols. Vol. IV, p. 205. 
 
BIOGHAPHY 23 
 
 Highness will deny encouragement to that which has no 
 other design than the Bettering of the World, especially 
 the most neglected part of it as to all Real Improvement, 
 the Ladies. It is by the exercise of this Power that Princes 
 have become truly Godlike; they are never so illustrious 
 as when they shine as Lights in the World by an Eminent 
 and Heroic vertue." '^ 
 
 As the project did not die down immediately. Lady 
 Elizabeth Hastings may have interested herself in it later; 
 but her intimacy with Mary Astell did not begin until after 
 1705. In 1694 Bishop Burnet was on terms of acquaint- 
 ance with the Princess Anne, if not always in her best 
 graces. By 1698 he was tutoring her son so that any dis- 
 cussion of the subject might easily have been oral. 
 
 In the conclusion to the same volume Mary Astell 
 comments upon the interest aroused by her suggestion, 
 and emphasizes again the idea that the foundation she 
 suggests is academic not monastic. The discussion evi- 
 dently continued imtil 1705 when in The Christian Re- 
 ligion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England 
 Mary Astell appealed to the Queen to further her designs 
 for the education of women. 
 
 "Among which that which they seem most afraid of is 
 dispeopling the world and driving Folks into Monasteries, 
 tho' I see none among us for them to run into were they 
 ever so much inclined, — but have heard it generally 
 complained of by very good Protestants that monasteries 
 were Abolished instead of being Reform'd. And tho' none 
 that I know of plead for Monasteries, strictly so called 
 in England, or for anything else but a reasonable pro- 
 vision of the education of one half of Mankind, and for 
 a safe retreat so long and no longer than our circmnstances 
 make it requisite. As is so plainly exprest in what has 
 " A Serious Proposal, Part II, 1697. Dedication. 
 
24 MARY ASTELL 
 
 been said in this business that none can mistake the mean- 
 ing without great disingenuity and an eager desire to cavil. 
 But generous designs for the Glory of God and the good 
 of Mankind have been opposed in all Ages (even by those 
 who pretend to be the true Patriots) by supposed and 
 far fetched dangers and by misrepresentations, to raise 
 the mob and popular prejudice against them, since reason 
 will not furnish out any objection. 
 
 "But may we not hope from the magnificence of a truly 
 Glorious Prince, every year of whose reign, may be reck- 
 oned not by the addition of new Oppressions to Drain her 
 Subjects and Enrich Foreigners, but by an increase of 
 new Bounties and Acts of Goodness to Her own People, 
 as well as a Generous exertion of her Power to establish 
 the Tranquillity of Europe: That since her subjects in 
 general have had so liberal a portion of her Royal Benefi- 
 cence and the Clergyman more particularly an Act that 
 will embalm Her Majesties Name to further Generations, 
 and sound her praise louder than all the Ravages and 
 Victories of Usurping and Ambitious Men, nay even than 
 her own Glorious Victories, truly glorious in that they do 
 not dispossess a rightful owner, but secure his empire, 
 whilst the name of the wicked who dispossess lawful sove- 
 reigns shall rot. May we not hope that she will not do 
 less for Her own Sex, than she has already done for the 
 other; but that the next year of her Majesties' Annals 
 will bear date from her Maternal and Royal cure of the 
 most helpless and most neglected part of her subjects. 
 If She overlooks us, we have no further prospect, for, 
 wherever other People may carry their views, we of the 
 Church of England have no hope beyond our Present 
 Sovereign." ^ 
 
 " The Christian Religion, pp. 141-143. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 25 
 
 The extensive notice which Mary Astell's scheme for 
 a woman's college gained is testified to by the satirical 
 references to it. The best known of these attacks is 
 Swift's portrayal of Madonella in the Taller, a paper usu- 
 ally regarded as a purely wanton piece of indecency. Its 
 vulgarity has no excuse, but the cause of Swift's bitterness 
 did not lie in his desire to oppose the plan, for he was 
 not unfavorable to the education of women; he was re- 
 plying to an attack made on the Kit-Cat Club by Mary 
 Astell in BarVlemy Fair, in which she had accused him of 
 being irreligious. In Taller Number 32, Swift, in a manner 
 not in conformity with present taste, described Mary 
 Astell's college for women as if it were really existing in 
 England as a Protestant nunnery with Madonella as 
 its head, "A Lady who had writ a fine book concern- 
 ing the Recluse Life, and was the Projectrix of the 
 Foundation." With her is associated Betty, that is. 
 Lady Elizabeth Hastings. 
 
 A rake who with his companions visits the foundation 
 says, "We Travellers who have seen many foreign institu- 
 tions of this kind have a Curiosity to see in its first Rudi- 
 ments the seat of Primitive Piety: for such it must be called 
 by future Ages to the Eternal Honour of the Founders. 
 I have read Madonella's excellent and seraphic Discourse 
 on this subject." The Lady immediately answers, "If 
 what I have said could have contributed to raise any 
 Thoughts in you that may make for the Advancement of 
 intellectual and divine Conversation, I should think my- 
 self extremely happy." The rest of the paper relates the 
 conquest of the college by the group of rakes. 
 
 Less objectionable in statement is Swift's second paper. 
 
 "Madonella who as 'twas thought had long since taken 
 her Flight towards the Aetherial Mansions, still walks, 
 it seems in the Regions of Mortality, where she has foimd, 
 
26 MARY ASTELL 
 
 by deep Reflections on the Revolution mentioned in yours 
 of June the 23d, That where early Instructions have been 
 wanting to imprint true Ideas of Things on the tender 
 Souls of those of her Sex, they are never after able to 
 arrive at such a pitch of Perfection, as to be above the 
 Laws of Matter and Motion: Laws which are considerably 
 enforced by the Principles usually imbued in Nurseries 
 and Boarding-Schools. To remedy this Evil she has laid 
 the Scheme of a College for young Damsels, where, in- 
 stead of Scissors, Needles, and Samplers, pens, compasses, 
 quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew 
 are to take up their whole Time. Only on Holydays the 
 Students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert 
 themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most 
 voluble weapons: and proper Care will be taken to give 
 them at least a superficial Tincture of the Ancient and 
 Modern Amazonian Tacticks. Of these Military Per- 
 formances the Direction is undertaken by Epicene, the 
 Writer of Memoirs from the Mediterranean, who, by the 
 Help of some artificial Poisons conveyed by Smells, has 
 within these few Weeks brought many persons of both 
 Sexes to an untimely Fate; and what is more surprising, 
 has contrary to her Profession, with the same Orders, 
 revived others who had long since been drowned in the 
 whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the Professors is to be a 
 certain Lady, who is now publishing two of the choicest 
 Saxon Novels, which are said to have been in as great 
 Repute with the Ladies of Queen Emma's Court, as the 
 Memoirs from the New Atalantis are with those of ours. 
 I shall make it my business to enquire into the Progress 
 of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of 
 their Philosophical Transactions and Searches after Nature. 
 
 "Yours &c, 
 
 " Tobiah Green." 
 
BIOGRAPHY 27 
 
 The grouping of Mrs. Manley's name with those of Eliz- 
 abeth Elstob and herself as instructors in the school could 
 not have been pleasing to Mary Astell and might easily 
 not have been entirely satisfactory to Mrs. Manley. 
 
 Steele was also included in the attack, but took revenge 
 more in accord with his character. In Number 166 of 
 the Tatler, in discussing certain phases of decorum, he 
 brings in Mary Astell to illustrate his point. 
 
 "There are rules and decorums which are never to be 
 transgressed by those who understand the world; and he 
 who offends in this kind ought not to take it ill if he is 
 turned away, even when he sees the person look out at 
 her window whom he inquires for. 'Nay,' said he, 'My 
 Lady Dimple is so positive in this rule, that she takes 
 it for a piece of good breeding and distinction to deny 
 herself with her own mouth. Mrs. Comma, the great 
 scholar insists upon it; and I myself that a lord's porter 
 or a lady's woman cannot be said to lie in this case be- 
 cause they act by instruction; and their words are no 
 more their own than those of a puppet.' " ** 
 
 In Number 253 Steele again pays his respects to Mary 
 Astell by making her appear as one of the jury in a court 
 of Honour. "The foreman," he says, "was a professed 
 Platonist that had spent much of her time in exhorting 
 the sex to set a just value upon their persons, and to make 
 the men know themselves." 
 
 More interesting still as showing a wide-spread knowl- 
 edge of Mary Astell's plan are the references to her in 
 the contemporary plays which deal with the learned lady. 
 For a hundred years the "philosophical lady" h ad been 
 
 " This skit in the Tatler was probably the origin of Ballard's state- 
 ment that Mary Astell was a recluse and refused to see guests, that 
 "she would look out at the window, and jestingly tell them . . . 
 "Mrs. Astell is not at home; " and in good earnest keep them out. . . ." 
 
28 MARY ASTELL 
 
 a butt for satire. Through the early seventeenth century 
 woman had been attacked in the coarse popular broad- 
 sides, in the Characters, and in current plays, but the satire 
 had dealt with physical and moral characteristics rather 
 than with intellectual. In the Characters the woman 
 pedant does not appear, John Earle's A She Precise Hypo- 
 crite approaching most nearly to the type.^^ Such coarse 
 papers as The Ladies Parliament series have references 
 to the "philosophical lady." ^ Some reflection of her type 
 is found early in the century in Jonson's Volpone and 
 Fletcher's The Wild Goose Chase. After the Restoration, 
 through the comedies of Moli^re, the pedantic woman 
 
 \ who had by this time developed into the prideitse, became 
 
 J a stock figure of English satire. 
 
 Moli^re's Femmes Savantes was published in 1672, and 
 had an immediate influence on English comedy. Thomas 
 Wright's The Female Vertuoso of 1693 follows closely 
 Molifere's plot, with the added coarseness of Restoration 
 drama. Three types of learned lady appear: the mother, 
 that is, the married woman who teaches her husband by 
 her contempt for his powers and by her hen-pecking ten- 
 dencies as well as by filling his house with would-be poets; 
 the daughter, outwardly devoted to natural philosophy 
 and Platonic love, but inwardly in love with the suitor 
 whom she has seemingly rejected; and the unmarried 
 older woman, represented here, as in Moli^re, as regarding 
 all men as in love with her. Mariana, like MoliSre's 
 Henriette is the ideal type, the girl of good sense, who 
 straightforwardly accepts the suitor whom she loves. 
 
 An earlier imitation by Aphra Behn, Sir Patient Fancy, 
 of 1678, varies more from MoliSre and has features fol- 
 
 " Cf. List of Characters in Mod. Lang. Ass. Pub. 1904, New Series, 
 2, pp. 104-114. 
 
 •* The Ladies a Second Time Assembled, 1647, p. 1. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 29 
 
 lowed by later comedies of the same type. The character 
 of Lady Knowall is only slightly developed as that of an 
 artificial pedant with some inclinations toward science as 
 in the French satires, but ready to draw her daughter's 
 lover to herself by impleasant advances. The character 
 combination of pedant and lover prevails in the succeeding 
 comedy, as does also the satire on the interest in science 
 which was not developed so much among English women 
 as among the French. 
 
 By 1709, the time of Swift's Madonella in the Tatler, 
 when Mary Astell had become well known, Mrs. Centlivre 
 used her in The Basset Table, as a specific instance of the 
 learned lady. The French influence is prominent in this 
 play in that Valeria's pseudo-learning consists in experi- 
 mental science. Mingled with a satire on gaming is the 
 story of "Valeria whose father wishes her to marry a sea 
 captain but who has fixed her affections upon Ensign 
 Lovely. He is not appalled by her pretensions to knowl- 
 edge, but only seeks her more earnestly. As he puts the 
 situation: "That little She Philosopher has made me do 
 Penance more heartily than ever my Sins did; I deserve 
 her by mere dint of Patience. I have stood whole Hours 
 to hear her assert, that Fire cannot burn nor Water 
 drown, nor Pain afflict and Forty ridiculous Systems." " 
 Her father is hopelessly at a loss to imderstand his philo- 
 sophical daughter and her aunt, Lady Reveller, can only 
 say in despair, "Well, Cousin, might I advise, you to bestow 
 your Fortune in founding a College for the Study of Phi- 
 losophy, where none but Women should be admitted; and to 
 immortalize your Name they should be called Valerians." °' 
 
 " The Works of Mrs. Centlivre, London, 1771, Vol. 1, p. 210. Cf. 
 Myra Reynolds, The Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea, Chicago, 
 1903, pp. LXI-LXII. 
 
 «« Works of Mrs. Centlivre. Vol. I, pp. 217-218. 
 
30 MARY ASTELL 
 
 The character of Valeria differs somewhat from others 
 of the type in that she is presented as in love, and not as 
 to be won only by long struggle. In Act III, Ensign 
 Lovely is discovered attempting to state his affection for 
 her while she is discussing the circulation of blood in a 
 fish's tail. He finally secures her attention long enough 
 to declare his passion. She nonchalantly accepts him 
 because he loves philosophy. At this point her father 
 appears upon the scene; Valeria throws philosophy to the 
 winds and preserves Lovely from her father's wrath by 
 emptying out a fish she has been dissecting and placing 
 Lovely under the tub that had contained it. The captain 
 whom her father has designed for her enters, sues for her 
 hand, but is appalled by the jyr&cis language in which she 
 replies. Valeria declares her determination to marry 
 Lovely, and in the good old-fashioned way successfully 
 submerges philosophy in marriage. 
 
 Gibber's Refusal of 1721 is still another adaptation of 
 MoliSre with the niunber of characters reduced and the 
 action complicated. Lady Wrangle, the mother, is in 
 love with Frankly, who has loved the Platonic lady 
 Sophronia, but now loves her sister Charlotte. Both Lady 
 Frankly and Sophronia believe Frankly to be in love with 
 them. The plot is complicated by Sophronia's lover. 
 Granger, who is supposed to have accepted her Platonic 
 requirements, but who succeeds in overcoming them. Both 
 Sophronia and Gharlotte are weaker and coarser than 
 Molifere's Armande and Henriette. In this play there seems 
 to be a reference to Mary Astell in the account of Lady 
 Wrangle's education. Frankly is speaking to Sir Gilbert, 
 the hen-pecked husband of Lady Wrangle, who replies: 
 
 "0! Sir, Learning's a fine Accomplishment in a fine Lady. 
 
 "Ay, it's no matter for that, she's a great Plague to 
 me: Not but my' Lord Bishop her Uncle was a mighty 
 
BIOGRAPHY 31 
 
 good man; she lived all along with him; I took her upon 
 his word: 'twas he made her a Scholar; I thought her a 
 Miracle — before I had her, I us'd to go and hear her 
 talk Latin with him an Hour together, and there I — I — 
 I played the Fool — I was wrong, I should not have 
 married again — and yet I was so fond of her Parts, I 
 begg'd him to give my eldest Daughter the same fine 
 Education, and so he did — but to tell you the truth, I 
 believe both their Heads are turned." '' 
 
 The general satire on women contained in contemporary 
 comedy has in these plays become localized and shows in 
 references to Mary Astell the extent of the discussion of 
 her plan. There can be no question that she is satirized as 
 Valeria, who might found a college for women. The refer- 
 ence to Lady Wrangle's education by an uncle who taught 
 her Latin follows tradition as to the source of Mary As- 
 tell's education. The fact that numerous references to her 
 could appear twelve years after her last published pamphlet 
 and that her works could be re-issued the next year sug- 
 gests that her project remained for some time before the 
 public. 
 
 From 1709 Mary Astell published no more pamphlets, 
 although her period of activity was by no means over, 
 as she wrote new prefaces to her works. She was not at 
 this time so entirely a recluse as some of her biographers 
 imply. Nor was she inclined merely to a life of religious 
 meditation. An unpublished letter to Sir Hans Sloane 
 shows how wide her scientific interests were, and how 
 far her circle of friends extended. 
 
 " Mannor Street. 
 "Apr. 25th, 1724. 
 
 "When I had ye good fortune to (me)et you at Mrs. Green's you 
 were so (kind) (a)s to give me leave to waite on you (with a) small 
 
 " Gibber's Dramatic Works, London, 1775, Vol. IV, pp. 18-19. 
 
32 MART ASTELL 
 
 CTiriosity. I know not to wch ( ) mineral : you will ( ) it but 
 
 I know it is akin to both, ye Lord Huntington and her Ladyship are 
 desirous to see your noble Reposi(tory). (W)ill you be pleas'd, Sir, 
 to name a day (wch will) (no)t be inconvenient and permit me to 
 waite ye wishes wch will be a great favour. 
 
 "V most humble serv't, 
 
 "M. AsTELL. 
 
 "I go out of Town very soon." •» 
 
 Unable to arouse practical interest in her scheme for a 
 woman's college, she turned her sociological efforts towards 
 the establishment of a charity school for girls in Chelsea . 
 A letter, imdated and unsigned, but identified by a com- 
 parison with the one just quoted, relates to this school. 
 
 "(Si)r 
 
 "You will please to remember, when you allow'd me ye most (enjoy)- 
 able entertainment of seeing (your ) nable collections in Compan(y) 
 of some honorble Ladys, they in ye Charity School at Chelsea. 
 
 (You) were so good as to offer a piece of wch offer as I hear by Mr. 
 
 Green you lately renew'd. (I) make no doubt Sr. but you are able (to) 
 make good your Title, but we are to find upon inquiry it is disputed. 
 In the building by ye Road up Mr. Green's ground and be more 
 
 (pr)ejudicial to him than in the place wch Wm. Green offers. I should 
 be glad (of a)n uncontested spot wch might please (eve)rybody and to 
 receive your directions." " 
 
 The school was established a few years later by the group 
 of friends closest to Mary Astell, and before her death 
 she had the pleasure of knowing of the carrying out of 
 her plans. 
 
 According to the reports at present in the Royal Hospital 
 at Chelsea, this charity school for the education of the 
 daughters of the Pensioners of Chelsea Hospital was estab- 
 lished in 1729 by the Right Honorable Lady Catherine 
 Jones, Lady Ehzabeth Hastings, Lady Ann Coventry and 
 
 '« Sloane MS., 4047 : 163. 
 " Ibid., 4045 : 336. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 33 
 
 other benevolent persons. Lady Elizabeth Hastings in 
 her lifetime conveyed lands in the parishes of Ledsham, 
 Thorparch, and Cottingham in the County of York, 
 in trust, among other purposes for payment of ten guineas 
 annually to the Chelsea Charity School to increase with 
 the improvement of rent, and in 1805 it was increased 
 accordingly to £21 per annum/^ In her will Lady Cath- 
 erine Jones left £400 to the school,^' to which was added a 
 fund of £1262 :15s. by Lady Frances Conmgsby in 1770. 
 The school flourished until the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century, when it was discontinued at Chelsea, but the 
 funds are at present being used to keep the girls in school 
 elsewhere, that given by Lady Elizabeth Hastings still 
 supporting three girls.** 
 
 Mary Astell lived but two years beyond the time she 
 saw the fruit of her efforts in the school for girls. Nu- 
 merous stories as to her death have been preserved and 
 enlarged i upon by succeeding biographers.*^ A simple 
 
 •* MSS., Reports in Royal Hospital, Chelsea. 
 
 " Wills, Somerset House, Lady Catherine Jones, 1740. 
 
 " The interest in education stimulated by Mary Astell did not 
 cease with the Royal Hospital Charity School. In 1740 at the sugges- 
 tion of Dr. Sloane Elsmere, Rector, it was proposed to establish a 
 charity school for the girls of Chelsea. "As whatever are reasons for 
 instructing and educating the male children of the Poor, hold equally, 
 perhaps more strongly for instructing and educating their female chil- 
 dren, it is proposed that, as the former have, for some years past, 
 been provided for in this way, the latter may . . . become likewise the 
 object of our care and compassion." 
 
 F. Faulkner, An Historical and Topographical Description of Chelsea 
 and its Environs, Chelsea, 1829, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 93. 
 
 °' Ballard gives an account of a serious operation which she endured 
 unflinchingly. He is also authority for the story, which I have been 
 unable to verify, of her having her coffin and shroud before her to 
 remind her of the shortness of life. This story gave Prof. A. H. 
 Upham foundation for the suggestion that Richardson had Mary 
 
34 MARY ASTELL 
 
 statement of the facts appears in a letter of Lady 
 Elizabeth Hastings written to Bishop Wilson. 
 
 "The great and good Mrs. Astell died at Chelsea the 
 9th of this month; she was five days actually a dying. 
 Lady Catherine Jones was with her two days before her 
 death; she then begged to see no more of her old acquaint- 
 ances and friends, having done with the world, and made 
 her peace with God; and what she had then to do was 
 to bear her pains with patience, cheerfulness, and entire 
 resignation to the Divine Will. Lady Catherine adds that 
 she believes her words were turned into as perfect an 
 exercise of those virtues as ever mortality arrived at. 
 She was carried off in less than two months of a dropsy or 
 swelling lympany. She has made a vast progress in the 
 spiritual life for the last two or three years she lived. 
 / "Ledstone May 19"tflli6^^^ 
 
 She was buried in the Churchyard of Chelsea Church, 
 May 14, 1731, and on May 24th the following notice of 
 her death appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine; "Mrs. 
 Astell, Author of several ingenious Pieces, at Chelsea." 
 
 The accessible facts of Mary Astell's life are few. A 
 just estimate of the life and the character of an individual 
 from such meager material is very difficult; yet even these 
 few facts show the uprightness of motive that made her 
 
 Astell in mind when drawing Clarissa. Other features hardly seem to 
 correspond, and Ballard's diflBcuIty in gathering material for her 
 biography in 1752 would imply that her reputation had died out. 
 Mrs, Chapone, who might have been a connecting link, did not begin 
 her correspondence with Richardson until 1750, after the publication 
 of Clarissa. 
 
 Cf. Mod. Lang. Notes, April, 1913. A Parallel for Richardson's 
 Clarissa. 
 
 «« John Keble, Life of Bishop Wilson, 2 vols. 1863. Vol. I, Pt. II, 
 pp. 848-849. The date supplied by Keble is obviously wrong, as the 
 burial register gives 1731. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 35 
 
 a leader in thought to her friends and the center of a 
 group of progressive women. At the same time her 
 independence brought upon her the impleasant notoriety 
 and the isolation that often come to a pioneer. Although 
 this opposition hardened her to some extent and led her 
 to retire more into herself for religious consolation, she 
 retained until her death the strong affection of the younger 
 women whom she had influenced. 
 
 But if her personal life is hidden, the services she at- 
 tempted to render to society are clear. Although her 
 writings touched a wide variety of fields, political, social, 
 and philosophical, her chief interests were ^^ducationaL 
 The political and religio-political pamphlets have passed 
 into oblivion with the controversies that called them forth, 
 but the educational pamphlets are arousing interest to-day, 
 not from the presentation of a psychological and philo- 
 sophical standpoint new in Mary Astell's time, but be- 
 cause they suggested _ colleges for wome n of somewhat 
 the same type as those to-day and because they stated 
 foF the first time educational and social problems that 
 have not yet been, solved. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 
 
 Mary Astell's educational pamphlets were a direct 
 outgrowth of the ideas and needs of the time in which 
 she lived. But their roots extended back into the pre- 
 ceding century and had fed upon continental as well as 
 English thought. The first books in England dealing with 
 the education of women were written in the sixteenth 
 century and were a part of the heritage given to Eliza- 
 bethan England by Spain and Italy. From Italy there 
 had come the ideals of Castiglione's II Cortegiano and 
 the Italian idea of virtu as applicable to women as well 
 as to men; from Spain, the influence of Guevara and 
 the writings of Vives, tutor to Catherine of Aragon. In 
 his educational writings, Vives showed a viewpoint less 
 liberal than the Italian toward the education of women, 
 since he desired a more secluded life for them and their 
 education for marriage, if they did not serve the Church, 
 but he felt no interest in the development of their 
 personalities. He objected to the reading of romances 
 because it would draw away the woman's ideas from the 
 home for which she was being reared. Erasmus added 
 little to the suggestions of Vives. At first he did not 
 approve of education for women, but he was so impressed 
 by the intellectual attainments of the daughters of Sir 
 Thomas More that he modified his attitude. 
 
 With the development of protestantism the situation 
 changed. Up to the time of protestant power women had 
 
 36 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 37 
 
 been able to choose between marriage and a convent life. 
 By the closing of the monasteries, they lost the chance 
 for education in the convent schools or for life in the con- 
 vents as daughters of the church. Through the seven- 
 teenth century some serious-minded man or woman often 
 looked back with regret at the opportunity the nunneries 
 had afforded. Such a one was Mary Ward ' whose ideas, 
 in some measure like those of Mary Astell, preceded hers 
 by nearly a hundred years. Such were Nicholas Ferrar, 
 Lettice Falkland and the ladies of Naish Court, but their 
 attempts to make a change were only sporadic. 
 
 The ideal of marriage as the goal of a woman's life 
 advocated by Vives ^ and Erasmus, and regarded by Luther 
 as the sole possibility open to women is fully expressed 
 in the form it was held in the early seventeenth century 
 by Richard Brathwayte in The English Gentlewoman. The 
 religious conflicts of the day, the antagonism between the 
 socialistic and the individualistic attitudes, the slow 
 democratization that was beginning, together with the 
 strict demarcation felt necessary by many of the better 
 class in society between the intellectual and the home 
 
 1 Mary Ward (1585-1645) a young catholic English woman sought 
 to enter a religious life on the Continent. As she desired to assist young 
 English women of her own faith, she refused enclosure. Her order for 
 women, founded on the principles of the Jesuit order for men, though 
 looked upon with favor by many leading Jesuits, was finally suppressed 
 by the Pope in 1631. Under Queen Henrietta Maria, Mary Ward 
 returned to England and estabUshed a foundation at London and 
 later at Haworth near York. After her death the estabUshment moved 
 to Paris and a community was organized in Rome. In 1703 the Second 
 Institute was approved as to its rule by Pope Clement IX, and in 1877 
 Pope Pius IX approved it as an institute under the title "The Institute 
 of the Blessed Virgin." It still retains its early object of giving edu- 
 cation to women. 
 
 ' Cf. summary in Foster Watson. Vives and the Renascence Educa- 
 tion of Women, 1912. 
 
38 MART ASTELL 
 
 life for women, formed the backgroimd against which later 
 discussions stand out. 
 
 Even in families of prominence and among thoughtful 
 women, there was no agreement as to how much educa- 
 tion should be given to a girl. Elizabeth Joselsoi, in her 
 Letter to an Unborn Child, 1623, shows a thoughtful mother 
 questioning the wisdom of an education that might make 
 her daughter less useful in the home. The same ques- 
 tioning of ideals was shown in the drama, where the edu- 
 cated woman appeared under the term "philosophical lady," 
 under which term she is discussed in plays and broad- 
 sides until puritan times, to reappear under French in- 
 fluence in Restoration comedy. 
 
 The less educated women who had come to the front 
 with the development of the protestant sects were entering 
 into the public life to such an extent that Brathwayte 
 gives warning against "she clarkes." The opening of the 
 eighteenth century saw still more of this discussion, partly 
 an academic argimaent derived from continental pamphlets,' 
 and partly a practical problem aroused by the question as 
 to whether or not women should preach and have an ac- , 
 tive part in church government.^ On the other hand there 
 
 ' Cf. Appendix II, pp. 176-182, for a discussion of some of these 
 pamphlets. Of the pamphlets written by women those by Mademoi- 
 selle de Jars de Gournay Z)e I'igaliU des hommes et des femmes, 1622, 
 and Anne Schurman De ingenii mvlieribus ad doctrinam et meliores 
 litferas aptitudine, 1641, were known in England. The second was 
 translated into English in 1695 mider the title The Learned Maid or 
 whether a Maid may be a Scholar, a Logicke exercise viritten in Latin 
 by that incomparable Virgin Anna Maria v. Schurman of Utrecht. 
 Mary AsteU makes no mention of either, and a likeness between the 
 idea of A Serious Proposal and the latter may be the result merely of 
 the same types of mind working on the same problem. 
 
 * Richard Brathwayte, The English Gentlewoman, 1631, p. 89, dis- 
 cusses the subject of women, showing his prejudice and the power of 
 the time. "Touching the subject of your discourse, when opportunity 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 39 
 
 was a recognition in contemporary pamphlets of the lack 
 of occupation that led many both married and uimiarried 
 to frivolity and worse. 
 
 Wider in its influence than the puritan attitude at this 
 time was the power of the court. James I added nothing 
 to the development of women. Through Henrietta Maria 
 the court of Charles I acquired an interest in so-called 
 Platonism which degenerated into license and in an atten- 
 uated form extended into the eighteenth century. The 
 great vogue of French romances, increased by the numerous 
 translations from 1650 on, followed by such coarse works 
 as Mrs. Mauley's New Atalantis, had a weakening effect 
 on the moral character of the reading public, and licen- 
 tiousness was aroused by the example of the court of 
 Charles II. Some groups of women not at court were 
 imitating the predeiises of French society, as Katherine 
 Philips and her circle who studied "Nature," according 
 to the custom of the French women of their day. 
 
 The increasing reading public among women had brought 
 about numerous editions of books supposedly suited to 
 their capacity, such as The Ladies Dictionaries and The 
 Ladies Cabinets of the Term Catalogues with their muigling 
 
 shall exact it of you, and without touch of immodesty, expect it from you, 
 make choice of such arguments as may best improve your knowledge 
 in household affaires, and other private employments. To discourse 
 of State-matters, wiU not become your auditory, nor to dispute of high 
 points of Divinity wiU it sort well with women of your quality. The 
 Shee-clarkes many times broach strange opinions; which, as they under- 
 stand them not themselves, so they labour to intangle others of equall 
 understanding to themselves. That Divine sentence, being made an 
 individuate consort to their memory, would reclaime them from this 
 errour, and free them from this opinionate censure: God forbid that 
 we should not be readier to learn than to teach. Women, as they are 
 to be no Speakers in the Church, so neither are they to be disputers 
 of controversies of the Church." 
 
40 MARY ASTELL 
 
 of recipes for housewifery and cookery, preserving and 
 surgery, as well as the lighter type of feminine reading. 
 On the other hand, a certain independence had come to 
 some groups of women through a repetition of the situa- 
 tion that had occurred in feudal society. While their 
 husbands had been away at war, they had felt the re- 
 sponsibihty of carrying on the home establishment. They 
 had thus learned through the legal tangles involved by 
 the death of male relatives that women needed a knowl- 
 edge of business and of law. 
 
 Up to 1660 the literary work of English women had been 
 largely the keeping of religious day-books, preparing 
 manuals of prayers, etc. The women entering into lit- 
 erature after that time recognized so fully the prejudice 
 they would meet that they often covered their productions 
 with anonymity, not necessarily from the sense of shame 
 that the modern reader thinks might easily lead them 
 to do so, but from the fear that the work would not be 
 well received were it known to come from the hand of a 
 woman. Aphra Behn,* Mrs. Manley,^ Catherine Trotter,^ 
 and Mrs. Centlivre,* all gave the same reason for anonym- 
 ity. Writers of more serious works had a similar attitude. 
 Mary Astell voiced the same idea in her Serious Proposal,^ 
 and Elizabeth Elstob expressed hesitancy in publishing 
 her Anglo-Saxon Grammar. From the reception of these 
 works by the wits of the day, it is clear that the feeling 
 was justified. 
 
 In the latter part of the seventeenth century was written 
 a long series of pamphlets attacking social problems from 
 
 ^ Sir Patient Fancy. Epilogue. 
 
 » The Lost Lovers. 1696, Preface and Prologue. 
 
 ' Agnes de Castro. Preface. 
 
 * Dramatic Works of Mrs. Centlivre. Preface. 
 
 ' Serious Proposal, p. 24. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 41 
 
 the standpoint of religion. While many of these are 
 purely hortatory, some attempt to deal constructively 
 with educational problems, and a few touch the educa- 
 tion of women. How widespread the attempt was to 
 change evil conditions is shown by the numerous pam- 
 phlets mentioned in the Term Catalogues, two of the most 
 influential of which were The Ladies Calling and The 
 Gentleman's Calling}^ 
 
 Written from the standpoint of the Established Church, 
 The Ladies Calling aims to reach the ladies of rank and 
 to turn their minds to true piety. The author claims to 
 believe women capable of developing their understandings, 
 
 " The authorship of The Ladies Calling is still in dispute. Mary 
 Astell claimed The Whole Duty of Man for Lady Pakington. The 
 following note from the Post Man may add weight to the claim of 
 Bishop Fell, or to the theory that Lady Pakington wrote under his 
 influence. — 
 
 "The Post Man. 
 
 "Sept. 13-Sept. 15, 1698. 
 "No. 513. 
 " Whereas one John Back, Bookseller on London Bridge, hath pub- 
 lished a Book which he calls The Whole Duty of Prayer and several 
 other books which he falsely pretends were wrote by the Author of 
 The Whole Duty of Man. This is to give notice that they are none of 
 them wrote by that author and that the world may not be further 
 imposed upon nor the worthy Author abused, hereunder are incircled 
 all the Books which were written by him, as appears from the preface 
 to the said author's works, written by Dr. Fell, Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 The Whole Duty of Man. 
 
 The Decay of Christian Duty. 
 
 The Gentleman's Calling. 
 
 The Ladies Calling. 
 
 The Government of the Tongue. 
 
 The Art of Contentment. 
 
 The Lovely Oracle, 
 all of which are only printed for Edward Pawlet at the Bible in Chancery 
 Lane." 
 
42 MART ASTELL 
 
 which have become weak through lack of use. Although, 
 for purposes of argument, he does not insist that they 
 have mental power equal to that of men, at least he is 
 confident that they have souls. He discusses the char- 
 acteristics women should have and the states through which 
 women pass, virginity, wifehood, and widowhood. 
 
 Housewifery, "the Art of Economy and Household 
 Managery," is urged as a subject for study. Moreover 
 a wise woman must learn to dress moderately for a "wise 
 man won't dare to marry a woman who has too expensive 
 clothes." Writing, needle-work, languages, and music 
 compose the rest of the scheme of education. 
 
 The usual duties of morality are enjoined, with an 
 especial warning for women to keep silent in the churches, 
 as Paul commanded. "And tho' this seems only restrained 
 to the ecclesiastical assemblies, yet even so it reaches 
 home to the gifted women of our Age, who take upon 
 themselves to be Teachers. Where he allowed them not 
 to speak in the Church, no not in order to learning, — 
 tho a more modest design than that of teaching." '^ 
 
 The well-worn theme that women are becoming masculine 
 draws his attention. '^ The sexes are inverted, he claims; 
 
 " The Ladies Calling, 1675. 3rd ed., p. 9. 
 
 " The masculine woman was not an unknown subject of satire. 
 A delightful tract, printed in 1620, much of which might easily appear 
 as a present day satire, is Hie Mulier or the Man-Woman. In a cartoon 
 on the title page a barber is represented as standing between two 
 women, one long and one short haired, with the question: "Will you 
 be trimmed or truss'd?" In several pages the iron women of the age 
 are discussed. "For since the days of Adam women were never so 
 masculine: masculine in their genders and whole generations, from 
 the Mother to the youngest Daughter, mascuUne in Number from one 
 to Multitudes. Masculine even from the head to the foot; masculine 
 in mode, from bold speech to impudent action; and masculine in 
 tense; for (without redresse) they were are and will be still more 
 masculine, most mankind and most monstrous. Are all women then 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 43 
 
 some men have become effeminate and some women bold, 
 even swearing and drinking, a "prodigious" thing in 
 women. To overcome the temptation to such evils women 
 are urged to cultivate their minds, that they may get 
 a reasonable basis for faith, and to follow the precepts of 
 morality. They are exhorted to remember that the chief 
 state of woman is obedience to authority, as shown by 
 
 turn'd masculine? No God forbid there are a world full of holy 
 thoughts, modest carriage, and severe chastity: to these let me fall on 
 my knees and say, You O, you women; you good women: you that 
 are — Castles impregnable. Rivers unf aUable, Seas immovable, infinit 
 treasures, and invincible armes: that are helpers most trustie, centinels 
 most careful, signes deceitful . . . O doe not looke to finde your names 
 in this Declamation . . . when I write of you, I will write with a 
 golden pen on leaves of golden paper: now I write with a rough quill 
 and blacke inke on iron sheetes, the iron deeds of an iron generation. 
 
 Come then, you masculine- women — for you are my Subject . . . 
 when to name him that named all things might study an Age to give 
 you a right attribute, whose like are not found in any Antiquaries 
 study, in any Bea-man's traveU, nor in any Painters cunning, you that 
 are stranger than strangeness itself . . . exchanging the modest attire 
 of the comely Hood, Cawle, Coyfe, handsome Dresse or Kerchiefe, 
 to the Cloudy, Ruffianly brodd-brimm'd Hatte, and wanton Feather, 
 the modest upper parts of a concealing straight gowne — to the French 
 doublet — the glory of a faire large hajrre to the shame of most ruf- 
 fianly short lockes: — for needles swords, for Prayer-books handy 
 jigs, for modest gestures gyant like behaviours, and for womens mod- 
 estie all Manishe and Apish incivilities." The result if women become 
 "so much man in aU things that they are neither men nor women, but 
 just good for nothing." 
 
 "Remember how your Maker made for our first Parents coates, 
 not one coat but a coat for the man and a coat for the woman: coates 
 of severaU fashions, severall formes, and for severall uses, — the man's 
 coat fit for his labour, the woman's fit for her modestie; and will you 
 lose the modeU left by this great worke-master of Heaven?" 
 
 The only thing left to be done to keep women in that modesty of 
 apparell suited to their condition as women, is for men to refuse them 
 money with which to buy such garments. History repeats itself. 
 
44 MAHY ASTELL 
 
 the fact that "God and Nature do attest the particular 
 expediency of this to women, by having placed that Sex 
 in a degree of inferiority to the other. Nay, farther it 
 is observable that as there are but three states of life thro 
 which they can regularly pass, viz. Virginity, Marriage, 
 and Widowhood, — two of them are states of Sub-mission, 
 the first to the parent, the second to the husband, and 
 the third, as it is casual whether ever they arrive to it 
 or not, so if they do, we find it by God himself reckon'd 
 as a condition the most desolate and deplorable, — but 
 however it evinces that God sets not the same value upon 
 their being masterless which some of them do, whilst 
 he reckons them most miserable when they are most at 
 liberty." i' 
 
 The author regrets the lack of convents, admires women 
 who are voluntarily serving God, unmarried, and comments 
 on the general unfavorable attitude toward unmarried 
 women, which he considers partly deserved because of 
 their foolish behavior. To avoid such a reputation the 
 daughter should be carefully guarded at home, and not 
 be allowed to wander around unchaperoned according to 
 the growing custom of the time. 
 
 As to marriage, the parents are to decide for their 
 daughters and the maiden must be governed by such choice, 
 for even unwise parents are wiser than inexperienced 
 daughters. "But," he continues, "as a daughter is neither 
 to anticipate nor contradict the will of her Parent, so (to 
 hang the balance even) I must say she is not obliged to 
 force her own, by marrying where she cannot love, for a 
 negative voice in the case is as much the child's right as 
 the Parents'." " The poor unmarried maid was thus left 
 with a chance to refuse marriage, but with nothing to fill 
 
 " The Ladies Calling, p. 44. 
 " Ibid., p. 177. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 45 
 
 its place unless she took up a self-imposed religious life 
 at a time when there were no religious establishments to 
 enter. 
 
 The topic of woman's place and duty was discussed 
 from a more secular standpoint and yet with more far- 
 reaching influence in The Lady's New-Year's-Gift or Ad- 
 vice to a Daughter, a work by the practical statesman 
 George Savile, Marquis of Halifax. The daughter for 
 whom the book was written was the mother of Lord 
 Chesterfield, who continued the custom of parental advice 
 in the letters to his son. At its publication in 1678, the 
 book first mentioned, won immediate popularity, passing 
 through twenty-five editions. In spite of its practical 
 nature and suggestions as to how a woman should adapt 
 herself to life by becoming a "Trimmer," it has a tender- 
 ness that is attractive." 
 
 But the tenderness of his feeling toward her does not 
 prevent Lord Halifax from showing his daughter the place 
 woman holds in the estimation of the time. He portrays 
 for her the useless woman who thinks the care of a family 
 beneath her, or fears to weight her mind with duties lest 
 she should bring wrinkles to her face:" he calls her atten- 
 tion to the woman who attempts to appear young, "Girls 
 of Fifty, who resolve to be always Young, whatever Time 
 
 " Complete Works of George Savile, Oxford, 1912, p. 46. 
 
 "but I must restrain my Thoughts which are fuU of my Dear Child 
 and woiild overflow into a Volume, which would not be fit for a New- 
 Year's-Gift. I will conclude with my warmest Wishes for all that is 
 good to you. That you may live so as to be an Ornament to your 
 Family, and a Pattern to your Sex. That you may be blessed with 
 a Husband that may value, and with Children that may inherit your 
 Vertue; That you may shine in the World by a true Light, and silence 
 Envy by deserving to be esteemed; That Wit and Virtue may both 
 conspire to make you a great Figure." 
 
 " Ibid., p. 20. 
 
46 MARY ASTELL 
 
 with his Iron Teeth hath determined to the contrary": 
 he desires that religion be the chief object of her thoughts 
 but warns her against over-emotionalism and an affected 
 appearance of devotion, and urges in their place a religion 
 that becomes "a steady course of good Life, that may run 
 like a smooth Stream, and be a perpetual Spring to furnish 
 to the Continued Exercise of Vertue." " She is not, how- 
 ever, to enquire into the basis of religion, but to keep that 
 in which she was born, or follow her husband's, since she is 
 expected still less than a man to enquire into its truth 
 by voluminous reading.^* 
 
 The Ladies Calling and Advice to a Daughter represent 
 the more serious forms of the discussion relating to women 
 that were prevalent at Mary Astell's time. They largely 
 influenced contemporary thought, the one written from 
 the religious, the other from the practical standpoint, 
 but both keeping the conservative point of view as to 
 the position and the education of women. The periodical 
 press also entered into feministic discussions. Before 
 Addison and Steele, to whom the casual reader is likely 
 to attribute erroneously the revived interest in the edu- 
 cation of women, there appeared discussions tmder whose 
 satire and fun there was a considerable seriousness. As 
 early as 1691, in Number 18 of The Athenian Mercury, the 
 question is propoimded as to whether or not it is proper 
 for a woman to be learned. The answer reads: "On the 
 whole since they have as noble souls as well, a finer genius, 
 and generally quicker apprehension, we see no reason 
 why women should not be learned, as well as Madam 
 Philips, Van Schurman and others have formerly been." 
 The writer further states that women in the past have 
 gone mad with learning, but so have men. From that 
 time on The Athenian Mercury proposed to devote the 
 " IMd., p. 32. " Ibid., p. 7. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 47 
 
 first Tuesday of every month to answering questions from 
 and about the female sex. Thus was the first woman's 
 page established in a periodical. Many of the questions and 
 answers were humorous and satirical, but the paper opened 
 with a thoughtful discussion, perhaps even more serious 
 than those of Addison in The Spectator. That such dis- 
 cussions had gotten into print indicates the general interest 
 in the subject. The preface to An Essay in Defence of the 
 Female Sex shows that they had become matter of con- 
 versation in polite circles, and Swift's fragmentary Of the 
 Education of Ladies testifies to the continuance of the 
 discussion. 
 
 From the time of Sir Thomas More there had been a 
 slight but persistent tradition as to the propriety of giving 
 a classical education to women, and in each decade there 
 had been a few women who carried on the tradition. Sir 
 Thomas More's daughters. Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters, 
 Queen Elizabeth, all were called learned in their time. 
 The Countess of Pembroke knew Latin and Italian, and 
 with the Cary sisters held the interest of wits of the 
 time in their salons. The next decades saw Lady Carlisle, 
 Lucy Hutchinson who studied French with her French 
 maid and was taught Latin by her father's chaplain, and 
 Mrs. Makin, the learned sister of Dr. Pell. The Countess 
 of Winchelsea and Elizabeth Elstob, to mention only a 
 few, carried the tradition to the following century. Clas- 
 sical education still persisted through the eighteenth century, 
 finding its greatest representative in Elizabeth Carter, 
 whom Dr. Johnson regarded as the most learned woman 
 of her time. 
 
 Most of the instruction received by women during these 
 centuries was given by private tutors. Schools for girls 
 in the seventeenth century were few in number and chiefly 
 seminaries for instruction in music, dancing, and embroid- 
 
48 MARY ASTELL 
 
 ery. The Matchless Orinda was educated in Mrs. Solo- 
 mon's school at Hackney. In 1673 Mrs. Bathusa Makin, 
 formerly tutor to the daughter of Charles I, published 
 An Essay to revive the antient education of Gentlewomen. 
 She comments on the common curriculums of schools for 
 girls, dancing, music, singing, writing, keeping accounts, 
 and, while not disregarding these usual subjects of in- 
 struction, would add to them Latin and French, with 
 Greek, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish, for those who wished 
 a broader course of study. Cooking might be combined 
 with history, or preserving with arithmetic if so desired 
 by those remaining long enough at school. The methods 
 of Comenius and his follower William Petty were to be 
 used in the association of real objects with the subjects 
 of classical study. In 1677 a school was advertised at 
 Oxford, and Chelsea and Hackney also had seminaries, 
 all with a less generous curriculum than Mrs. Makin 
 offered. 
 
 In such a mental environment Mary Astell began her 
 work. Dissatisfied with the type of education such schools 
 offered, she sought for something more serious. Though 
 influenced by those who preceded her, she is not slavishly 
 dependent upon them, but adds new suggestions for the 
 practical carrying out of their ideas. 
 
 In her letters in 1694 to John Norris concerning the love 
 of God, Mary Astell had expressed a feeling of deep solici- 
 tude for the character and the salvation of the women 
 around her. This strong desire to turn their minds from 
 the frivolous things of the world to higher spiritual desires 
 led her to write her first educational work, A Serious 
 Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and 
 Greatest Interest, printed anonymously in 1695. Knowing 
 the satirical attitude of the time, she feared the criticism 
 her book would receive. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 49 
 
 "For Custom has usurpt such an unaccountable Author- 
 ity, that she who would endeavor to put a stop to its 
 arbitrary sway, and reduce it to Reason, is in a fair way 
 to render herself the Butt for all the Fops in Town to shoot 
 their impertinent Censures at. And tho' a wise woman 
 will not value their censure, yet she cares not to be the 
 subject of their Discourse." ^' 
 
 The censure occasioned by the publication of her tract was 
 evidently not so harsh as she had expected, although suffi- 
 cient to make her hesitate as to future publication. In 
 the introduction to Part II, she writes: "Did the author 
 of the former essay towards the Improvement of the Ladies 
 consult her own Reputation only, she would not hazard 
 it once more, by treating so nice a subject in so curious 
 and censorious an age, but content herself with the favor- 
 able reception which the good-natured part of the world 
 were pleased to afford to her first essay. It is not unusual 
 she knows for writers to mind no more than their own 
 credit, to be pleased, if they can make a handsome flourish, 
 get a name amongst the Authors, come off with but a 
 little censure and some commendations. . . . But give 
 her leave to profess, she is very indifferent what the critics 
 say, if the Ladies receive any advantage by her attempts 
 to serve them, so it will give her the greatest uneasiness 
 if having prov'd that they are capable of the best things, 
 she can't persuade to a pursuit of them. It were more to 
 her satisfaction, to find her Project condemned as foolish 
 and impertinent, than to find it received with some appro- 
 bation and yet nobody endeavoring to put it in practice." ^^ 
 
 Part I of The Serious Proposal is dedicated to the ladies, 
 who, since they have given attention to many suggestions 
 of no value, will, she hopes, be no less kind in attending 
 
 1' Serious Proposal, p. 74. 
 
 2" Serious Proposal, Pt. II, p. 1. 
 
50 MABY ASTELL 
 
 to a subject, which, as Mary Astell states the matter, 
 "comes attended with more certain and substantial Gain, 
 whose only design is to improve your Charme and heighten 
 your Value, by suffering you no longer to be cheap and 
 contemptible. Its aim is to fix that Beauty, to make it 
 lasting and permanent, which Nature with all the helps 
 of art cannot secure, and to place it out of the reach of 
 sickness and old age, by transferring it from a corruptible 
 Body to an immortal Mind. An obliging Design, which 
 wou'd procure them inward Beauty, to whom Natiire 
 has unkindly denied the outward, and not permit those 
 Ladies who have comely Bodies to tarnish their Glory with 
 deformed Souls. Would have you all be Wits, or what is 
 better. Wise. Raise you above the vulgar by something 
 more truly illustrious than a soimding title or a great 
 estate. Would excite in you a generous emulation to 
 excel in the best things, and not in such trifles as every 
 mean person who has but money enough may purchase 
 as well as you. Not suffer you to take up with the low 
 thought of distinguishing yourselves by anything that is 
 not truly valuable and procure you such Ornaments as 
 all the Treasures of the Indies are not able to purchase. 
 Would help you to surpass the Men as much in Virtue 
 and Ingenuity, as you do in Beauty, that you may not 
 only be as lively but as wise as Angels. Exalt and estab- 
 lish your Fame, more than the best wrought Poems and 
 loudest Panegyrics, by enobling your Minds with such 
 Graces as really deserve it. And instead of the Fustian 
 complements and Fulsome Flatteries of your Admirers, 
 obtain for you the Plaudits of Good Men and Angels, 
 and the approbation of Him who cannot err. In a word 
 render you the Glory and Blessing of the present Age and 
 the Admiration and Pattern of the next." ^' 
 " Serious Proposal, pp. 3-5. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 61 
 
 This solicitude for virtue is to be woman's chief aim, 
 yet like F^nelon, who believed in domestic education rather 
 than conventual, because it kept women in touch with 
 home life and like Madame de Maintenon who would 
 give secular education along with the religious, Mary 
 Astell does not advocate that it be sought by a complete 
 retirement from the life of the world. "No sohcitude in 
 the adornation of your selves is discommended," she 
 writes, "provided you imploy your care about that which 
 is really yourself and do not neglect that particle of Divin- 
 ity within you, which must survive. . . . Neither will 
 any pleasure be denied you, who are only desired not to 
 catch at the Shadow and let the substance go." ^ The 
 chief end of life, however, is not to attract the eyes of 
 men by bodily adornment, but to use it for the service 
 of God. 
 
 Nor does she speak in a complaining and criticizing 
 spirit, for "instead of inquiring why all women are not 
 wise and good," she says: "we have reason to wonder 
 that there are any so. Were the Men as much neglected 
 and as little care taken to cultivate and improve them, 
 perhaps they would be so far from surpassing those whom 
 they now despise, that they themselves would sink into 
 the greatest stupidity and brutality. . . . One would 
 therefore almost think that the wise disposer of all things, 
 foreseeing how unjustly Women are denied opportunities 
 of improvement from without, has therefore by way of 
 compensation endow'd them with greater propensions to 
 Vertue." =^ 
 
 She points to the fact that many men have argued that 
 
 women are incapable of acting prudently. That many 
 
 of them do not act prudently she at no time attempts to 
 
 deny, but she is unwilling to accept the seventeenth 
 
 22 Ibid., p. 7. " Ibid., p. 15. 
 
52 MAKY ASTELL 
 
 century theory as to their incapacity. If there is inca- 
 pacity, she believes it to be "acquired," and thinks that 
 whatever folly the lives of women show might be avoided, 
 since the cause of the defects under which women labor 
 is a lack of education, for "Women are from their very 
 Infancy debarr'd those advantages with the want of which 
 they are afterwards reproached and nursed up in those 
 vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So 
 partial are Men as to expect Bricks when they afford no 
 straw." 2* 
 
 It is this lack of education that brings about untrained 
 judgment in women, that leads them to make wrong 
 choices in life. Were a woman's mind trained, she would 
 know better than to be affected by shallow praises or 
 impudent compliments. "Thus Ignorance and a narrow 
 Education lay the Foundation of Vice, and Imitation, 
 and Custom rear it up." ^^ To have true piety a woman 
 must have her faith founded upon reason, and not wear 
 it as a fashion to be put off at will. But evils must have 
 a remedy, and, having found the cause of the evils that 
 she sees in her sex, Mary Astell proposes a remedy. "It 
 is to erect a Monastery or if you will (to avoid giving 
 offence to the scrupulous and injudicious, by names which 
 tho' innocent in themselves, have been abus'd by super- 
 stitious Practices) we will call it a Religious Retirement, 
 and such as shall have a double aspect, being not only 
 a retreat from the World for those who desire that advan- 
 tage, but likewise, an Institution and previous discipline 
 to fit us to do the greatest good in it, — such an insti- 
 tution as this (if I do not mightily deceive myself) would 
 be the most probable method to amend the present and 
 improve the future Age." ^* 
 
 To this retirement shall be admitted those who are tired 
 " Ibid., p. 17. 25 Ibid., p. 32. »» Ibid., p. 36. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 53 
 
 of the world or who wish to fortify themselves against 
 it. Though the foundation was to be somewhat monastic 
 in form, the purpose was not to be monastic, for the mem- 
 bers might return to the world either for marriage or to 
 carry on good works. Its aim was thus to be academic, 
 but academic in the sense of furnishing religious training, 
 and in giving other training only as developing this end. 
 Such a college would provide a calm life passed in this 
 serene retreat beyond the reach of envy, a life devoted to 
 the contemplation of God and the carrying out of good 
 works. 
 
 Since religion can never appear in its true beauty except 
 when attended by wisdom and discretion, the scholastic 
 aim, Mary Astell believes, must be to cultivate the under- 
 standing, by the teaching not of words but of things. 
 Here she ranges herself upon the side of the moderns in 
 the discussion of ancient and modern learning. Although 
 a student of Latin and to some extent of French, she says 
 that only such languages are necessary as introduce the 
 student to useful authors; hence the student need not 
 know many books, but must study a few carefully chosen 
 ones and know them well. Like Vives, Mary Astell 
 believed the yoimg woman should not read plays and 
 romances, since they make her no wiser in useful knowl- 
 edge. Elsewhere she approves Jeremy Collier's attack on 
 the stage. The knowledge many ladies have of French, 
 Mary Astell would have them apply in the reading of 
 philosophy, for, unlike George Hickes and many of her 
 contemporaries, she does not feel that philosophy is beyond 
 the capacity of a woman. 
 
 The organization she suggests is to be on a religious 
 basis with attention to the sacraments and the fasts of 
 the English Church. But harmless diversions such as 
 music will be admitted, since "Neither God nor wise men 
 
54 MART ASTELL 
 
 will like us [the women] the better for an affected severity 
 and waspish sourness." ^'' The lodging, habit, and diet 
 are to be simple that they may not detract from higher 
 contemplation and from the practice of benevolence. 
 Those in charge shall be women of breadth and sweetness 
 who shall lead by example, not by force. Women of 
 lesser social position may have charge of subordinate 
 matters, but the truly important things shall be taught 
 by ladies of rank. Here appears Mary Astell's greatest 
 limitation, in the confining of education to the ladies of 
 noble families. She showed her wider interest, however, 
 in assisting to establish charity schools for girls. 
 
 Not only will such a college free women from the tempta- 
 tions of the world, and give opportunities for true friend- 
 ship, but it will offer certain temporal advantages. It 
 may become a refuge for heiresses, who are himted for their 
 fortunes, until such times as their relatives shall provide 
 satisfactory marriages for them. It will give an oppor- 
 timity for the education of the daughters of large families, 
 where dowries are limited, and it will provide for the 
 daughters of decayed gentlewomen by giving them an 
 opportunity to secure a living by teaching there. At no 
 time, however, is the suggestion made that those entering 
 may not go back to the world from their retirement. 
 
 At this point Mary Astell discusses many of the current 
 objections to the education of women. She has no admira- 
 tion for the pedant, man or woman. A learned education 
 will not make women vain, she insists, if they have the 
 substance not the show of knowledge, but "a smattering 
 in learning may, for it has this effect on the men, none so 
 dogmatical and so forward to shew their parts as your 
 little Pretenders to Science." ^' 
 
 She emphasizes the idea that the mother, who has great 
 " Ibid., p. 56. 2« Ibid., p. 96. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WHITINGS 55 
 
 power in forming the child, can be educated to be of serv- 
 ice to men. "If she do not make the child, all will agree 
 that she have the power to mar him." ^^ Here Mary 
 Astell's educational theory falls in line with that of Plato, 
 Erasmus, and F^nelon. Like Vives, she believes that a 
 woman's piety, if used with discretion, may go far to 
 reclaim a bad husband, but she does not for that reason 
 advocate marriage as a pious duty. In her discussion she 
 does not suggest education as a substitute for marriage, 
 but as a protection to a woman against an unhappy or a 
 dishonorable marriage. With the satirists and moralists 
 of the time she saw the dangers to the unmarried as well 
 as the married woman whose mind and heart were not 
 filled with deeper interests. 
 
 "For the poor Lady, having past the prime of her years 
 in Gaity and Company, in running the Circle of all the 
 vanities of the Town, having spread all her nets and used 
 all her arts for Conquest, and finding that the Bait fails 
 where she would have it take; and having all this while 
 been so over-careful of her Body, that she had no time 
 to improve her Mind, which therefore affords her no safe 
 retreat, now she meets with Disappointments abroad, and 
 growing every day more and more sensible that the re- 
 spect which us'd to be paid her decays as fast as her 
 Beauty; quite terrified with the dreadful name of old 
 maid, which yet none but Fools will reproach her with, 
 nor any wise woman be afraid of, to avoid this terrible 
 Mormo, and the scoffs that are thrown on superannuated 
 Virgins, she flies to some dishonourable match as her last, 
 tho' much mistaken Refuge, to the disgrace of her Family, 
 and her own irreparable Ruin." '" 
 
 There lies but one danger to marriage in the education 
 of woman, "that the wife be more knowing than her hus- 
 " Tbid; p. 98. "> Ibid., p. 102. 
 
56 MAEY ASTELL 
 
 band, but if she be 'tis his own fault, since he wants no 
 opportunities of improvement unless he be a natural Block- 
 head, and then such an one will need a wise woman to 
 govern him, whose prudence will conceal it from public 
 observation and at once both cover and supply his de- 
 fects." '' In the latter idea she falls in line with Lord 
 Halifax. Then she states, in a way not exceeded by any 
 modern writer on the subject, the true basis of marriage: 
 "Such an education will put the stability of marriage on 
 a basis not furnished by the charms of the wife, but on a 
 basis furnished by veneration and esteem." 
 
 Since the plan for a college for women promises to do 
 much for their advancement, Mary Astell appeals in a 
 very modern fashion for money with which to finance 
 the enterprise. 
 
 "To close all, if this Proposal which is but a rough 
 draught and rude essay, and which made much more 
 beautiful by a better Pen, give occasion to wiser heads 
 to improve and perfect it, I have my end. For imperfect 
 as it is, it seems so desirable, that she who drew the scheme 
 is full of hopes it will not want kind hands to perform 
 and compleat it." ^^ 
 
 In 1697 the second part of A Serious Proposal was 
 published. Instead of behig dedicated to Ladies in general 
 as Part I was, it was addressed to Princess Anne of Den- 
 mark with a hint that the Princess might think the design 
 worthy of encouragement. Then Mary Astell turned to 
 the ladies, calling upon them to remove by their intellectual 
 and moral activity the prejudices of society. She had 
 already in Part I proved women equal to the task; now 
 she sought to stir them into carrying out their own de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Her entire aim is to give women such basis for their 
 " Ibid., p. 99. « Ibid., p. 111. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 57 
 
 knowledge that their piety and their belief in the Church 
 may not be shaken, for, unlike Lord Halifax and later 
 Rousseau, Mary Astell would have women reason out 
 belief for themselves and not take that imposed upon them 
 by their fathers or their husbands. All women have the 
 rudiments of knowledge (however they come by them), 
 and they must determine their acts for themselves. It 
 may be necessary to follow custom until reason is trained, 
 but they must take care not to rely too much upon custom. 
 The limitations of prejudice and sloth must be removed, 
 and the search for knowledge followed patiently through 
 life. 
 
 The rest of Part II is devoted to showing how knowledge 
 must be sought through a study of the individual's own 
 understanding. Mary Astell makes no attempt to decide 
 whether judgment belongs to the understanding or to the 
 will, but she aims to show the defects of the thinking 
 faculty. She does not discuss the mooted questions of 
 philosophy at this point but urges her reader to decide 
 whether or not she can reason rationally about a dress, 
 an intrigue, an estate. If so, then she needs only to train 
 her mind to have it capable of reasoning concerning better 
 things. The directions as to methods of thinking are 
 formulated in six rules derived from those of Descartes. 
 
 The next section discusses the technique of expression 
 as applied to the education of women. A knowledge of 
 the rules of rhetoric is necessary for the furthering of 
 right reason. A sense of truth must be cultivated, for 
 the woman believing fully in her subject will lack no words 
 to express her ideas; hence "the way to be good Orators 
 is to be good Christians." '' From Mary Astell's stand- 
 point, a study of pronunciation, as she calls public speak- 
 ing, is uimecessary, since nature has given women voices 
 '» lUd., p. 189. 
 
58 MARY ASTELL 
 
 suflBcient for conversation, and she would not have them 
 take part in anything of a public nature. Here she 
 falls in line with the theories of the Italian Leonardo Bruni, 
 and, to a certain extent, with Anne Schurman, but is in 
 opposition to the views expressed by the Frenchman, 
 Poulain de la Barre,'* who would allow women in general 
 to follow the Italian women in the practice as well as the 
 theory of politics and in addition would allow them to 
 preach. 
 
 The purpose of all this acquisition of knowledge is 
 right living, and, since to woman as well as to man that 
 is the great business of life, no help should be denied 
 her, if she is placed in such a station in life as to have 
 capacity for thought. 
 
 The good woman will find use for her knowledge not 
 only in the conduct of her own soul but in the care of 
 her family, and in her most important duty, the educa- 
 tion of children, especially as the fathers are too busy to 
 attend to such duties.'^ The education of children, more- 
 
 " Cf. Appendix II, p. 177. 
 
 " Serious Proposal, pp. 209-210. 
 
 "Education of children is a most necessary employment, perhaps 
 the chief of those who have any. But it is as difiScult as it is excellent 
 when well performed: and I question not but that the mistakes which 
 are made in it are a principle cause of that Folly and Vice which is 
 so much complained of and so little mended. Now thus at least the 
 foundation of it should be laid by the Mother, for Fathers find other 
 business: they will not be confined to such a laborious work, they have 
 not such opportunities of serving a child's temper, nor are the greatest 
 part of 'em like to do much good, since precepts contradicted by example 
 seldom prove effectual. Neither are strangers so proper for it, because 
 hardly anything besides paternal affection can sufficiently quicken the 
 care of performing, and sweeten the labor of such a task. But tender- 
 ness alone will never discharge it well. She who would do it must 
 thoroughly understand Human Nature, know how to manage different 
 Tempers, prudently, be mistress of her own and be able to bear with 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 59 
 
 over, requires not only tenderness but knowledge. To 
 the unmarried woman, also, broader education will bring 
 wider opportunities, since the world lies ahead of her as 
 a field for service.'^ 
 
 The concluding chapter deals with the regulation of 
 the will and the government of the passions according 
 to the knowledge obtained. Like Descartes Mary Astell 
 ascribes the passions to certain movements of the blood 
 and animal spirits, which often clog the mind. The senses, 
 as God's work, are not to be condemned, as they contribute 
 to the comfort of the body, but they are to be kept under 
 by meditation and by the avoidance of anything, such as 
 theatrical shows, that will stir them up, thereby depriving 
 the soul of its divine serenity. Reason is, however, no 
 enemy to nature or to pleasure, but perfects one and 
 ennobles the other. 
 
 Platonist as Mary Astell shows herself in a succeeding 
 Platonic rhapsody, she warns the religious enthusiast not 
 to mistake fits of passion for a spirit of piety and devotion. 
 Nor must the moody Christian tincture her religion with 
 her disposition, nor let her love of God occupy her until 
 she becomes peevish to her neighbor, but, instead of spend- 
 ing all her time in devotion, she should employ a part 
 of it in doing good to her fellow men. 
 
 Many points in Mary Astell's discussion of the education 
 of women are the stereotyped points of the day, as the 
 
 all the little humours and follies of youth. Neither Severity nor 
 Lenity are to be always used: it would ruin some to be treated in that 
 manner which is fit for others, as mildness makes some ungovernable 
 and as she is therefore in many from which nothing but Terrors can 
 rouse them. So sharp Reproofs and solemn Lectures serve to no pur- 
 pose but to harden others, in faults from which they might be won by 
 an agreeable address and tender appUcation. 
 
 ^ Cf. Anne Schurman, The Learned Maid, London, 1695, p. 31. 
 
60 MARY ASTELL 
 
 discussion of the characteristics of the ideal women, self- 
 love as an underlying evil in the lives of women, and reason 
 as a basis of character. The development of her ideas 
 can be traced through Vives, Richard Brathwayte, the 
 voluminous church literature of the day, such as Bishop 
 Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying, and the pamphlets 
 written with a more specifically educational purpose, of 
 which The Ladies' Calling is perhaps the most important. 
 The second half of The Serious Proposal shows definite 
 influence of the philosophy of Descartes and the investiga- 
 tions of Locke. But the aim and point of view in the 
 discussion is different. 
 
 The first part of the work cleared the ground for action 
 by showing women capable of education if prejudice were 
 removed, and by discussing the possible method of secur- 
 ing training for them. The second part aimed to give the 
 method of intellectual development necessary to attain 
 the end of all education, — eternal happiness. Part I had 
 dealt with former methods in the education of women, 
 and had shown that what little education was given them 
 was open to the same criticism as that of men. Fart II 
 followed in large measure the Cartesian philosophy with 
 an acceptance of the Platonic theory of ideas as prototypes, 
 but added Locke's theory of simple ideas and of judg- 
 ments as drawn from these ideas. 
 
 In opposition to Locke, Mary Astell believed in innate 
 ideas, although she denied a difference in capacity in men 
 and women. Such questions as whether judgment belongs 
 to the understanding or to the will, whether minds are 
 limited by capacity or by bodily organs, she disregarded 
 as unnecessarily controversial. She accepted the Cartesian 
 dualism of soul and body, at the same time finding an 
 interaction between the two. She kept the theory of mind 
 and body retained by Descartes, in which the intellectual, 
 
EDUCATIONAL WHITINGS 61 
 
 to her the spiritual, is represented as the true type of 
 life and the body is to be kept under. She predicated 
 a knowledge of God from her own being and her resulting 
 idea of such a being. At times the Platonism of her 
 period appears in her rhapsodies. 
 
 In educational theory she is reasonable beyond many of 
 her contemporaries. Whatever her attitude toward Locke, 
 she is much influenced by him. Her contribution to the 
 history of education lies not in new theories scientifically 
 worked out, nor in principles as to the education of women, 
 but in her practical application of her ideas and in her 
 clear view of the social possibilities lying back of the edu- 
 cation of women and of the economic changes necessary 
 to bring about new ends. Many religious writers had 
 complained of the positioij of widows and of the unmarried 
 daughters in families of rank where daughters were too 
 numerous to be supplied with satisfactory dowries: it was 
 Mary Astell's province, when public sentiment was growing 
 against the idea that women should marry for a home no 
 matter what the character of the man, to suggest a way 
 through which this might be avoided, not only by providing 
 a place for education, but by planning that the educated 
 yoimg woman should remain there, teaching, until her 
 own marriage. Thus she would avoid the economic 
 necessity of an unhappy marriage and the license and 
 frivolity to which the unemployed of both sexes were 
 liable. 
 
 Mary Astell's opponents objected to the plan as monastic, 
 and certain elements in her idea do seem to reach back 
 to monastic times, however far from the conventual 
 method she had gone. The change in the monastic system 
 to adapt it to modern needs had taken place in the six- 
 teenth century in the education of men, when the religious 
 foundations were changed to such secular ones as the 
 
62 MARY ASTELL 
 
 schools for men. Nor was the desire for some provision 
 for women an entirely new idea at Mary Astell's time.'' 
 With the downfall of the nunneries and the reform attitude 
 
 " Entirely apart from this development but paralleling it in an 
 interesting manner is the work of Mary Ward, already mentioned. 
 Like Mary AsteU she believed that in troublesome times women 
 could remain faithful to religion only by having knowledge, and that 
 women are capable of acquiring that knowledge. To her the "trouble- 
 some times" were those of the catholic persecution in the early seven- 
 teenth century. To Mary Astell they were the period of scepticism 
 and irreligion of the later part of the century. The independence of 
 viewpoint and clearness of thought of the two is not far different. 
 Mary Ward's aim was only one step nearer monasticism than was 
 Mary Astell's, "to embrace the religious state and at the same time 
 to devote ourselves according to our slender capacity to the perform- 
 ance of those works of Christian charity towards our neighbor that 
 cannot be undertaken in convents." She desired "a mixed kind of 
 life, partly in the world, partly in the cloister," "that by this means we 
 may more easily instruct virgins and yoxing girls from their earliest 
 years in piety. Christian morals, and the liberal arts, that they may 
 afterwards according to their respective vocations, profitably em- 
 brace either the secular or the religious state." The style of dress 
 was to be simple, in general conformed most nearly to that worn by 
 virtuous ladies in those countries or provinces where the members 
 of the Institute resided.^ Like Mary Astell she stood for the intellec- 
 tual equality of men and women. "Fervour is not placed in feelings," 
 she said in a speech made at St. Omer, "but in a will to do well, which 
 women may have as well as men. There is no such difference between 
 men and women that women may not do great things as we have seen 
 by example of many saints who have done great things. And I hope 
 in God it will be seen that women in time to come will do much. 
 
 "Heretofore we have been told by men we must believe. It is true 
 we must: but let us be wise, and know what we are to beUeve and what 
 not, and not to be made to think we can do nothing. 
 
 "If women were made so inferior to men in all things, why were 
 they not exempted in aU things as they were in some? I confess wives 
 
 38 Mary Catherine Elizabeth Chambers, The Life of Mary Ward, 
 1884, 2 vols. Vol I, p. 377. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 63 
 
 that, as the old English law expressed it, regarded every 
 woman as married or as about to be married,^" there seemed 
 to be no place economically or intellectually for the un- 
 married women, who, however, still continued to exist, 
 and, as has been shown by the satires and the sermons 
 of the latter half of the seventeenth century, had become 
 a distinct type, aimless and dissatisfied. 
 
 The belief that virginity is the noblest ideal of life did 
 not entirely die with the nunneries, but in high church 
 circles it survived throughout the seventeenth century. 
 Even the educational writer, Richard Brathwayte, could 
 say in 1631, in criticizing indiscreetness, "Of such I speake, 
 who have not dedicated their dayes to Virginity, which 
 is such a Condition as it aspires to an Angelical perfec- 
 tion. Good, (saith venerable Bede) is conjugall chastity; 
 better is viduall continency, but best is the perfection of 
 Virginity. Yea, Virginity exceeds the condition of humane 
 nature, being that, by which man resembles an Angelicall 
 Creature. We reade likewise that the unicorn when hee 
 can be taken by no force nor subtill Engine, will rest and 
 repose in the Lap of a Virgin." ^' 
 
 Owen Feltham has somewhat of a leaning toward the 
 ideal of a celibate life, but would have no avowed organ- 
 izations requiring it. His statement is qualified by his 
 
 are to be subjected to their husbands. Men are head of the Church, 
 women are not to administer sacraments, nor preach in public churches, 
 but in all other things, wherein are we so inferior to other creatures, 
 that they should term us but 'women'? For what think you of this 
 word 'but women' but as if we were in all things inferior to some 
 other creature, which I suppose to be man! which I dare to be bold 
 to say is a lie: and respect to the good Father may say it is an error." " 
 
 " Ibid. Vol. I, p. 410. 
 
 *' The Lawes Resolution of Women's Rights, London, 1632. Preface. 
 
 *'■ Richard Brathwayte, The English Gentlewoman, 1631, pp. 146-147, 
 
64 MARY ASTELL 
 
 second thought. "But should all live thus, a hundred 
 years would make the world a desart."^^ 
 
 There were then suggested among the leaders of the 
 intellectual life of the people two ideals for women, — a 
 single state devoted to the worship of God, and the married 
 state of subjection to the husband in God. The problem 
 arising was what should be the position of those who 
 came under neither. 
 
 Through the middle of the century the acceptance of 
 the first attitude was attended with great difficulties in 
 the time of protestant power. The most famous group 
 of women attempting it was that formed by the Ferrar 
 nieces at Little Gidding. Their education was not limited 
 to religious books, as they were acquainted with ancient 
 and modem history, grammar, music, and arithmetic, 
 besides fair writing, medicine, embroidery, book-binding. 
 Nicholas Ferrar was insistent upon celibacy only for him- 
 self, and wished his nieces to marry. A letter from Aime 
 Collett to her imcle Nicholas Ferrar, quoted by Carter 
 (the originals are in Magdalen College, Cambridge) in 
 1630, gave up the idea of marriage, and again in 1631 
 she wrote a second time: "Touchuig my condission of 
 life, such content do I find, I neither wish or desire any 
 change in it; but as God may please, with my Parents' 
 leave, to give me grace and strength, that I may spend 
 the remainder of my days without greater encumbrances 
 of this worlde, which doe of necessitie accompany a mar- 
 ried Estate;"^' 
 
 At the election of Mary Collett as "Mother" in "The 
 Academy" of the household, occurred a discussion that 
 shows the varying attitudes of the women themselves. 
 
 *^ Owen Feltham. Resolves, Divine, Moral, Political, with several 
 new additions, etc., London, 1709, p. 202. 
 
 « T. T. Carter, Nicholas Ferrar his Household and his Friends, 
 London, 1892, p. 139. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 65 
 
 "But will not the setting of Mother to the Mayd make 
 a discord in musick (sayd the Guardian). 
 
 "In the old time (sayd the Moderatour) (and I doe not 
 think the musitians of this Age are better Artists) there 
 was nothing esteemed to make sweetier harmonie. Theres 
 a Generation and conception of the mind as well as the 
 body, and sons and Daughters are to be begotten in 
 Christ Jesus as well as in the Flesh. To them, therefore, 
 that choose barrenes of body for more fruitfulnes of the 
 mind, the Names of Father and Mother are no lesse truly, 
 but farre more eminently due then to those who, by cor- 
 poral pro-creation, uphold mankind. My voice, therefore, 
 goes with you both for the same person and Name which 
 you have propounded." " 
 
 The other sisters cannot entirely accept the statement. 
 Cheerefull replies: 
 
 "Your virgin Estate serves better then Wedlock to the 
 attainment of Perfection, but doth not more necessarily 
 require it. Wee would not, with the world to boote, 
 take husbands, to have lesse Interest in God by that means. 
 Its the hope of better serving God and the firmer imiti- 
 ment imto him that inclines our Judgments to the married 
 condition." ^' 
 
 Affectionate urges that a married woman needs even 
 more than the single one the support of religion in her 
 duties.** 
 
 Mary and Anne Collett carried their asceticism almost 
 to the point of establishing a nunnery. Bishop Hacket 
 gives an account of the incident in his Memoirs of Arch- 
 bishop Williams, although a somewhat different account 
 is given by Mr. Carter in a letter of Lenton's. Bishop 
 
 « The Story Books of Little Gidding, 1631-2, 1899, pp. 164r-165. 
 « Ibid., pp. 168-169. 
 « Ibid., p. 170. 
 
66 MAHY ASTELL 
 
 Hacket's report is that rumors had come to Bishop Wil- 
 liams of a monastic establishment at Little Gidding. 
 He visited the place, was impressed by the piety of its 
 members, and gave them his blessing. "But after this 
 approbation," says the narrator, "some of them could 
 not see when they were well. For two Daughters of that 
 Family came to the Bishop, ofifer'd themselves to be veil'd 
 virgins, and to take upon them the vow of perpetual 
 chastity with the solemnity of the Episcopal Blessing and 
 Ratification: whom he admonished very fatherly that they 
 knew now what they went about; that they had no prom- 
 ise to confirm that Grace unto them. Let the younger 
 women marry was the best advice, that they might not 
 be lead into temptation. And that they might not forget 
 what he taught them, he drew up his Judgment in three 
 sheets of paper and sent it home to them. And one of 
 the Gentlewomen was afterwards well married." *' 
 
 The reputation of Little Gidding did not escape so 
 easily at the hands of a puritanical visitor who recom- 
 mended in a pamphlet published in 1641 that Parliament 
 should investigate the foundation. The writer had visited 
 Little Gidding and had talked with Nicholas Ferrar, who 
 had denied that the place was a nunnery, and his nieces 
 nuns, but "he confessed that two of his Nieces had lived 
 the one thirtie, the other thirty and two years virgins, 
 and so resolved to continue (as he hoped they would) to 
 give themselves to Fasting and Prayers; but had made 
 no vows." *^ The investigator did not accept this state- 
 ment since he felt the Ferrar establishment savored too 
 much of popery.^' 
 
 Lady Lettice, Vicountess of Falkland, another devout 
 
 " Bishop Hacket, Memoirs of Archbishop Williams, 1715, p. 156. 
 " The Arminian Nunnery, etc., 1641, p. 3. 
 " Ibid., p. 9. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 67 
 
 churchwoman, worked out somewhat the same method 
 for her household. The children of her charity school 
 and her own household were required to read prayers twice 
 daily, although her opponents criticized this as a popish 
 tendency.'" She desired to carry her educational plans 
 further, but was prevented by the condition of the times. 
 Her biographer shows how far-sighted her plans were. 
 
 "Neither was her case of improving others confined to 
 the present age; designes and projects she had also for 
 posterity, of setting up schools, and manufacture trades 
 in the Parish. But that magnificent and most religious 
 contrivement, that there might be places for the educa- 
 tion of young Gentlewomen, and for retirement of Widows 
 (as Colleges and Inns of Court and Chancery are for men) 
 in several parts of the Kingdom. This was much in her 
 thoughts, hoping thereby that learning and religion might 
 flourish more in her own Sex than hither-to-for, having 
 such opportimities to serve the Lord without distraction: 
 A project this adequate to the wisdom and piety of this 
 Mother in Israel, and not beyond the power and interest 
 she had with great ones to have affected it." ^' 
 
 A relation evidently existed between the establishment 
 at Little Gidding and Lettice Falkland's plans for Great 
 Tew, as her chaplain when she was Lettice Cary, later her 
 biographer, was brother to the Edmond Duncon sent from 
 Little Gidding to George Herbert's death bed in 1633, 
 and had lived with the Ferrars some years.'^ 
 
 A still later example of the same tendency to retire 
 from the world for religious contemplation and acts of 
 
 '" John Duncon, The Vertuous Holy Christian Life and Death of 
 the late Lady Letice, Vi-countess of Falkland, London, 1653, p. 42. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 42. 
 
 *' John Duncon, Lady Lettice, Vi-countess Falkland, [Ed. by M. F. 
 Howard] London, 1908, pp. 7 & 27. 
 
68 MAEY ASTELL 
 
 charity is given in the lives of the ladies of Naish Court, 
 Mary and Anne Kemys. After the death of their mother, 
 in 1683, they went from Glamorganshire to Naish, where 
 they lived until their deaths in 1708. Here they estab- 
 lished a kind of Anglican sisterhood after the Little Gidding 
 type, and were often visited by Bishop Ken. Although 
 unmarried himself. Bishop Ken seems to have favored 
 family rather than monastic life; yet he acted as spiritual 
 guide and counselor to these ladies. The general estimate 
 of their house appears in a letter from Dr. Smith to Bishop 
 Ken, under the date of 1707. 
 
 "But the Christmas festival now approaching I presume 
 that you have made your retreat from the noise and hurry 
 of a palace, open to all comers of fashion and quality to 
 the private seat of the good Ladyes wch has a better 
 pretense to the title of a Religious House than those so 
 called in Popish countryes. Superstition, opinion of merit, 
 and forced vowes take off very much from the pure spirit 
 of devotion and render their restraint tedious and irksome. 
 But these good Ladies are happy under your conduct and 
 are by an uninterrupted course of piety elevated above 
 all the gaudy pompes and vanities of the world and enjoy 
 all the comforts and satisfactions and serenity of mind 
 to be wished for and attained on this side of heaven in 
 their solitudes." ^' 
 
 Nor was the growing feeling that a place should be 
 provided for women limited to the better class of women 
 themselves. Thomas Fuller in the middle of the sev- 
 enteenth century looked back with interest upon the 
 educational side of the monastic foundations. 
 
 "There were good she schools wherein the girls and maids 
 of the neighborhood were taught to read and work: and 
 sometimes a little Latin was taught them therein. Yea, 
 
 '' James Thomas Round, Works of Bishop Ken, London, 1838, p. 96. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WHITINGS 69 
 
 give me leave to say, if feminine foundations tiad still 
 continued, provided no vow were obtruded upon them, 
 (virginity is least kept where it is most constrained), haply 
 the weaker sex, besides the avoiding modern inconven- 
 iences, might be heightened to a higher perfection than 
 hitherto hath been attained." " 
 
 In The Ladies' Calling, a suggestion had been made 
 toward religious orders. The author does not look with 
 disfavor upon the Roman Catholic custom but wishes there 
 might be some such opportunity given to English women 
 who desire to devote themselves to the service of God. He 
 agrees with the generally received opinion that "An old 
 Maid is now thought such a curse as no poetic fury can 
 exceed, looked on as the most calamitous creature in na- 
 ture," ^^ but would except those who remain immarried to 
 devote themselves to the service of God. Even this opinion 
 might be changed he believes, "If the superannuated 
 Virgins would behave themselves with Gravity and Re- 
 servedness, addict themselves to the strictest virtue and 
 piety," and thus "they would give the world some cause 
 to believe 'twas not their necessity but their choice which 
 kept them unmarried. That they were pre-engaged to a 
 better Amour, espoused to the Spiritual Bridegroom, and 
 this would give them among the sober sort, at least the 
 reverence and esteem of matrons." ^^ 
 
 With some such religious background, but with a more 
 vigorous conception of the immediate needs of woman, 
 Mary Astell, through her life in the world and practical 
 
 " The number and breadth of schools for women under monasticism 
 iademedmCydopediaof^ducation, 1913. Vol. V, p. 798. Of, however 
 Lina Eskenstein, Woman Under Monasticism, 1896, p. 378. Thomas 
 Fuller, Church History of Great Britain, 5 vols. Vol. 3, p. 336. 
 
 " The Ladies' Calling, p. 158. 
 
 's lUd., p. 158. 
 
70 MART ASTELL 
 
 touch with affairs both secular and religious and her 
 keen sense of the spiritual impotency of many women of 
 great promise, made her suggestion toward a foundation 
 for the education of women, backed by religious principles 
 it is true, but not limited to religious education, requiring 
 no vows, yet offering a home for unmarried women until 
 the time of marriage or the completion of a training that 
 should lead them to become self-supporting. 
 
 How it was received by Bishop Burnet has already been 
 discussed. A distant relative of his, Thomas Burnet 
 of Kemny in a gossipy letter to the Electress Sophia 
 written from London, July 29, 1697, regardiag the theories 
 of Platonism, mentions Mary Astell. 
 
 "The question continues concerning the love we owe to 
 God: whether it ought to be of pure complacencie and 
 delectationes without any relatione to our own interest and 
 advantage or iff the true love of God will admitt self- 
 interest and that which they call love of desire. The 
 dispute did first begin twixt Mr. Norris a divine near 
 Salisbury, and mistris Ash, a young Ladie of extraordinary 
 piety and knowledge as any of the age. Many letters 
 upon this subject have passed betwixt Mr. Norris and her. 
 Her two little books of proposals to the Ladies, the First 
 & Second parts, shew both her zeal and judgment in thee 
 advyces given to her sex, for the reformation of manners, 
 living, studies, and conversations of the ladies. She is 
 not above 22 years yet, and wrote those advyces several 
 years before." 
 
 In 1697 appeared Defoe's well known Essay upon Pro- 
 jects with its suggestion as to the education of women. 
 In a somewhat humorous way he resents the fact that 
 Mary Astell has suggested a project for the education of 
 women, since he had thought out the matter sometime 
 earlier than she but had not written it down. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 71 
 
 He regrets the usual attitude taken in regard to the 
 education of women, and questions pointedly: "What has 
 woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught?" 
 After showing the fallacy of Mary Astell's method as seen 
 from his dissenting point of view, he makes his own 
 suggestions. 
 
 "The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, 
 and their senses quicker, than those of the men, — and 
 what they might have been capable of being bred to, is 
 plain from some instances of female wit, which this age 
 is not without, which upbraids us with injustice, and looks 
 as if we denied women the advantage of education for 
 fear they should vie with the men in their improvements. 
 To remove this objection and that women might have at 
 least a needful opportunity of education in all sorts of 
 useful learning, I propose the draught of an academy for 
 that purpose. 
 
 "I know 'tis dangerous to make public appearances of 
 the sex, — they are not either to be confined or exposed; 
 the first will disagree with their inclinations, and the last 
 with their reputations, and therefore it is somewhat diffi- 
 cult; and I doubt a method proposed by an ingenious 
 lady, in a little book called Advice to the Ladies, would 
 be foimd impracticable: for, saving my respect to the sex, 
 the levity, which perhaps is a little peculiar to them, at 
 least in their youth, will not bear constraint: and I am 
 satisfied nothing but the height of bigotry can keep up 
 a nunnery. Women are extravagantly desirous of going 
 to heaven, and will punish their pretty bodies to get thither: 
 but nothing else will do it, and even in that case sometimes 
 it falls out that Nature will prevail. 
 
 "When I talk, therefore, of an academy for women, I 
 mean both the model, the teaching, and the government, 
 different from what is proposed by that ingenious lady, 
 
72 MARY A8TELL 
 
 for whose proposal I have a very great esteem, and also 
 a great opinion of her wit, — different, too, from all sorts 
 of religious confinement, and, above all, from vows of 
 celibacy. 
 
 "Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but 
 little from public schools, wherein such ladies as were 
 willing to study, should have all the advantages of learning 
 suitable to their genius. 
 
 "But since some severities of discipline more than ordi- 
 nary would be absolutely necessary to preserve the reputa- 
 tion of the house, that persons of quality and fortune 
 might not be afraid to venture their children thither, I 
 shall venture to make a small scheme by way of essay." 
 
 His plan gives somewhat more liberty to women, yet 
 still implies the necessity for close guardianship. He 
 rejects for women of the period the ideal that seems to 
 include no education. 
 
 "And herein," he continues, "is it that I take upon me 
 to make such a bold assertion, that all the world are mis- 
 taken in their practice about women; for I cannot think 
 that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious 
 creatures, and furnished them with such charmes so agree- 
 able and delightful to man with souls capable of the same 
 accomplishments with men, and all only to be stewards 
 of our houses, cooks and slaves. 
 
 "Not that I am for exalting the female government in 
 the least, — but, in short, I would have men take women 
 for companions and educate them to be fit for it." 
 
 "A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to 
 encroach upon the prerogative of the man, as a man of 
 sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman." 
 
 A Protestant Monastery, a pamphlet by George Wheler 
 printed in 1698, mentioned Mary Astell. It is a suggestion 
 toward a plan of devotion for families, the idea being based 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 73 
 
 upon the book of devotions by Bishop Duppa. The in- 
 troduction suggests that it may be used in families or 
 alone, "Thus Widows and Virgins and all single Persons, 
 who have not the Convenience and Happiness of the 
 United Devotions of an unanimous Family." In the fourth 
 chapter monasteries for women are discussed and approved 
 if conducted under proper rule, such as that members 
 shall be permitted to marry under suitable conditions. 
 "Such nunneries as these," Wheler thinks, "would be no 
 ways prejudicial, but many ways profitable to the State, 
 and creditable to the Church. For their industry would 
 hinder them from being burdensome to the one and their 
 exemplary Virtue and Piety would be a Reputation to the 
 other, whereas now-a-days how many families are their 
 so burdened with Daughters their Parents cannot either 
 for want of beauty or money, dispose of in marriage, or 
 in any other decent manner provide for, yet are they 
 obliged to maintain them according to their Quality till 
 usually at their Decease they leave them without habita- 
 tion and many times scarce a quarter enough to keep them 
 decently." Wheler had practically adopted Mary Astell's 
 idea, for he believed that through such an institution 
 women would be cared for and at the same time taught 
 to provide for themselves, and, as a result, "as they may 
 excel in all commendable qualities, might become a portion 
 to themselves without the help of their Relations, and, 
 indeed, may deserve to be purchased with more money 
 than now-a-days. Men strive to get portion as a recom- 
 pense, for taking them off their wearied Parents' hands, 
 who after an extraordinary charge in breeding and keeping 
 them, till, many times their age which is their ornament 
 becomes their reproach, are forced to marry them below 
 themselves without prospect either of credit or advantages 
 by them." 
 
74 MAKT ASTKLL 
 
 To Mary Astell Wheler gives credit for these ideas by 
 referring to "A Serious Proposal written by an ingenious 
 Lady."" 
 
 Evelyn, Mary Astell's first biographer, approved her 
 plan in Numismata, published 1697, where he classed her 
 as worthy of having her name handed down to future 
 generations. 
 
 "Besides what lately she [Mary Astell] proposed to the 
 virtuous of her Sex to show by her own Example what 
 great things and Excellencies it is capable of and which 
 calls to mind the Lady of the Protestant Monastery, Mrs. 
 Ferrar, not long since at Gedding in Huntingtonshire; 
 the history whereof we have at large written by Dr. Hacket. 
 Not without my hearty wishes that at the first Reforma- 
 tion in this Kingdom, some of these demolished Religious 
 Foundations had been spared both for Men and Women; 
 where single persons devoutly inclined might have retired 
 and lived without Reproach, or ensnaring Vows: tho' under 
 such Restraint and Religious Rules as could not but have 
 been approved by the most averse to Popery or super- 
 stition and, as I have heard, is at this Day practised 
 among the Evangelical Churches in Germany. And 
 what should still forbid us to promote the same Example, 
 and begin such foundations I am to learn more solid 
 reasons for, than I confess, as yet I have." ^* 
 
 Another churchman besides Bishop Burnet discussed 
 Mary Astell's plans. George Hickes was drawn to it by 
 his interest both in the education of women and in that 
 of men. In The Gentleman Instructed he discussed the 
 question of nunneries for women.*' He would have a 
 
 *' A Protestant Monastery, London, 1698, pp. 14^15. 
 ^ John Evelyn, Numismata, 1697, p. 265. 
 
 " George Hickes, The Gentleman Instructed, London, 1722. Sup- 
 plement to Part I, Dialogue IV. 
 
EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS 75 
 
 woman educated for the home. "You may season work 
 with readuig," he says, "for though women should not 
 pretend to commence Doctors, yet I would not have 'em 
 forswear knowledge, nor make a vow of stupidity." *° 
 "Indeed 'tis not necessary to rival the Eiiowledge of the 
 Sybils, nor the science of the Muses, she should not wade 
 too deep into controversies nor soar as high as Divinity. 
 These studies lie out of a Lady's way: They fly up to the 
 head, and not only intoxicate weak brains but turn them." 
 
 George Hickes further showed his interest by including 
 Mary Astell's Serious Proposal in a list of books suitable for 
 English readers which he substituted for a list made 
 by F^nelon. 
 
 "Those [books] which I would recommend to a young 
 lady next to the Holy Scriptures are, The Whole Duty of 
 Man, The Ladies Calling, and the Government of the Tongue, 
 Dr. Cave's Primitive Christianity to give an idea of the 
 Lives and Manners of the Antient Christians, with which 
 she may join the Lives of the Apostles, and A Companion 
 for the Festivals of the Church of England, with Collects and 
 Prayers for each Solemnity by Robert Nelson, Esq., which 
 will furnish her with Matter for her reflection upon the 
 Days dedicated to their Memories. She ought likewise 
 not to be unacquainted with A Serious Proposal to the 
 Ladies for the Advancement of their truest and greatest 
 Interest, in 2 parts: as also with The Christian Religion 
 as professed by a Daughter of the Church of England. These 
 being written by one of her own Sex, may probably serve 
 to make a deeper impression upon her." '' 
 
 A later book with a very modern tone was Robert 
 
 «» Ibid., pp. 160-161. 
 
 '' Instructions for the Education of a Daughter. By the author of 
 Telemachus . . . Done into English and Revised by Dr. George 
 Hickes. 2nd ed. London, 1708, p. 288. 
 
76 MAEY ASTELL 
 
 Nelson's An Addresse to Persons of Quality and Estate, in 
 which he showed how they might use their wealth prop- 
 erly. Besides suggesting trade schools, normal schools 
 for men and women, schemes for lending to the poor in 
 need and for relieving poor prisoners, he says: 
 
 "We have not Houses for the Reception of Ladies and 
 Gentlewomen, beyond Boarding-schools in order to their 
 improvement both in Knowledge and Piety, though there 
 was some years ago a Proposal to Ladies for this and, 
 made by a very Ingenious Gentlewoman, which was then 
 well approved by several ladies and others." *^ 
 
 Such commendation and thoughtful consideration should 
 have aided Mary Astell's proposal to bear immediate fruit, 
 but the time was not yet ripe. It was a himdred and 
 fifty years before her vision, hampered in its inception by 
 tradition, hindered by ridicule and circumstance was 
 fulfilled in ways far beyond her out-reaching imagination. 
 That her thought influenced the later development is 
 perhaps too much to claim; yet women have found some 
 of the opportunities she desired for them not only in the 
 colleges of the present day, but perhaps even nearer to 
 her own ideal in the sisterhoods of the Anglican Church. 
 A very recent suggestion has been made that many of the 
 insistent problems aroused by the changing economic 
 position of women would be settled were lay sisterhoods 
 planned for uimaarried women, — planned so as to give 
 them an opportimity for self-support and social service 
 without bringing them into competition with men. What- 
 ever the value of the forms that Mary Astell's idea has 
 taken, or however narrow they seem to-day, she stands 
 out as one of the earliest English women to plan con 
 structively for her sex. 
 
 " Robert Nelson, An Address to Persons of Quality, 1715, p. 213. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 
 
 The question of woman's place in marriage was a some- 
 what puzzling one in the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century. The norm of marriage had been disturbed with the 
 changing educational and religious problems of the pre- 
 vious himdred years. Under a standardization of marriage 
 ideals, the selection of a husband or wife was a simple 
 process, and the after-relation self-evident. The woman 
 having pre-eminently the qualities of the ideal was the 
 one to be selected and the business relationship of marriage 
 would go merrily on. But, when ideals conflicted, what 
 was to be done? In the sixteenth century there had been 
 two possibilities open to women, marriage and a celibate 
 religious life. With the protestant insistence on marriage 
 and the withdrawal of the celibate idea for men and women 
 from its high place in the religious life, there had been 
 removed from the unmarried woman the one sphere open 
 to her, even though in later times that refuge itself had 
 degenerated. 
 
 The contempt felt by seventeenth century writers for 
 women, in contrast to the growing spirit of democracy, 
 which must eventually permeate all classes, was having 
 its influence. In spite of all opposition or because of it, 
 women were becoming self-conscious. They were no 
 longer willing to accept the attitude of Burton in The 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, of Milton who looked at marriage 
 and divorce from the point of view of the man only, of 
 
 77 
 
78 MAHY ASTELL 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, who found woman formed from the 
 rib of a man and a crooked piece at that. In fact the rib 
 theory of creation played an important part in seventeenth 
 century theology and satire, and unfortunately it is hard 
 at times to tell where satire ends and theology begins.^ 
 The broadsides of the seventeenth century give a picture 
 of marriage coarser by far than that of the mediaeval 
 satires because of the loss of naJvet^ of the earlier period. 
 
 But there were high ideals among individuals An early 
 attractive treatise showing this is the one addressed by 
 Cornelius Agrippa to those contemplating matrimony. 
 Its dedication runs To the Right Worshipful and his speciall 
 good maister, Maister Gregory Cromwell, son to the ryght 
 Honorable Lorde Cromwell, Lord privie Seale, David Clapham 
 sendeth gretying^ 
 
 Vives's insistence that marriage should be cloistral and 
 the woman subordinate to her husband, whatever his moral 
 character, became in Richard Brathwayte's sight more 
 noble. To him marriage appeared as a partnership of 
 mind and heart, in which the delight of the mind was 
 part of the joy of marriage. "I never set my affection 
 on marriage," he says, "to strengthen me with friendship; 
 my aim was the woman and the grounds of my love were 
 her mind's endowments."' Owen Feltham, whose Resolves 
 published about 1628 had reached its twelfth edition by 
 1709, was equally liberal. "Questionless, a woman with a 
 
 ' Female Excellence, 1679, p. 4: "Her crooked mind's a metaphor 
 of HeU." 
 
 * "Thou, therefore who soever thou arte, that wylt take a wj^e, let 
 love be the cause not substance of goodes, choose a wyfe not a garment 
 let thy wyfe be maryed unto thee, not her dowrye. . . . And let not 
 her be subject unto the, but let her be with the m all truste and counsail, 
 & let her be in thy house, not as a drudge, but as maystresse of the 
 house, in thy householde not as a mayden but a mother." p. 102. 
 
 " Brydges, Archaiea. Vol. II, (In Essay on the Five Senses, p. 82.) 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 79 
 
 wise soul is the fittest companioii for man. ... It is the 
 crown of blessings, when in one woman a man finds both 
 a wife and a friend." ^ In quiet circles there were many- 
 homes illustrating the higher type of marriage. 
 
 Mary Astell's Reflections on Marriage is her attempt to 
 solve the problem. In The Serious Proposal she had 
 stated her ideals, which are more fully developed in this 
 pamphlet. Like her previous pamphlets, this one was 
 published anonymously, for several reasons, among others 
 as she says, \" To name but one, — Who will care to pull 
 down upon themselves an Hornet's Nest? . . . Bold 
 Truths may pass while the Speaker is Incognito, but are 
 seldom endur'd when he is known; few Minds being strong 
 enough to bear what contradicts their Principles and 
 Practices, without recriminating when they can. And 
 though to tell the Truth be the most Friendly Office, yet 
 whosoever is so hardy as to venture at it, shall be counted 
 an Enemy for so doing." ^\ The Reflections are the fruit of 
 Mary Astell's observations of life around her, but, as she 
 states clearly, she did not intend the essay as a satire 
 upon marriage. Ballard, however, resenting the somewhat 
 scathing remarks upon his own sex, finds the not entirely 
 unmodern explanation that rumor said she was disappointed 
 in a marriage with a clergjonan and hence he thinks 
 that in her pamphlet she was taking public vengeance for 
 private wrong.* Her own explanation, however, should 
 
 * Owen Feltham, Resolves, p. 203. 
 
 ' Reflections upon Marriage. Advertisement. 
 
 * Ballard, Memoirs, pp. 449-450. "Some people think she has 
 carried her arguments with regard to the birthrights and privileges 
 of her sex a little too far; and that there is too much warmth of temper 
 discovered in this treatise. But if those persons had known the motive 
 which induced her to write that tract; it might possibly have abated very 
 much of their censure. . . . The motive as I have been informed was 
 her disappointment in a marriage contract with an eminent clergyman." 
 
80 MART ASTELL 
 
 be sufficient, that she had been recently reading the account 
 of the wrongs of her neighbor the Duchess of Mazarine in 
 The Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine's Case, and so had seen 
 forcibly illustrated what disastrous results had come into 
 the life of a woman of great possibilities through her being 
 forced into an unhappy marriage.' The woman of stern 
 morality is not lacking in tenderness toward the un- 
 happy Duchess. 
 
 Several things combined to lead Mary Astell to discuss 
 marriage. She had already stated her ideas in The Serious 
 Proposal, as has been shown in the previous chapter, and 
 an additional reason for treating the subject was her 
 desire to answer some of the statements made by Lord 
 Halifax in his Advice to a Daughter.^ That popular 
 treatise seemed unfair to woman in its discussion of her 
 position in marriage. In fact Lord Halifax granted at 
 once the injustice of many of the laws and customs re- 
 lating to women but in no wise approved of an attempt to 
 change them. "It is one of the Disadvantages belonging to 
 your Sex, that young Women are seldom permitted to make 
 their own Choice," he says; "their Friends Care and Ex- 
 perience are thought safer Guides to them, than their 
 own Fancies; and their Modesty often forbiddeth them to 
 refuse . . . when their inward Consent may not entirely go 
 
 \ ' Reflections, p. 4. "We sigh, we grieve, that any Person capable 
 of being an Ornament to a Family, and Blessing to the Age, should 
 only serve as an unhappy Shipwreck to point out the Misfortime of 
 an ill Education and unsuitable Marriage, and the inexpressible Danger 
 of seeking Consolation and Relief in anything but Innocence and Vertue. 
 
 " They only who have felt it know the Misery of being forc'd to marry 
 where they do not love; of being yok'd for life to a disagreeable Person 
 and imperious Temper, where Ignorance and FoUy (the ingredients of 
 a Coxcomb, who is the most unsufferable Fool) tyrannizes over wit and 
 Sense."/' 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 13. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MAEBIAGE 81 
 
 along with it. In this case there remaineth nothing for 
 them to do, but to endeavour to make that easie which 
 falleth to their Lot, and by a wise use of every thing they 
 may dislike in a Husband, turn that by degrees to be 
 very supportable, which, if neglected, might in time beget 
 an Aversion." ' 
 
 Unlike the author of The Ladies' Calling, Lord Halifax 
 does not give the woman the power of refusal. The 
 basis of the chapter lies in the statemenw^"You must 
 first lay it down for a Foundation in general. That there is 
 Inequality in the Sexes, and that for the better Oeconomy 
 of the World, the Men, who were to be the Lawgivers, 
 had the larger share of Reason bestow'd upon them; by 
 which means your Sex is the better prepar'd for the Com- 
 pliance that is necessary for the better performance of those 
 Duties which seems to be most properly assign'd to it. 
 This looks a little uncourtly at the first appearance; 
 but upon Examination it will be found, that Nature is so 
 far from being imjust to you, that she is partial on your 
 side. . . . You have more strength in your Looks, than 
 we have in our Laws, and more power by your Tears, 
 than we have by our Arguments." ^^// 
 
 He acknowledges the laws of marriage to be harsher 
 toward women than toward men, but the sacredness of 
 the institution of marriage necessitates that, even though 
 injustice may be done to the few women who are equal 
 to men. Since Masculine Domination is settled by custom 
 and law, his daughter is not vainly to imagine that it will be 
 changed for her sake, but is by wise and dexterous conduct 
 to relieve herself from whatever may seem to be disad- 
 vantageous in it. To this end he gives her warning. 
 
 Although recognizing the imfaimess of a double moral 
 
 ' Lord Halifax, Advice to a Daughter, Oxford, 1912, pp. 7-8. 
 " Ihid., p. 8. 
 
82 MART ASTELL 
 
 standard, he claims its necessity for the preservation of 
 families. The greatest fault a woman can commit is, 
 of course, imfaithfulness, but next to that is seeing un- 
 faithfulness in her husband from which "Modesty no less 
 than Prudence ought to restrain her; since such an unde- 
 cent Complaint makes a Wife much more ridiculous, than 
 the Injury that provoketh her to it." " In case she marries 
 a drunken husband she is to treat him kindly, taking 
 her consolation in the fact that his weaknesses give her 
 right to govern in his stead and getting what consolation 
 she can from that opportunity, which she might never 
 have had under a sober husband. Ill-humour, sullenness, 
 and covetousness, she is to treat with the same modera- 
 tion. In the latter case she is to be sure she is not at 
 fault by demanding too much, but, if her husband is 
 really avaricious, she shall work upon him by persuasion, 
 taking advantage of any kind of opportunity. "A fit 
 of Vanity, Ambition, and sometimes of Kindness, shall 
 open and inlarge his narrow Mind; a Dose of Wine will 
 work upon this tough humor, and for the time dissolve 
 it. Your business must be, if this Case happeneth, to 
 watch these critical moments, and not let one of them slip 
 without making your advantage of it; and a Wife may be 
 said to want skill, if by these means she is not able to 
 secure her self in a good measure against the Inconveniences 
 this scurvy quality in a Husband might bring upon her, 
 except he should be such an incurable Monster, as I hope 
 will never fall to your share." " 
 
 If she get a weak and incompetent husband she at least 
 can have a chance for dominion, as "God Almighty seldom 
 sendeth a Grievance without a Remedy, or at least such a 
 Mitigation as taketh away a great part of the sting, and 
 the smart of it." '' 
 
 " Ibid., pp. 10-11. " lUd., p. 16. " Ihid., p. 16. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARKIAGE 83 
 
 "With all this," he adds, "that which you are to pray 
 for, is a Wise Husband, one that by knowing how to be 
 a Master, for that very reason will not let you feel the 
 weight of it; one whose Authority is so soften'd by his 
 Kindness, that it giveth you ease without abridging your 
 Liberty; one that will return so much tenderness for your 
 Just Esteem of him, that you will never want power, though 
 you will seldom care to use it. Such a Husband is as 
 much above all the other Kinds of them, as a rational 
 subjection to a Prince, great in himself, is to be preferr'd 
 before the disquiet and uneasiness of Unlimited Liberty." " 
 
 With the Duchess of Mazarine's experiences and Lord 
 Halifax's advice in mind Mary Astell opens her pamphlet. 
 The churchwoman at once shows herself. If the woman 
 is already married there is no remedy: she must abide 
 by what she has done. If the man is foolish and wicked, 
 she can only despise even though she may obey. Though 
 he may love her at marriage, passion often cools into 
 indifference, neglect, or perhaps aversion. There is left 
 to the wife in either case only a life of devotion that she 
 may make her trials in this world prepare her better for 
 the next. The woman who seeks relief in the gayeties 
 of a court brings worse troubles upon herself. In this 
 idea of the permanency of marriage Mary Astell is in 
 accord with Lord Halifax and far removed from Milton's 
 liberal attitude toward divorce. 
 
 Her remedy for such an unhappy condition hes in pre- 
 vention, in teaching girls to avoid modern gallants through 
 giving them betteA\education, and thus securing for them 
 happier marriages. Vi" Marriage might," to speak in Mary 
 Astell's language, recover the Dignity and Felicity of 
 its original Institution; and Men be very happy in a 
 married State, if it be not their own Fault. The great 
 " lUd., pp. 17-18. 
 
84 MAEY ASTELL 
 
 Author of our Being, who does nothing in vain, ordained 
 it as the only honourable Way of continuing our Race; 
 as a Distinction between reasonable Creatures and meer 
 Animals, into which we degrade ourselves, by forsaking 
 the Divine Institution. God ordained it for a Blessiug 
 not a Curse; We are foolish as well as wicked, when that 
 which was appointed for mutual Comfort and Assistance, 
 has quite contrary effect through our Folly and Perverse- 
 ness. Marriage, therefore, notwithstanding all the loose 
 talk of the Town, the Satires of antient, or modern Pre- 
 tenders to Wit, will never lose its just Esteem from the 
 Wise and Good. 
 
 "Though much may be said against this, or that Match; 
 though the Ridiculousness of some, the Wickedness of others, 
 and the Imprudence of too many, may provoke our Wonder, 
 or Scorn, our Indignation or Pity; yet Marriage in general 
 is too sacred to be treated with Disrespect, too venerable to 
 be the Subject of Raillery and Buffoonery. None but the 
 Impious will pretend to refine on a Divine Institution, or 
 suppose there is a better Way for Society and Posterity. 
 Whoever scoffs at this, and by odious Representation 
 would possess the married Pair with a frightful Idea of 
 each other, as if a Wife is nothing better than a Do- 
 mestic Devil, an Evil he must tolerate for his Conveniency; 
 and an Husband must of necessity be a Tyrant or a 
 Dupe; has ill Designs on both, and is himself a dangerous 
 Enemy to the Publick, as well as to private Families." "^^ 
 
 Mary Astell believes that, although marriage is an in- 
 stitution established by God, yet its value as a true social 
 institution may be deduced not from religion merely but 
 from society as its results show. //"The Christian Insti- 
 tution of Marriage provides the' best that may be for 
 Domestick Quiet and Content, and for the Education of 
 
 " Reflections, pp. 17-18. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 85 
 
 Children; so that if we were not under the Tie of Religion, 
 even the Good of Society and civil Duty, would oblige 
 us to what Christianity requires." '* // 
 
 One must not come to marriage expecting that it has 
 no difficulties. "There may indeed be Inconveniences 
 in a Married Life; but is there any Condition without 
 them?"" Unfortimately many increase the difficulties 
 by seeking the wrong thing in the choice of a wife. Prop- 
 erty is not to be despised, as it is necessary to keep the 
 married parties comfortable, but the estate should by no 
 means be the only consideration. The man who marries 
 for an estate and is unhappy should not lay the blame on 
 the marriage. On the other hand, some men chose wives 
 for their beauty or wit. Although love of wit seems to 
 them to be a more spiritual and refined reason, even true 
 wit is not judgment, but only its handmaid. *"Thus, 
 whether it be Wit or Beauty that a Man's in Love with, 
 there are no great Hopes of a lasting Happiness; Beauty 
 with all the Helps of Art, is of no long Date; the more it 
 is help'd, the sooner it decays; and he who only or chiefly 
 chose for Beauty, will in a httle Time find the same 
 Reason for another Choice. ..."'* ^ 
 
 When the men who marry for such reasons are elim- 
 inated, and those who marry with no reason at all except 
 that " it is the Custom of the World, what others have done 
 before them, that the Family must be kept up, the antient 
 Race preserv'd, and therefore their kind Parents and Guard- 
 ians choose as they think convenient," ^' there will be few 
 left to marry for wiser reasons, and few left to deserve 
 their choice. 
 
 Women, on the other hand, cannot properly be said 
 to choose, as their only choice is to refuse or to accept 
 
 i« IhU., p. 21. " lUd., p. 34. 
 
 " l\M., p. 22. " Ihid., p. 36. 
 
86 MART ASTBLL 
 
 what is offered; yet they are not blameless, though per- 
 haps they should be pitied rather than reproved. Men 
 win them by flattering attentions, and they accept. But 
 the burden of an unhappy marriage rests more heavily 
 upon them. 
 
 "And as Men have little Reason to expect Happiness 
 when they marry only for the Love of Money, Wit, or 
 Beauty, as has been already shewn, so much less can a 
 Woman expect a tolerable Life, when she goes upon these 
 Considerations. Let the Business be carried as prudently 
 as it can be on the Woman's Side, a reasonable Man 
 can't deny that she has by much the harder Bargain, — 
 because she puts her self intirely into her Husband's 
 Power, and if the Matrimonial Yoke be grievous, neither 
 Law nor Custom afford her that Redress which a Man 
 obtains. He who has Sovereign Power does not value 
 the Provocations of a Rebellious Subject; he knows how 
 to subdue him with Ease, and will make himself obey'd: 
 But Patience and Submission are the only Comforts that 
 are left to a poor People, who groan imder Tyranny, un- 
 less they are Strong enough to break the Yoke, to Depose 
 and Abdicate, which, I doubt, would not be allow'd of 
 here. For whatever may be said against Passive-Obe- 
 dience in another Case, I suppose there's no Man but likes it 
 very well in this, — how much soever Arbitrary Power may 
 be dislik'd on a Throne, not Milton, nor B. H[oadly], 
 nor any of the Advocates of Resistance, would cry up 
 Liberty to poor Female Slaves or plead for the Lawfulness 
 of Resisting a private Tyranny." ^^ 
 
 Since the wife has no redress, she must obey even her 
 
 husband's unreasonable wishes for the sake of peace and 
 
 quiet. If "The Husband is too Wise to be Advis'd, too 
 
 Good to be Reform'd, she must follow all his Paces, and 
 
 " Ibid., pp. 43-45. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MABBIAGE 87 
 
 tread in all his unreasonable Steps, or there is no Peace, 
 no Quiet for her; she must Obey with the greatest Exact- 
 ness, 'tis in vain to expect any manner of Compliance 
 on his Side, and the more she comphes, the more she 
 may." "^ 
 
 In marriage the woman has not the relief that the 
 man has. If her temper is erratic, her husband can find 
 rest away from home, but "her Business and Entertam- 
 ment are at home; and tho' he makes it ever so imeasy 
 to her, she must be content, and make her best on't. 
 She who elects a Monarch for Life, who gives him an 
 Authority, she cannot recall, however he misapply it, who 
 puts her Fortune and Person entirely in his Power, nay, 
 even the very Desires of her Heart, according to some 
 learned Casuists, so as that it is not lawful to Will or 
 Desire any Thing but what he approves and allows, had 
 need be very sure that she does not make a Fool her Head, 
 nor a Vicious Man her Guide and Pattern; she had best 
 stay till she can meet with one who has the goverrmient 
 of his own Passions, and has duly regulated his own 
 Desires, since he is to have such an absolute Power over 
 hers." ^ 
 
 It is more inciunbent upon a woman, therefore, to choose 
 wisely. Did she choose without merely following custom 
 she might think twice before making a decision and ask: 
 "Is this the Lord and Master to whom I am to promise 
 Love, Honour, and Obedience. What can be the Object of 
 Love but Amiable Qualities, the Image of the Deity impressed 
 upon a generous and godlike Mind, a Mind that is above 
 this World ... a Mind that is not full of itself, nor con- 
 tracted to little private Interests, but which in Imitation 
 of that glorious Pattern it endeavours to copy after, expands 
 and diffuses itself to its utmost Capacity in doing Good." "^ '' / 
 
 " Ibid., p. 46. ^ Ibid., pp. 49-50. ^a /j^.^ p. go. 
 
88 MART ASTELL 
 
 "And if a Woman can neither Love nor Honour she does 
 ill in promising to Obey, since she is like to have a crooked 
 Rule to regulate her Actions." ^ 
 
 If a wise woman runs such risks when she marries 
 prudently, according to the world's estimate, in marrying 
 her equal in both education and fortune, how serious 
 must be the position of the girl who chooses, or has chosen 
 for her, a husband who is not her equal. He assiunes 
 more authority because she was once his superior and takes 
 charge of her property since custom has given man the 
 power over a woman's property even when her settlement 
 protects her. 
 
 "For Covenants between Husband and Wife, like Laws 
 in an arbitrary Government are of little Force, the Will of 
 the Sovereign is All in All." ^ Such results happen in an 
 equal marriage. Much more are they found in an unequal 
 one, to which a woman should not degrade herself from 
 the higher position to which she was assigned by God. 
 
 How in the face of all these problems must a man choose 
 and what shall lead a woman to accept? The solution is 
 not difficult. "* " Let the Soul be principally considered, 
 and Regard had in the first place to a good Understanding, 
 a virtuous Mind, and in all other respects let there be as 
 much Equality as may be. If they are good Christians 
 and of suitable Tempers all will be well." ^' 'j 
 
 Even after a suitable match is made, not everything is 
 done. The after conduct must be wise. Husbands may 
 not claim their right to obedience oftener than discretion 
 or good manners will justify. The husband must recognize 
 how much the wife gives up in leaving home and family 
 and putting herself entirely in his power. That man 
 shows the basest ingratitude who can treat her disre- 
 spectfully. "What Acknowledgements, what Returns can 
 2< JUd,., p. 52. 25 /6i(i.^ p. 57. 26 76^^,^ p, gi. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 89 
 
 he make? What Gratitude can be suflScient for such 
 Obhgations? She shews her good Opinion of him by the 
 great Trust she reposes in him, and what a Brute must he 
 be who betrays that Trust, or acts any way unworthy of 
 it? Ingratitude is one of the basest Vices, and if a Man's 
 soul is sunk so low as to be guilty of it towards her who has 
 so generously oblig'd him, and who so intirely depends on 
 him, if he can treat her disrespectfully, who has so fully 
 testified her Esteem of him, she must have a Stock of 
 Vertue which he should blush to discern, if she can pay 
 him that Obedience of which he is so unworthy." "" 
 
 With mutual respect and consideration, marriage may be 
 successful. ^* "But how can a Man respect his Wife, when 
 he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex, when 
 from his own elevation he looks down on them as void of 
 Understanding, full of Ignorance and Passion, so that 
 Folly, and a Woman are equivalent Terms with him? 
 Can he think there is any Gratitude due to her whose 
 utmost Services he exacts as strict Duty? Because she 
 was made to be Slave to his Will, and has no higher End 
 than to Serve and Obey him?" ^* ^ 
 
 Then follows a statement which, taken by itself, may have 
 rejoiced the hearts of Mary Astell's contemporaries, and 
 perhaps may even rejoice their successors, since it seems 
 to put her in the class of those wise women who recognize 
 men's claims, and do not seek to be equal either in mental 
 power or in authority to the husband under whose sway 
 Providence has so kindly placed them. 
 I* "She then who Marries, ought to lay it down for an \ 
 indisputable Maxim, that her Husband must govern 
 absolutely and intirely, and that she has nothing else to 
 do but to Please and Obey. She must not attempt to 
 divide his Authority, or so much as dispute it; to struggle 
 " lua.., pp. 6fr-67. 28 75trf._ p. 70. 
 
90 MART ASTKLL 
 
 with her Yoke will only make it gall the more, but must 
 believe him Wise and Good in all respects the best, at 
 least he must be so to her. She who can't do this is no 
 way fit to be a Wife, she may set up for that peculiar 
 Coronet the antient Fathers talk'd of, but is not qualified 
 to receive the great Reward which attends the eminent 
 Exercise of Hiunility and Self-denial, Patience and Resig- 
 nation, the Duties that a Wife is call'd to." ^' 
 
 Unfortunately the seeming seriousness of the statement 
 is somewhat vitiated by the following words :V "But some 
 refractory Woman perhaps will say, how can this be? Is 
 It possible for her to believe him Wise and Good, who by 
 a thousand Demonstrations convinces her, and all the 
 World, of the contrary? Did the bare Name of Husband 
 confer Sense on a Man, and the meer being in Authority 
 infallibly qualify him for Government, much might be 
 done. But since a wise Man and a Husband are not terms 
 convertible, and how loth soever one is to own it. Matter 
 of Fact won't allow us to deny, that the Head many times 
 stands in need of the Inferior's Brains to manage it, she 
 must beg leave to be excus'd from such high Thoughts of 
 her Sovereign, and if she submits to his Power, it is not 
 so much Reason as Necessity that compels her." ^^ ^' 
 
 The conclusion inevitable from the facts presented is 
 that the woman must be educated. She alone should not 
 be blamed for folly that is the direct result of her lack 
 of education, when in reality man is at fault in not setting 
 a better guard over those who stand in need of one. In 
 order that men may improve, they are given an object 
 in life, and the secret of true education lies in giving 
 motive power to such an aim. Women, on the contrary, 
 are furnished no higher aim than to get a husband. But 
 
 " lUd., pp. J2::83^ 
 «» Ihid., pp. 83-84. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 91 
 
 they are not taught man's seductions and hence easily 
 fall a prey to his evil devices. 
 
 "If a Woman were duly principled, and taught to know 
 the World, especially the true Sentiments that Men have 
 of her, and the Traps they lay for her under so many 
 gilded Compliments, and such a seemingly great Respect, 
 that Disgrace would be prevented which is brought upon 
 too many Families; Women would Marry more discreetly, 
 and demean themselves better in a married State, than 
 some People say they do. The Foundation, indeed, ought to 
 be laid deep and strong, she should be made a good Chris- 
 tian, and understand why she is so, and then she will be 
 everything else that is Good. Men need keep no Spies on 
 a Woman's Conduct, need have no Fear of her Vertue, 
 or so much as of her Prudence and Caution, were but a 
 due Sense of true Honour and Vertue awaken'd in her; 
 were her Reason excited and prepared to consider the Soph- 
 istry of those Temptations which would persuade her from 
 her Duty; and were she put in a way to know that it is 
 both her Wisdom and Interest to observe it: she would 
 then duly examine and weigh all the Circumstances, the 
 Good and Evil of a married State, and not be surprized 
 with unforeseen Inconveniences, and either never consent 
 to be a Wife, or make a good one when she does. This 
 would show her what Hmnan Nature is, as well as what it 
 ought to be, and teach her not only what she may justly 
 expect, but what she must be content with; would enable 
 her to c\ire some Faults, and patiently to suffer what she 
 cannot cure." '^ 
 
 To forestall new objections and to answer those already 
 made, Mary Astell discusses the chief reasons for the 
 opposition to the education of women. "The philosoph- 
 ical lady," too wise for her husband and too uncomfortable 
 " Ibid., pp. 113-115. 
 
92 MABY ASTELL 
 
 for her associates, had long been a figure in English satire, 
 and has not yet been relegated to the limbo of unfor- 
 gotten ideas. Lady Masham in Thoughts on Education 
 gives a statement even more vi-vid than Mary Astell's of 
 the prevalent fear that education would prevent a woman's 
 chance of marriage by separating her from the normal 
 type of marriageable women, a fear that still prevails 
 in some circles. Mary Astell's judgment on the question 
 is penetrating. 
 
 ^ "But some sage Persons may, perhaps object, that were 
 Women allow'd to improve themselves, and not, amongst 
 other Discouragements, driven back by the wise Jests and 
 Scoffs that are put upon a Woman of Sense or Learning, a 
 Philosophical Lady, as she is call'd by way of Ridicule, — 
 they would be too wise, and too good for the Men: I grant 
 it, for vicious and foolish Men. Nor is it to be wonder'd 
 that He is afraid he should not be able to Govern them were 
 their Understandings improv'd, who is resolv'd not to take 
 too much Pains with his own. But these, 'tis to be hoped, 
 are no very considerable Number, the Foolish at least; 
 and therefore this is so far from being an Argument against 
 Womens Improvement, that it is a strong one for it, if 
 we do but suppose the Men to be as capable of Improve- 
 ment as the Women; but much more, if, according to 
 Tradition, we believe they have greater Capacities. This, 
 if any thing, would stir them up to be what they ought, 
 and not permit them to waste their Time and abuse their 
 Faculties in the Service of their irregular Appetites and 
 imreasonable Desires, and so let poor contemptible Women, 
 who have been their Slaves, excel them in all that is truly 
 excellent. 
 
 "Besides, it were ridiculous to suppose, that a Woman, 
 were she ever so much improv'd, could come near the top- 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MAREIAGE 93 
 
 ping Genius of the Men, and therefore why should they 
 envy or discourage her? Strength of Mind goes along 
 with Strength of Body, and 'tis only for some odd Accidents 
 which Philosophers have not yet thought worth while to 
 enquire into, that the sturdiest Porter is not the wisest Man. 
 As therefore the Men have the Power in their Hands, 
 so there's no Dispute of their having the Brains to manage 
 it! Can we suppose there is such a Thing as good Judg- 
 ment and Sense upon Earth, if it is not to be found among 
 them: Do not they, generally speaking, do all the great 
 Actions and considerable Business of this World, and leave 
 that of the next to the Women? . . . Justice and Injustice 
 are administered by their Hands, Courts and Schools 
 are fiU'd with these Sages; 'tis Men who dispute for 
 Truth, as well as Men who argue against it: Histories 
 are writ by them; they recoimt each other's great Ex- 
 ploits, and have always done so. All famous Arts have 
 their Original from Men, even from the Invention of Guns, 
 to the Mystery of good Eating. And to shew that nothing 
 is beneath their Care, any more than above their Reach, 
 they have brought Gaming to an Art and Science, and a 
 more Profitable and Honourable one too, than any of 
 those that us'd to be call'd Liberal." '^ '^ 
 
 In her answer to another objection raised against the 
 education of woman, Mary Astell made a reply, which, 
 had she not been held back by her feeling for marriage as 
 a divine institution, might have led her into the radicalism 
 of later writers on the subject, although all the time she 
 seems to have had in mind the conventional marriage, 
 not the ideal ts^pe to which she is pointing the way. 
 >> "Again, it may be said. If a Wife's Case be as it is 
 here represented, it is not good for a Woman to marry, 
 and so there's an End of the Human Race. But this is no 
 32 IHd., pp. 117-121. 
 
94 MARY ASTELL 
 
 fair Consequence, for all that can justly be inferr'd from 
 hence, is, that a Woman has no mighty Obligations to the 
 Man who makes Love to her; she has no Reason to be 
 fond of being a Wife, or to reckon it a Piece of Preferment 
 when she is taken to be a Man's Upper-Servant, — it is 
 no Advantage to her in this World; if rightly manag'd 
 it may prove one as to the next. For she who marries 
 purely to do good, to educate Souls for Heaven, who can 
 be so truly mortified as to lay aside her own Will and 
 Desires, to pay such an intire Submission for Life, to one 
 whom she cannot be sure will always deserve it, does 
 certainly perform a more Heroick Action than all the 
 famous Masculine Heroes can boast of, she suffers a con- 
 tinual Martyrdom to bring Glory to God, and Benefit to 
 Mankind; which Consideration, indeed, may carry her 
 through all Difficulties, I know not what else can, and 
 engage her to Love him who proves perhaps so much 
 worse than a Brute, as to make this condition yet more 
 grievous than it needed to be. She has need of a strong 
 Reason, of a truly Christian and well-temper'd Spirit, of 
 all the Assistance the best Education can give her, and 
 ought to have some good Assurance of her own Firmness 
 and Vertue, who ventures on such a Trial, and for this 
 Reason 'tis less to be wonder'd at that Women marry off in 
 haste, for perhaps if they took Time to consider and refiect 
 upon it, they seldom would marry.'' 'j 
 
 In conclusion, Mary Astell refuses to conclude and leaves 
 the reader to draw from the facts presented, whatever 
 inferences he may, but adds a comment as to the effect 
 she expects her pamphlet to have on certain classes of men 
 and women. 
 
 "Perhaps I've said more than most Men will thank me 
 for; I cannot help it, for how much soever I may be their 
 " lUd., p. 122. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MAKBIAQE 95 
 
 Friend and humble Servant, I am more a Friend to Truth. 
 Truth is strong, and some time or other will prevail. . . . 
 If they have usurp'd, I love Justice too much, to wish Suc- 
 cess and Continuance to Usurpations, which, though sub- 
 mitted to out of Prudence, and for Quietness sake, yet 
 leave everybody free to regain their lawful Right whenever 
 they have Power and Opportunity. I don't say that 
 Tyranny ought, but we find in Fact, that it provokes the 
 Oppress'd to throw off even a lawful Yoke that fits too 
 heavy: And if he who is freely elected, after all his fair 
 Promises, and the fine Hopes he rais'd, proves a Tyrant, 
 the Consideration that he was one's own Choice, will 
 not render one more Submissive and Patient, but, I fear, 
 more Refractory." ^ 
 
 ** "As to the Female Reader, I hope she will allow I've 
 endeavored to do her Justice: not betray 'd her Cause as 
 her Advocates usually do, under Pretence of defending it. 
 . . . And if she infers from what has been said, that Mar- 
 riage is a very happy State for Men, if they think fit to 
 make it so; that they govern the World, they have Pre- 
 scription on their Side; Women are too weak to dispute 
 it with them: therefore they, as all other Governors, 
 are most, if not only, accountable for what's amiss, for 
 whether other Governments in their Original, were or were 
 not confer'd according to the Merit of the Person, yet 
 certainly in this Case, if Heaven has appointed the Man 
 to govern, it has Qualified him for it: So far I agree with 
 her: But if she goes on to infer, that therefore, if a Man 
 has not these Qualifications, where is his Right? That if 
 he misemploys, he abuses it? And if she abuses, accord- 
 ing to modern Deduction, he forfeits it, I must leave her 
 
 " Ibid., p. 123. 
 
96 MARY ASTELL 
 
 there. A peaceable Woman, indeed, will not carry it so 
 far, she will neither question her Husband's Right, nor his 
 Fitness to govern, but how? Not as an absolute Lord 
 and Master, with an arbitrary and tyrannical Sway, but 
 as Reason governs and conducts a Man, by proposing 
 what is just and fit. And the Man who acts according 
 to that Wisdom he assiunes, who would have that Supe- 
 riority he pretends to, acknowledged just, will receive no 
 Injury by anything that has been offered here. A Woman 
 will value Him the more who is so wise and good, when 
 she discerns how much he excels the rest of his noble 
 Sex; the less he requires, the more will he merit that 
 Esteem and Deference, which those who are so forward 
 to exact, seem conscious they don't deserve. So then 
 Man's Prerogative is not at all infring'd, whilst the 
 Woman's Privileges are secured." ^ 'i 
 
 In a few pages added to the pamphlet some time later 
 Mary Astell states that, since writing the essay, she has 
 come to believe, through seeing the folly of many women, 
 that husbands have not a life of perfect ease. "When I 
 made these Reflections I was of Opinion, that the Case 
 of married Women, in comparison of that of their Hus- 
 bands, was not a little hard and unequal. But as the 
 World now goes,* I am apt to think that a Husband is 
 in no desirable Situation, his Honour is in his Wife's 
 keeping, and what Man of Honour can be satisfied with 
 the Conduct which the Licentiousness of the Age not 
 only permits, but would endeavor to authorize as a Part 
 of good Breeding?" '^ -I 
 
 The Reflections on Marriage was only one of many 
 
 pamphlets on the same subject, some humorous or satirical, 
 
 some ethnological, some legal and some ecclesiastical, 
 
 but of those mentioned in the Term Catalogues between 
 
 » Ibid., pp. 125-127. '« Ibid., p. 128. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 97 
 
 1697 and 1709 it is the only one having economic sig- 
 nificance, the most modem presentation of marriage from 
 a woman's standpoint, until the time of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft. The three editions published between 1700 and 
 1706 testify to the immediate acceptance it received, and 
 the fourth edition of 1730 shows that the interest survived 
 up to the tune of Mary Astell's death. 
 
 In a preface published in the edition of 1706 and repeated 
 as an appendix to the edition of 1730, Mary Astell calls 
 attention to the fact that her work had received the com- 
 pliment of having its authorship claimed by a gentleman 
 whom she does not name, and, on the other hand, that it 
 had aroused much opposition. She answered numerous 
 objections made to her plea for women, by showing that 
 her pamphlet was not intended to arouse sedition among 
 them, since she had urged women already married to be 
 submissive. She did not accept the theory of the Natural 
 Inferiority^'' of woman advanced against her argmnent; 
 that is, she would not accept the thesis that every man is 
 superior to every woman, but that some women are supe- 
 rior to some men is as evident as that some men are superior 
 to other men. 
 
 Nor would she accept Biblical authority for the subjec- 
 tion of women. The statements of Scripture, she believed 
 should be taken in relation to the customs of the times, 
 since they were not intended for the settlement of modern 
 disputes, where reason should giiide the decision, but to 
 give to man the points peculiar to revelation. It is custom 
 
 " Mary Astell is evidently answering the pamphlet by William 
 Nichols, D.D. The Duty of Inferiors towards their superiors in five 
 practical Discourses shewing 1. The Duty of Subjects to the Princes. 
 2. The Duty of Children to their Parents. 3. The Duty of Servants to 
 their Masters. 4. The Duty of Wives to their Husbands. 5. The 
 Duty of Parishioners and the Laity to their Pastors and Clergy, etc., 1701. 
 
98 MABT ASTELL 
 
 that has put woman into subjection. God created her 
 with a rational soul, nor can the apostle's words (Cor. XI) 
 be used as proof to the contrary, for "God makes Man thei 
 head of Woman as God is the head of Christ, who, as isi 
 shown by the form of Baptism, are Coequal." St. Paul,j 
 in spite of some passages difficult to explain, perhaps 
 because of references to points no longer known to-day, 
 says: "The Man is not without the Woman nor the 
 Woman without the Man, but all Things are of God." 
 Such a statement indicates mutual relation between the 
 sexes and a reciprocal dependence. "We do not fincT 
 that any Man thinks the worse of his own Understanding 
 because another has superior Power, or concludes himself 
 less capable of a Post of Honour and Authority because 
 he is not prefer'd to it." '^ She therefore concludes that^i 
 the Bible does not teach the subjection of women. 
 
 She is not unwilling to regard man as the head of the 
 family, "since private families as well as empires need a 
 court of last resort." Yet why is absolute sovereignty 
 necessary in a family, if not in a state? Not all governors 
 are by virtue of their position declared more intelligent 
 than their subjects. For many years men have had the 
 advantages in the question of pre-eminence. Boys are 
 carefully educated and encouraged by hopes of "Fame, of 
 Title, Authority, Power and Riches." The girls on the 
 contrary "are restrain'd, frown'd upon, and beat, not 
 for but /rom the Muses; Laughter and Ridicule that never- 
 failing Scare-Crow, is set up to drive them from the 
 Tree of Knowledge. But if, in spite of all Difficulties, 
 Nature prevails, and they can't be kept so ignorant as 
 their Masters would have them, they are star'd upon as 
 Monsters, censur'd, envied, and every way discouraged, 
 or, at the best, they have the Fate the Proverb assigns 
 ^ Reflections, p. 148. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 99 
 
 them: Vertue is prais'd and starv'd. And therefore, smce 
 the coarsest Materials need the most Curing, as every 
 Workman can inform you, and the worst Ground the most 
 elaborate Culture, it undeniably follows, that Mens 
 Understandings are superior to Womens, for, after many 
 Years Study and Experience, they become wise and learned, 
 and Women are not Born so." '' 
 
 Yet even if men are conceded the position of power and 
 authority in marriage, the question as to the unmarried 
 women still remains. "Only let me beg to be inform'd to 
 whom we poor Fatherless Maids, and Widows who have 
 lost their Masters, owe Subjection. It can't be to all Men 
 in general, unless all Men were agreed to give the same 
 Commands; Do we then fall as Strays, to the first who finds 
 us? By the Maxims of some Men, and the Conduct of 
 some Women one would think so." ^^ 
 
 In satirical vein again, Mary Astell claims she in no 
 way urges women to break their chains; they are too much 
 divided to unite on an insurrection and for the most part 
 love their submission. "She's a Fool," therefore, "who 
 would attempt their Deliverance or Improvement. No, let 
 them enjoy the great Honour and Felicity of their tame, 
 submissive and depending Temper! Let the Men applaud, 
 and let them glory in this wonderful Himiility! Let 
 them receive the Flatteries and Grimaces of the other Sex, 
 live unenvied by their own, and be as much belov'd as 
 one such Woman can afford to love another! Let them 
 enjoy the Glory of treading in the Footsteps of their 
 Predecessors, and of having the Prudence to avoid that 
 audacious attempt of soaring beyond their Sphere! Let 
 them Huswife or Play, Dress and be pretty entertaining 
 Company! Or, which is better, relieve the Poor to ease 
 their own Compassions, read pious Books, say their Prayers, 
 5» Ibid., pp. 172-173. " Ibid., p. 174. 
 
100 MARY ASTELL 
 
 and go to Church, because they have been taught and 
 us'd to do so, without being able to give a better Reason 
 for their Faith and Practice! Let them not by any means 
 aspire to being Women of Understanding, because no Man 
 can endure a Woman of Superior Sense, or would treat 
 a reasonable Woman civilly, but that he thinks he stands 
 on higher Ground, and, that she is so wise as to make 
 Exceptions in his Favour, and to take her Measures by 
 his Directions; they may pretend to Sense, indeed, since 
 meer Pretences only render one the more ridiculous! Let 
 them, in short, be what is call'd very Women, for this is 
 most acceptable to all sorts of Men; or let them aim at 
 the Title of good devout Women, since Men can bear with 
 this; but let them not judge of the Sex by their own 
 Scantling: For the great Author of Nature and Foimtain 
 of all Perfection, never design'd that the Mean and Im- 
 perfect, but that the most Compleat and Excellent of his 
 Creatures in every Kind, should be the Standard to the 
 rest." " 
 
 In conclusion she appeals to the woman highest in 
 authority "that Great Queen who has subdued the Proud 
 and made the pretended Invincible more than once fly 
 before her. ... if this Glory of her own Sex, and Envy of 
 the other, will not think we need, or does not hold us 
 worthy of the Protection of her ever victorious Arms, 
 and Men have not the Gratitude, for her sake, at least, 
 to do Justice to her Sex, who has been such a universal 
 Benefactress to theirs: Adieu to the Liberties, not of this 
 or that Nation or Region only, but of the Moiety of Man- 
 kind! To all the great Things that women might perform, 
 inspir'd by her Example, encouraged by her Smiles, and 
 supported by her Power! To their Discovery of new 
 Worlds for the Exercise of her Goodness, new Sciences 
 " Ilrid., pp. 176-177. 
 
PAMPHLETS ON MARRIAGE 101 
 
 to publish her Fame, and reducing Nature it self to a Sub- 
 jection to her Empire! To their destroying those worst 
 of Tyrants Impiety and Immorality, which dare to stalk 
 about even in her own Dominions, and to devour Souls 
 almost within View of her Throne, leaving a Stench be- 
 hind them scarce to be corrected even by the Incense of 
 her Devotions! To the Women's tracing a new Path to 
 Honour, in which none shall walk but such as scorn to 
 Cringe in order to Rise, and who are Proof both against 
 giving and receiving Flattery! In a Word, to those 
 Halcyon, or, if you will, Millenium Days, in which the 
 Wolf and the Lamb shall feed together, and a Tyrannous 
 Domination, which Nature never meant, shall no longer 
 render useless, if not hurtful, the Industry and Under- 
 standings of half Mankind." *^ 
 
 Such a discussion as Reflections on Marriage offers oppor- 
 tunity for misinterpretation in its free use of the satirical 
 style, and in its close intermingling of the two styles. 
 Especially in the interpretation of her discussion of the 
 wife's duty of obedience to the husband is there need of 
 care. On one page Mary Astell implies obedience, as a 
 head is necessary to the success of any undertaking; on 
 the next page is a passage, clearly satirical, implying the 
 unworthiness of many men to be given this high position; 
 at times there is an implication that marriage like the 
 government has a legislative assembly, and that tyranny 
 may be put down. Her feeling in regard to marriage 
 seems to be like her feeling for government: a head is 
 necessary, with a position given by divine right, but, 
 unlike her political position, this domestic position is 
 not based upon hereditary right but allows for the rights 
 of the governed. 
 
 Implicit in some parts of the essay is the Pauline and 
 « Ibid., pp. 178-180. 
 
102 MABY ASTELL 
 
 mediaeval idea of virginity devoted to God as the perfect 
 state; yet Mary Astell believes in marriage as ordained 
 of God, that is, a marriage based upon mutual relations 
 of love and esteem, in which the husband recognizes his 
 wife's right to reason things out for herself and in which 
 she regards him as head of the family. 
 
 Though considering marriage as divinely ordained, she 
 sees it also as a social institution, which reason would 
 lead society to continue were there no religious sanctions; 
 though she opposes marrying for money, she realizes the 
 economic basis necessary for marriage. Contrary to the 
 traditional view, however, from her standpoint woman is 
 under no obligation to marry and should not do so unless 
 she can love and respect her husband. If, however, she 
 has married unwisely, her only recourse is by submission 
 to make the unpleasant conditions serve as preparation 
 for the world to come. Mary Astell had advanced beyond 
 Vives, who would have a woman, by personal virtue, 
 lay up goodness for a bad husband, but to her divorce 
 was possible only in the rarest cases; hence the woman 
 unhappily married must endure for righteousness' sake. 
 
 The only cure that Mary Astell can see for imhappy 
 marriages is in preventionj by educating the woman, by 
 giving her a training that will develop her own mind and 
 make it possible for her, if she marries, to choose a hus- 
 band wisely, to live with him on a basis of mutual respect 
 and to educate her children properly. She does not oppose 
 marriage in general, however hard she may believe its 
 demands are upon the woman, nor does she suggest that a 
 woman go outside the home or the educational foundation 
 to receive an education or to use it if she does not marry. 
 The independence she desires for women is not for its 
 own sake, but to make unhappy marriages impossible. 
 Hence Mary Astell draws sharp lines to woman's endeavors. 
 
PAMPHLKTS ON MAKRIAGE 103 
 
 The appendix to the essay seems, however, to indicate 
 a broader conception of the fields of activity for women, 
 a conception brought about in part, it may be, by Mary 
 Astell's political interests and the widening social services 
 of her friends and herself. 
 
 The pamphlet shows the limitations as well as the power 
 of its author. A keenly intellectual woman, strong and 
 intelligent, her satire unembittered by personal experience, 
 her irony unsoftened by the emotions of a happy married 
 life, she writes from observation, not from knowledge. The 
 personal tenderness of her earlier work is lacking, and, while 
 there is an intellectual acknowledgment of the claims of 
 childhood upon both the father and the mother, and a 
 certain intellectual understanding of the disciplinary and 
 educational needs of children, Mary Astell is moved in no 
 such measure by the evils an unsympathetic home rela- 
 tionship brings upon children as by the wrongs suffered 
 by the woman unhappily married. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 RELIGIOUS TRACTS 
 
 The day of political and religio-political tracts was not 
 over in 1695, although the bitterness which had character- 
 ized the controversies of Milton's time had passed away. 
 With the Restoration period and the entrance of women 
 into definite literary work in court circles, there had grown 
 up a body of women writers among the churchmen and the 
 non-conformists as well as among the irreligious court 
 circle. In some cases these women had confined themselves 
 to the writing of religious poetry, or to the keeping of 
 common place books or religious day books with no attempt 
 at originality; in other cases they had entered directly 
 into the religious discussions of the time or had published 
 political tracts. Elizabeth Rowe represented the type 
 among the non-conformists; Lady Damaris Masham took 
 the latitudinarian viewpoint; Lady Pakington, among the 
 churchmen, was more interested in the side of personal 
 religion; Mrs. Eyre, Lady Pakington's daughter-in-law, 
 shared in the political controversies; and Mary Astell 
 proved a worthy defender of the church in the discussion 
 of the vexing religious problems of the day. 
 
 Her first religious work as far as there is any record 
 extant consists of her letters to John Norris, after- 
 wards published by him. These brought her into the 
 philosophical discussions that were being carried on by John 
 Norris, Lady Damaris Masham, and John Locke. The 
 correspondence between John Norris and Mary Astell, 
 containing in all eleven letters, began with her letter 
 
 104 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 105 
 
 dated St. Matthew's Day, 1693, and continued until June 21, 
 1694. On July 2, John Norris wrote to Mary Astell re- 
 questing that she allow her letters to be published; she 
 acceded to the request, and John Norris's letters and her 
 reply form the preface to the volume. Two letters, one 
 dated August 14, the other dated September 21, were 
 added as an appendix. In the first Mary Astell states 
 some objections that are current against Norris's theory 
 that God is the only efiicient cause of our sensations and 
 that he is not only the principal but the sole object of 
 our love; to these objections Norris replies in the second 
 letter. The book is marked "Imprimatur" October 7, 
 1694, but bears the date 1695. The fact that it contains 
 an advertisement of The Serious Proposal helps to date 
 its publication. The first edition is dedicated to Lady 
 Catherine Jones. 
 
 In her opening letter Mary Astell accepts Norris's under- 
 lying theories but she cannot understand his reason for 
 regarding God as the sole object of our love, that is, for 
 thinking that God is the only efficient cause of our pleasure, 
 since the cause and effect of pain is not explained thereby. 
 If nothing is good but what causes us pleasure, then 
 pain cannot be a good to us; or, on the other side of the 
 dilemma, if the author of our pleasure be the only object 
 of our love, then the author of pain cannot be the object 
 of our love, and God becomes not our good but our aver- 
 sion. After having expressed his surprise that a women 
 has found the only objection to which his theory is open, 
 Norris shows that God is the author of pain as of all 
 sensations and that Mary Astell's difficulty is in not mak- 
 ing the distinction between kinds of good. We love God 
 as the author of relative good, that is, of what is good to 
 us. He is the author of pain as of all other sensations, 
 but wills pain for us only as we are sinners; as his creat- 
 
106 MARY ASTELL 
 
 ures, we must accept his decree. God becomes then the 
 object of our fear lest we should deserve pain, but not of 
 our aversion because pain is inflicted only with justice. 
 
 In her reply Mary Astell accepts the general theory of 
 pain, but decides that there must be two kinds; first, a 
 physical pain caused by some outward bodily impression 
 which results in a disagreeable modification of the lower 
 order of the soul, but, as it is for our good, having its 
 source in God, and secondly, an intellectual pain appealing 
 to the higher order of the soul. This kind of pain, arising 
 from sin, cannot come from God. In addition she ques- 
 tions as to what the proper love of God is; she has ac- 
 cepted the doctrine of God as the sole object of man's 
 love, but finds it hard to give God full possession of her 
 heart. "Alas! she writes, "sensible Beauty does too often 
 press upon my Heart whilst intelligible is disregarded. 
 For having by Nature a strong Propensity to friendly 
 Love which I have all along encouraged as a good Dis- 
 position to vertue — I have contracted such a weakness, 
 I will not say by Nature — but by Habit that it is a very 
 difficult thing for me to love at all without something of 
 Desire. Now, I am loath to abandon all Thoughts of 
 Friendship both because it is one of the brightest vertues 
 and because I have the noblest Designs in it. Fain would 
 I rescue my Sex or at least as many of them as come within 
 my little sphere from that Meanness of Spirit into which 
 the Generality of them are sunk, persuade them to pre- 
 tend some higher Excellency than a well-chosen Petty- 
 coat, or a fashionable Commode; and not wholly lay out 
 their Time and Care _in the Adoration of their Bodies, 
 but bestow a Part of it at least in the Embellishment of 
 their minds, since inward Beauty will last when outward 
 is decayed." ' 
 
 ' Letters Concerning the Love of God, pp. 47-49. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 107 
 
 Norris replies by showing that she has drawn a false 
 distinction as there are no divisions of the soul into in- 
 ferior and superior. There are, however, two kinds of 
 pain; the ideas of grief and of bodily pain are distinct. 
 Pain anticipates all thought or reflection, but grief is 
 grounded upon it. Since God alone is able to modify our 
 souls, mental pain, which is a real modification of the 
 soul as is physical pain, is caused by God. Nor will she 
 find it easy, he says, to persuade any one who has felt 
 physical pain that it is not an evil. But if God is the 
 cause of our happiness why can he not be of our misery 
 and thus be the author both of pain and of grief? Both 
 sensible and mental pains are evil and become goods only 
 as a means for avoiding greater evils or for securing greater 
 goods. As such, they come from God, and, since for the 
 sake of our pleasure God gives us pain, he does not merit 
 our hatred for his acts. But a further distinction must 
 be made; mental pain is not the same as sin: pain comes 
 from God; sin does not. 
 
 Norris is less helpful in her later difficulty where he 
 teaches that the instructing of friends may be sought for 
 our good, but not as our good. Yet only long and con- 
 stant meditation will bring us to the point of truly follow- 
 ing out this theory and avoiding the danger of setting 
 our affection too closely upon our friends. Mary Astell 
 acknowledges the weakness of her argument in that she 
 has confused pain and sin. After requesting light on 
 two points, what pleasure is, and how pain, if it be an 
 "uneasie" thought, can anticipate thought, she accedes 
 to Norris's request to communicate her thoughts con- 
 cerning divine love. The conclusion of the letter becomes 
 a neoplatonic rhapsody on the love of God. In the sixth 
 letter Norris congratulates his correspondent upon having 
 arrived at a suitable conclusion, merely calling her atten- 
 
108 MARY ASTELL 
 
 tion to the fact that, while pain and grief in themselves 
 are evils, they put on the nature of goods when inflicted 
 by God. He cannot comply with her desire for a definition 
 of pleasure, as pleasure must be felt to be understood, 
 but he explains that, when he says that pain is defined as 
 an uneasy thought, he means thought in its widest latitude. 
 
 The remaining letters, extending in time from February 
 1693-4 to June, 1694 express agreement. Both writers 
 discuss the differences in the term love as applied to the 
 love of God and to the love of friends, and conclude the 
 series with further definitions of the love of God. 
 
 In 1690 John Norris had published in Christian Blessed- 
 ness some criticisms upon Locke's theories about God's 
 part in man's sensations, and Locke had replied in 1693. 
 Locke had emphasized Norris's point that God never does 
 anything in vain by drawing the conclusion that this state- 
 ment vitiates Norris's entire argument for occasionalism. 
 
 "For if the perception of colours and sounds depended 
 on nothing but the presence of the object affording an 
 occasional cause of God Almighty to exhibit to the mind 
 the idea of figures, colours, and sounds, all that nice and 
 curious structure of those organs is wholly in vain." ^ 
 
 Before the Letters Concerning the Love of God were 
 published, Mary Astell wrote a final letter to Norris, 
 summing up the objections she had heard made to the 
 theories discussed therein with especial reference to this 
 one emphasized by Locke, as she wished all difficulties 
 cleared up in the published volume. She states under 
 the two heads the objections that Norris's theory renders 
 a great part of God's workmanship vain and useless, and 
 that it does not comport well with God's majesty. She 
 tries to reconcile the two opposing ideas by questioning 
 
 ' The Works of John Locke, London, 1812, 10 vols. Vol. X, 
 p. 249. Remarks upon some of Mr. Norris's Books, etc. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 109 
 
 whether there may "not be a sensible Congruity between 
 those Powers of the Soul that are employed in sensation 
 and those Objects which occasion it? — Especially since 
 it seems more agreeable to the Majesty of God, and that 
 Order he has estabhshed in this World to say that he pro- 
 duces our Sensations mediately by his servant Nature 
 than to affirm that he does it immediately, by his own 
 Almighty Power."' 
 
 In his reply, Norris calls her attention to the fact that 
 he has proved in his Discourse that bodies are not the 
 cause of the sensations that we feel at their presence but 
 that God only is the cause of them. Sentiment and idea 
 are to be distinguished: one may have an idea of numbers, 
 extension, and geometry, that is, of things distinct from 
 the soul itself, but in anything that requires a modifica- 
 tion of the soul, as sensation, God is the true cause, as 
 he has already demonstrated. He warns her again to stick 
 to what she can see clearly and not to reject what is evi- 
 dent for what is obscure. Even were it possible to raise 
 objections to the theory, since reason assures her that is it 
 true, she ought to rest there. For the proof of her second 
 point, he refers her to Malebranche whence his theory 
 of occasionalism is drawn. 
 
 The general discussion of the theories of Locke and 
 Norris bore fruit in other pamphlets. Lady Damaris 
 Masham in 1696 published A Discourse concerning the love 
 of God intended as a reply to John Norris and Mary Astell, 
 and written probably under the influence of Locke. The 
 change of views shown in this pamphlet would have been 
 painful to Norris had he known her to be its author, for 
 she had once corresponded with him on Platonic love, and 
 in 1690 he had addressed to her Reflections upon the conduct 
 of human life with reference to the study of learning and 
 2 Letters Concerning the Love oj God, pp. 281-282. 
 
110 MABY ASTBLL 
 
 knowledge. She had by this time diverged somewhat from 
 her neoplatonic views toward utilitarianism, probably 
 through the influence of Locke. 
 
 Her early training had givern her a tolerant attitude 
 coupled with some philosophical knowledge. Her father 
 was Ralph Cudworth, professor of Hebrew at Cambridge 
 and one of the Platonic group there. Among the early 
 friends of the family was John Locke, who had paid tribute 
 to the mental powers of Damaris when she was but a girl 
 of twenty and corresponded with him on Platonic love. 
 In 1685 Damaris Cudworth married Sir Francis Masham. 
 In 1689 Locke had returned from Holland and had be- 
 come a frequent visitor at the homes of Lady Masham, 
 both in London and in Essex. At the invitation of Sir 
 Francis and Lady Masham in 1691, he took up his resi- 
 dence with them at Essex and made his home there until 
 his death in 1704. Of her ability Locke wrote to Limborch, 
 "The lady herself is so well versed in theological and philo- 
 sophical studies and of such an original mind that you will 
 not find many men to whom she is not superior in wealth 
 of knowledge and ability to profit by it. Her judgment 
 is excellent, and I know few who can bring such clearness 
 of thought to bear upon the most abstruse subjects, or 
 such capacity for searching through and solving the diffi- 
 culties. I do not say of most women, but even of most 
 learned men." * 
 
 The intercourse between the two seems to have re-acted 
 upon both of them. Not only did Lady Masham grow 
 more liberal in her views, but Locke came to understand 
 more clearly the attitude of his opponents. Lady Masham 
 hints at some such change in a letter to Limborch written 
 the year after Locke's death. 
 
 "He was born and had finished his studies at a time 
 * H. Fox Bourne, Life of Locke, 1876, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 213. 
 
RELIGIOUS TEACTS 111 
 
 when Calvinism was in fashion in England. But these 
 doctriaes had come to be little thought of before I came 
 into the world, and Mr. Locke used to speak of the opinions 
 that I had always been accustomed to at Cambridge, 
 even among the clergy there, as something new and strange 
 to him. As, during some years before he went to Holland, 
 he had very little in common with our ecclesiastics, I 
 imagine that the sentiments he found in vogue among you 
 pleased him far more and seemed to him far more reason- 
 able than anything he had been used to hear from English 
 theologians. But whatever the cause, I know that since 
 his return he has always spoken with much affection, 
 not only of his friends in Holland, but also of the whole 
 society of the remonstrants on account of the opinions 
 held by them." ^ 
 
 Lady Masham in the pamphlet A Discourse concerning 
 the love of God attacks the philosophy of John Norris 
 because she fears it will cause loss both to morality and 
 to religion; to morality by pretending to attain something 
 beyond in the life of contemplation while morality in this 
 world is forgotten; to religion by trying to persuade men 
 to an impossible practice, thus making religion and its 
 teachers ridiculous both among thinkers who will not 
 accept the ideas set forth and among the weaker minded 
 who will be led to believe that they do not love God as 
 they ought. In their case one of two results must follow, 
 either a devout way of talking with no reason back of it 
 or else wild enthusiasm resulting in retirement from the 
 world to hermitages and monasteries, thus destroying all 
 social relations and leading to popish practices. 
 
 The fallacy of Norris's position, according to Lady 
 Masham, lies in his teaching that man should love only 
 God with desire alone, since, as he states it, every degree 
 5 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 282. Lady M. to Limborch, Sept. 17, 1705. 
 
112 MABY ASTELL 
 
 of desire for any creature is sin, because God, not the 
 creature, is the immediate cause of our sensations. She 
 sees the cause of love in the sensations that the objects 
 themselves arouse, not in God himself who, as Norris 
 believes, "by exhibiting part of his essence to us as the 
 presence of the Creature is himself the immediate author 
 of those pleasing sensations." * Such an hj^othesis will 
 fail to appeal to reasonable minds, she argues, since it 
 seems to question the wisdom of God who has furnished 
 man with powers to perceive and to take in sensations; 
 and, since without the love of objects there can be no 
 love for God, because, as he is an invisible being, it is only 
 through his works that man can know him.' 
 
 In the fourth volume of Practical Discourses published 
 in 1698, John Norris replied to this pamphlet apparently 
 under the impression that John Locke was the author. 
 He says "why our ingenious Author has used me thus, I 
 partly guess, though why he should I know no just reason, 
 especially considering the different Treatment he had 
 from me upon a like publick Occasion, which I cannot 
 mention without telling him by the way that as if I had 
 made no reply to his late Treatise. I had not been in 
 his debt, so if I made him a civil one, he is doubly mine," * 
 and "I was inclining once to have some Remarks upon the 
 particular Arguments to-gether with other incidental pas- 
 sages that run through the bulk of their discourse but 
 a kind and ingenious hand has saved me that pains in 
 relation to Mr. L ." ' 
 
 A later pamphlet of Lady Masham, Occasional Thoughts 
 in reference to a virtuous Christian life, 1700, closes her 
 
 « Discourse Concerning the Love of God, p. 70. 
 
 ' Ibid., pp. 63-64. 
 
 ' Norris, Practical Discourses, 1707, 4 vols. Vol. IV, p. 224. 
 
 9 IMd., p. 240. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 113 
 
 part in the controversy and sums up her rehgious theory. 
 Although it has little bearing on the discussion, it is inter- 
 esting for its keen discussion of the education of girls, 
 in which it becomes to some extent Locke's Thoughts on 
 Education feminized. Mary Astell seems not to have 
 been acquainted with it, but that both women were known 
 for their interest in education is evidenced by the ascrip- 
 tion of The Serious Proposal to Lady Masham.'" 
 
 In 1705 Mary Astell published a work which she intended 
 to be the final statement of her religious theory. The Chris- 
 tian Religion as Profess'd by a daughter of the Church of 
 England. Like her other works it was published anony- 
 mously, and it was at first ascribed by Lord Stanhope to 
 Mary Astell's Chelsea acquaintance Dean Atterbury. 
 
 In the publication of the book, Mary Astell had a triple 
 purpose: to show the bearing of the philosophical thought 
 of the day upon religious belief; to lead women to reason 
 about their beliefs, that, having faith founded upon reason, 
 they might not easily be led into scepticism; and to give 
 a practical statement of the effects of faith upon moral 
 character. To get a satisfactory basis she found it neces- 
 sary to deal with numerous current books provocative of 
 scepticism such as The Reasonableness of Christianity, 
 The Discourse concerning the Love of God, and the anony- 
 mous Ladies' Religion, as well as with false doctrines that 
 had crept into sermons of churchmen themselves, as in 
 Archbishop Tillotson's sermons On the Sacrifice and Satis- 
 faction of Christ and Concerning Divinity and Incarnation. 
 
 In her discussions she attempts to show that the basis 
 of the Christian religion is reasonable. Since reason 
 makes us conscious of our own being and of that of our 
 fellow creatures, it leads us to the belief that there is a 
 God who created being. We conclude that our happiness 
 " BaUard Ms. 41:133. 
 
114 MAKY ASTELL 
 
 is in the will of God, and reason and the desire for happi- 
 ness excite us to worship and to serve him. Our desire 
 for endless happiness carries us still further to a belief in 
 inunortality. Natural reason shows us our degeneracy but 
 can not discover to us cause or cure without divine reve- 
 lation. Consequently, although we are to use our reason 
 on all points within our knowledge, we should accept 
 divine revelation on points for whose proof we need other 
 facts. Yet even these we need not take without evidence 
 for we have the proof of the sublimity of the Scripture, 
 an historical proof such as would lead us to accept other 
 facts. 
 
 The Scriptures have been given us to be our guide of 
 life, and we must use our own reason as to their inter- 
 pretation. This interpreting for ourselves, however, forms 
 no prejudice to lawful authority, since the Scriptures 
 distinctly command obedience to the church and com- 
 munion with it. Although there are mysteries in the 
 Christian faith beyond our grasp, yet their meaning as 
 expressed in the Scriptures, is intelligible to one who 
 studies carefully to secure it. The later chapters of the 
 pamphlet deal with the morality that reason enjoins: 
 Of Christian Practice, Of our Duties to God, Of our Duties 
 to our Neighbor, Of our Duties to Ourselves and the Con- 
 clusion. Here are set forth in clear cut fashion the com- 
 monplaces of morality with a slightly mystical and ascetic 
 interpretation. 
 
 Although Mary Astell had an admiration for Locke's 
 power of thought and seemed to be conscious of her own 
 mental debt to him, she was far from accepting his ideas. 
 She agrees with the Bishop of Worcester's statement as to 
 Locke's Socinianism in spite of Locke's denial, but she 
 finds more dangerous his basing Christian faith upon two 
 articles alone. As a result she tries to show that the 
 
BELIGIOXJS TRACTS 115 
 
 entire church doctrine is bound up in the articles stated 
 by Locke. She, with John Norris, felt that Locke had 
 a hand in The Discourse concerning the Love of God and was 
 more than half inclined to credit to him The Ladies' Re- 
 ligion. She does not feel that the idea of God's being the 
 sole object of love is "perplexing the Duties of Morality" 
 as the writer of the Discourse had stated, and objects 
 strongly to the deistic theory and to the emphasis upon 
 morality rather than faith to be found in The Ladies' 
 Religion. 
 
 Even more apologetically she criticizes Archbishop 
 Tillotson. "Nor will it seem a little invidious for one of 
 no consideration to dififer from so eminent a Person, much 
 more for a woman to question, tho' ever so modestly, the 
 Authority of such a great Man." " The Archbishop seems 
 to her to belittle the sacrifice of Christ by making it too 
 much a development of past ideas, a position which to her 
 was a reflection upon the wisdom of God. 
 
 The essay has little of the bitterness of some of her 
 other pamphlets; it is serious-minded with an earnestness 
 arising from her intense zeal for the church, but her 
 respect for John Locke's intellectual power and for Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson's position in the church prevents the 
 caustic reflections of other papers. There is an appeal 
 to women as women to reason out Christian truth for 
 themselves and to live righteously upon the basis of truth 
 discerned. The pamphlet is of interest also as showing 
 the development of Mary Astell's thought. She is still 
 vmder the influence of Norris's Platonic ideas and of the 
 Cartesian philosophy, but both have been tempered by 
 her further philosophical and logical studies. 
 
 In discussing religious theories, Mary Astell takes no 
 cognizance, at least openly, of deism as existing outside 
 '' The Christian Religion, p. 407. 
 
116 MARY ASTELL 
 
 of the church. She recognizes the influence free-thinking, 
 as she calls it, has had on the characters of men and 
 women, but believes both must be reached through church 
 doctrine. Her fear is for the scepticism that is growing 
 up within the church; hence she combats latitudinarian- 
 ism and deism within. She makes no claim to have read 
 the antideistic writers, such as Leslie and Samuel Clarke, 
 though both come within her period of reading, but her 
 method of proving the existence of a God is along the 
 lines used by Samuel Clarke. 
 
 In the next two years traces of her activity in religious 
 thought appear in the well known letter of Dean Atter- 
 bury to his friend Smalridge: 
 
 "Deae George: — I happened about a fort-night ago to dine with 
 Mrs. Astell. She spoke to me of my sermon, and desired me to print 
 it, and after I had given her the proper answers, hinted to me that she 
 would be glad to peruse it. I complied with her (request) and sent her 
 the sermon the next day. Yesternight she returned it with this sheet 
 of remarks which I cannot forbear communicating to you, because I 
 take them to be of an extraordinary nature, considering they come 
 from the pen of a woman. Indeed one would not imagine a woman had 
 written them. There is not an expression that carries the least air of 
 her sex from the beginning to the end of it. She attacks me very home 
 you see, and artfully enough and under pretense of taking my part 
 against other divines who are in Hoadly's measure. Had she as much 
 good breeding as good sense, she would be perfect: but she has not the 
 decent manner of insinuating what she means, but is now and then a 
 Uttle offensive and shocking in her expressions, which I wonder at, 
 because a civil turn of words, even where the matter is not pleasing 
 is what her sex is always mistress of. She, I think, is wanting in it, 
 but her sensible and natiu-al way of writing makes amends for that 
 defect, if, indeed, anything can make amends for it. I dread to engage 
 her, so I may write a general civil answer to her and leave the rest to 
 an oral conference. Her way of showing the diflBculty about swearing 
 to the queen is somewhat singular." '* 
 
 " Rawlinson Ms. D. 198 : 91-114. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 117 
 
 The extent of Mary Astell's acquaintance is also shown 
 by a letter to Henry Dodwell, the non-juror, and his 
 reply, both as yet unpublished. Among Dodwell's pam- 
 phlets concerning the deprived bishops was A Case in View 
 pubUshed in 1705. By this time Dodwell had begun to 
 feel that the welfare of the church necessitated the return 
 of the non-juring elements. Only one of the deprived 
 bishops was still living, and, because the death of this 
 bishop would soon change the situation, Dodwell, wishing 
 to provide for the contingency before it arrived, argued 
 that, upon the death of the Bishop of Norwich, the non- 
 jurors might return to the jurisdiction of their old sees. 
 He believed the see belonged to the present possessor 
 since as there is no one else to claim the use, God has set 
 His seal upon the bishops in office by allowing them to 
 remain. 
 
 The arguments of Dodwell, although strongly bulwarked 
 by examples from the Latin Fathers, did not completely 
 satisfy Mary Astell, and she wrote to him making her 
 criticisms on his theories. Although agreeing with Dodwell 
 in the main, Mary Astell could not accept the doctrine of 
 Contagion as she believed he taught it, that is, that the 
 individual should abstain from communion not only under 
 the schismatic bishops, but under all others who had made 
 themselves accessory by communion with these bishops, 
 first, because these schismatic bishops were still bishops, 
 not yet having been canonically deprived; then because 
 the church has no other principle of imity than that fur- 
 nished by the relation of bishop and follower, the individual 
 according to her idea is given too much responsibility in 
 matters beyond his authority for decision, and the greatest 
 precedent of submission to disputable title "without Danger 
 of being infected with the usurpers Guilt or partaking in 
 their Sins and that is ye Jewish church tho' the Succession 
 
118 MARY ASTBLL 
 
 of the Priesthood (entail'd by God himself) was shamefully 
 broken." " 
 
 Dr. Dodwell replies with numerous examples from the 
 Cyprianic age to show that a schismatical bishop was not 
 regarded as filling a see," and that the bishops therefore 
 did contract a contagion of the schism by communing 
 with the schismatic bishops. To her objection that such 
 questions cannot be decided by the generality of the people, 
 Dodwell replies, "there is certainly a mean between the 
 blind obedience required by the Romanists and the assum- 
 ing confidence practiced by the non-conformists w"^ is 
 perfectly inconsistent w**" authority, and that mean I 
 take to be this concerning our Authority itself. We must 
 certainly judge and we can judge no otherwise of it but 
 by our private Judgments, in questions previous to Au- 
 thority w"'' are requisite for the finding of it. We must 
 therefore first find the Body to w""* we are to join ourselves 
 before we can find the authority in whose judgments we 
 are to acquiesce as members of the Body. — No Body of 
 men that Disbelieves any Particular of the Primitive Faith 
 can oblige us to be a member of it, let its bishops have 
 never so regular a succession, as far as we can trace them, 
 nor can any Body do so w"** is no Body of Christ, as being 
 set up in opposition to that which is truly so. If there- 
 fore the B"^ have by their own act cut themselves off from 
 Christ's Body by communicating with a Body that is 
 divided from his Body it will hence follow that they are 
 no longer qualified to be Bishops by whom we may com- 
 municate w**" Christ nor consequently are entitled to that 
 deference w"*" is truly due to Christ's legal Representa- 
 tives." '* These views do not to him seem contrary to any 
 statements made in A Case in View. Mary Astell's last point 
 that Christ submitted to disputed titles is waived as having 
 " Ibid., pp. 111-112. » Ibid., p. 103. " Ibid., p. 113. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 119 
 
 been treated in the Defence of a Vindication of the Deprived 
 Bishops. 
 
 The letter gives evidence of the respect in which Mary 
 Astell's writings were held by her contemporaries. It 
 begins: "I am glad that Providence has given me this 
 happy opportunity of being known to you: though not 
 unacquainted formerly w*** your excellent and ingenious 
 writings, and the rather so, because our Love of our 
 Churches Peace has been on both sides the immediate 
 occasion of it." It is signed "A hearty honourer of your 
 excellent endowments." " Dr. Dodwell pays a higher 
 compliment to her mental endowment by quoting Greek. 
 "I give you his own words," he says, "that you may 
 see that I have given his thought exactly, and because I 
 believe you may understand them." " 
 
 The last of Mary Astell's distinctly religious pamphlets 
 was published in 1709. Bart'lemy Fair or an Enquiry 
 after Wit had the definite purpose of answering Lord 
 Shaftesbury's Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, although Mary 
 Astell mistook the real author of the pamphlet. In his 
 discussion Lord Shaftesbury appeals for a moderate re- 
 ligion, a religion based not upon the commands of a gov- 
 ernment, nor enforced under the direction of a magistrate, 
 not one that had become a panic conveyed by the mutual 
 sympathy and enthusiasm of the multitude, but a religion 
 based firmly upon reason and kept free from all excres- 
 cences of melancholy or enthusiasm. To secure this type 
 a freedom of raillery should be allowed that would sep- 
 arate the true from the false and drive away the false 
 by its humor. "And my notion," he says, "is that pro- 
 vided we treat religion with good manners, we can never 
 use too much good humor or examine it with too much 
 freedom and familiarity. For if it be genuine and sincere, 
 » Ibid., p. 101. " Tbid., p. 113. 
 
120 MABY ASTELL 
 
 it will not only stand the proof but thrive and gain advan- 
 tage from hence: if it be spurious or mixt with any im- 
 posture it will be detected and exposed." '* He illustrates 
 the effects of such a method by the attack on the French 
 Protestant enthusiasts, who, instead of being honored with 
 a persecution in England, were being made a subject of 
 ridicule in a puppet-show in Bartholomew Fair. Their activ- 
 ities are limited by this method of ridicule, he claims. 
 Shaftesbury does not aim at the rejection of a national 
 church, but any attempt to reduce all manner of belief 
 and of expression of belief to one form seems to him vain, 
 since if reason and philosophy have fair play, supersti- 
 tion will be weakened and rational religion be advanced. 
 Underneath his liberal attitude toward the state church 
 was his deistic philosophy. 
 
 The Letter was often misunderstood, and, whether m- 
 trepreted according to the author's meaning or not, aroused 
 much opposition. Monsieur Le Clerc, the probable French 
 prefacer, saw this as appears from his comment. "The 
 book deserves to be read with attention that he may not 
 be charged with a meaning or design he has not." '' Sev- 
 eral answers to the anonymous pamphlet were made, 
 among them one by Mary Astell, who plainly believed 
 the pamphlet to be the work of a member of the Kit-Kat 
 Club. The title of her pamphlet, Bart'lemy Fair or an 
 Enquiry after Wit in which due Respect is had to a Letter 
 Concerning Enthusiasm To my Lord XXX By Mr. Wotton,^ 
 1709, took its name from the Bartholomew Fair method of 
 
 " Letter C<mceming Enthusiasm, etc. London, 1708, pp. 49-50. 
 
 '^ Monsieur Le Clerc's Extracts and Judgment of the Characteristics 
 of Men, Manners and Opinions, 1712, 3 vola. Vol. 1, p. 4. 
 
 =» William Wotton, D.D., 1666-1726, fellow at St. John's College 
 and in 1705 prebendary of Salisbury is best known for his part in the 
 Phalaris controversy. In 1694 he published Reflections upon Ancient 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 121 
 
 treating enthusiasts suggested by Lord Shaftesbury. Not 
 knowing the author of the pamphlet, Mary Astell was 
 perhaps more caustic in her attack than she would other- 
 wise have been. But back of her distrust of the characters 
 of the supposed authors was her love of country and her 
 loyalty to rehgion. This rationalistic pamphlet to her 
 held in solution all the elements necessary for the downfall 
 of church and state. Too serious minded to appreciate 
 the elements of humor, she took it more seriously than it 
 was meant. 
 
 To Shaftesbury's illustration of Socrates as one who was 
 willing to have his theories put to the test of ridicule, 
 knowing that, having stood the proof, they would appear 
 more solid and just, she replies, "Socrates himself lost 
 his life upon a suggestion that he despised the religion of 
 his Country: and in the heighth of witty times was con- 
 demned by the voice of the people, the witty people of 
 Athens, whose voice, without doubt, is esteemed by wits, 
 more divine than the voice of God." ^' She shows how 
 this method of government by ridicule will not work in 
 practical affairs, by suggesting that the deeds of my Lord, 
 the patron of the pamphleteer, be tested by a Puppet- 
 Show; she applies his suggested use of ridicule to the 
 government by a process of reductio ad absurdum or to 
 private affairs in the case of a man who has taken a purse 
 in the best of humor, but who receives treatment far from 
 
 and Modern Learning, a reply to Sir William Temple's essay on the 
 same subject. Swift attacked him vigorously in A Tale of a Tub. In 
 1705 Wotton published A Defense of the Reflections upon Ancient and 
 Modem Learning — mth Observations upon The Tale of a Tub. 
 Wotton assigned it to Thomas Swift. Mary Astell assumed the 
 pseudonjrm of William Wotton as she, hke him, was opposing the 
 group who fathered A Tale of a Tub. His favorable attitude toward 
 the education of women may have been a factor in her choice. 
 21 Bart'lemy Fair, p. 24. 
 
122 MABY ASTELL 
 
 humorous, when his act is discovered. This method of 
 testing everything by open ridicule, in order to keep the 
 golden mean, will not work in civil affairs; much less will 
 it work in war. "Doubtless our Letterwriter would de- 
 serve the thanks of mankind could he laugh this boisterous 
 method of making war out of countenance, and prevail 
 with the powers of Europe at least, to decide their differ- 
 ences by ridicule. What an entertaining sight would 
 it be to see two Armies drawn up in Battalia, throwing 
 jests and repartees at one another, instead of murdering 
 bullets." 22 
 
 More impious, however, than applying the test of wit 
 to the government is the attempt to use such a method 
 upon the Church. In former times a writer who compared 
 the Church to a panther received sharp rebukes, but it is 
 far more blasphemous to represent God imder a character 
 like to man. "Nor is it less preposterous and ridiculous 
 to speak of Sacred, August and Great, and for this reason, 
 privileged Subjects, in certain little and unbecoming modes 
 of Speech, than it is to go to Court in Trunk Hose and 
 Farthingales: or to approach the Presence in the Habit 
 of a Harlequui." ^^ 
 
 In such an irreligious age, if the religious man derives 
 from God his power to drive out evil doers, as many still 
 hold, it is his duty to seek to make others religious.^^ 
 Even libertines, as the Letter-writer shows, have an innate 
 idea of God of which they cannot rid themselves.^^ By 
 these statements and the conventional proofs based upon 
 faith, Mary Astell shows the reality of religion and claims 
 that the burden of proof that there is no God rests with 
 the Letter-writer himself. Those who do not believe 
 must find another working basis for life: their theory of 
 « lUd., p. 67. 24 76^._ pp. 86-89. 
 
 2« Ihid., p. 77. =i« lUd., p. 91. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 123 
 
 self-moving atoms is ridiculous; that of self-existence, 
 untenable; and Nature is not suflBicient explanation. 
 There must be a Deity for creation and a Providence 
 who continues the work; there must be a future state to 
 justify the goodness of God, since men seem to see the 
 result of his justice in this. "Nor will the goodness of 
 God," she concludes, "which the letter would oppose to 
 his justice, bring off the writer and his friends." 
 
 Mary Astell touches upon her theory of Church and 
 State, showing how the men who deny a God must deny 
 a government. She makes a more pragmatic application 
 of her religious views in discussing Shaftesbury's idea of 
 ill humor as suiting ill with religion, and traces the spleen 
 and the vapors, common ailments of her sex, to a moral 
 rather than a physical cause, adding, "Nor will she (the 
 woman of the day) ever be free of the vapors, whose time 
 hangs upon her hands, and who is at a loss to determine 
 to what amusement she shall next apply herself." ^* The 
 way of escape from such ennui is to live according to 
 reason, that is, according to the Christian belief. 
 
 Leaving her ironical style, to which she returns at the 
 end of the book, Mary Astell jdelds to a Platonic rapture 
 on the joys of religion; then, in a spirit of earnestness that 
 recalls the tenderness toward her youthful friends shown 
 in her letters to John Norris, and the whole-souled devo- 
 tion to righteousness that appears in her Christian Religion 
 she writes to the coming generation: 
 
 "And therefore you noble and tender plants who by the 
 blessing of God upon a vertuous Education have hitherto 
 preserved your innocence from being infected with the 
 corruptions of this evil world — who upon this accoimt 
 are the delight and the real glory of your country, to 
 which you owe so much, at least, as not to disappoint 
 » lUd., p. 129. 
 
124 MABT ASTELL 
 
 ,those promising hopes it has of your recovering the next 
 generation from that sink of vice and profaneness which 
 this is plunged into, Let no Temptations and Allurements, 
 no customs of the Great or Many, no Examples, no not 
 of your nearest relations, no scoffs, no raillery, out of the 
 mouth of self-condemned criminals, deprive you of that 
 most invaluable treasure, your innocence. To preserve 
 it unspotted is greater than to conquer kingdoms, as 
 requiring more Conduct, Watchfulness, and Prudence, 
 more Courage, Firmness, and Magnanimity. It will ren- 
 der you worthy of the highest honors and set you above 
 all disgraces. It will keep you in perfect friendship with 
 yourselves than whom you caimot have a more faithful, 
 agreeable Friend, nor a more vexatious and dangerous 
 enemy. And what greater approbation can a man enjoy 
 in this present life than the approbation of his own mind, 
 of wise and good men and even of God himself." 
 
 It may be the same spirit of righteousness, touched with 
 the acid of her pamphleteering predecessors, that led to 
 her scathing preface To the Most Illustrious Society of the 
 Kit cats. This preface seems to have been directed chiefly 
 against Steele and Swift: Swift is attacked directly in the 
 statement "Their prompters are indeed grown above the 
 arts of those who write Letters to Ladys who creep into 
 Houses and with the Tales of a Tub lead captive silly 
 women." ^' At times Mary Astell wavers in her feeling 
 as to the authorship of the Letter Concerning Enthusiasm ^' 
 confusing the author and the noble Lord to whom the 
 pamphlet is dedicated. She suggests that writers often 
 dedicate works to themselves to cover anonymity. It 
 seemed not improbable to her that Lord Somers to whom 
 The Tale of a Tub was also dedicated and to whom its 
 
 " Ibid., p. 133. 
 ^ lUd., pp. 82-83. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 125 
 
 authorship had been credited, might be guilty of writing 
 the Letter Concerning Enthusiam.^^ 
 
 Mary Astell's choice of a pseudonym was a direct re- 
 flection upon Swift because Wotton had attacked Swift 
 for the Tale of a Tub.^" Swift may have had Mary 
 Astell's pamphlet in mind when he says concerning the 
 treatises written in opposition to the Tale of a Tub, 
 "Yet there have been two or three treatises written ex- 
 pressly against it, besides many others that have flirted 
 at it occasionally."'* He comments on the fact that the 
 Letter Concerning Enthusiasm was ascribed to him and 
 disclaims any part in the letter, which he had not read.'^ 
 Shaftesbury, on his part, could not have been pleased at 
 the attribution of his work to the one whom he consid- 
 ered "that most detestable author of the Tale of a Tub." '' 
 
 But the preface did not limit its attack to any individual. 
 The Kit-Kat Club as a whole was marked for satire. The 
 accusations made were the common ones against that 
 group of Whig sympathizers. In 1705 there had appeared 
 a character of the club, attacking vigorously its supposedly 
 anti-religious tendencies. The member of the club, accord- 
 ing to the pamphlet, seeks "for Decency in his own House, 
 but Irregularity in that of his god. Cleanliness and Order 
 in the One is Praise-worthy, but Superstition in the Other, 
 and Abundance of Ceremony is to be made use of to the 
 Creature, where Nothing of like nature by his good will 
 should be shown to the Creator. He keeps a Parcel of 
 Sycophant Authors in his Service, because he loves to 
 
 " Ibid., p. 47. 
 
 '» A Complete Key to the Tale of a Tiib, London, 1710. Preface. 
 =' Ibid., An Apology, p. 2. 
 32 lUd., p. 4. 
 
 '' Benjamin Rand, The Life, Unpublished Letters and Philosophical 
 Regimen of Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury, etc., New York, 1900, p. 504. 
 
126 MARY ASTELL 
 
 be flatter'd and imagines himself to have as much wit as 
 he that wrote the Country Mouse and the City Mouse be- 
 cause they tell him so. — He stands up for Liberty and 
 Property as if he had dar'd fight for it, but had rather the 
 Duke of Marlborough should take that Task off his Hands, 
 for he had much rather judge of Addison's Poetical History 
 of the Battle of Blenheim, than be in it, and is fitter to write 
 the second part of the Campaign than to make One. — 
 He talks much tho' he says little, but takes upon him to 
 interfere with Elections, when he has no right to a vote 
 in them. He's for the Church of England as long as the 
 Dissenters share in the Places of Trust that belong to 
 it, and would be nothing more than pleased were all the 
 Bishops to vote against the Bill to prevent Occasional Con- 
 formity. He's altogether for a new Parliament, because 
 the Old would not part with their Privileges and is against 
 Passive Obedience to Princes but would have us Implicitly 
 submit to be Lorded over by our Fellow-Subjects." ^ 
 
 Mary Astell repeats the same accusations with an added 
 force. She does not fear to address the members for, as 
 she says, modesty is the least of their virtues, and powerful 
 wit would be a better master of ceremonies. "Oppress'd 
 with so much merit, where shall I begin?" she writes. 
 "Your intellectual and moral endowments, your civil and 
 military virtues, your public and private accomplishments 
 being equally valuable and extraordinary! But your 
 wit and good humour have determined me. That Love 
 to the Public, that study of Universal Good, and to pro- 
 mote the Interest of the whole world, as far as is in your 
 power; your indefatigable Industry to communicate to 
 mankind that perfect freedom you enjoy: this is surely 
 the height of Goodness." '^ 
 
 " A Kit-Kat Club Described, London, 1705, pp. 4r-5. 
 " Bart'lemy Fair, p. 4. 
 
RELIGIOUS TRACTS 127 
 
 She accuses members of the club of not paying their 
 debts, of attacking virtuous women, of practicing and 
 encouraging blasphemy, of showing cowardice in not 
 fighting for their country, and of being willing to 
 sacrifice even their souls. Such satirical comments as 
 the following could not be allowed to pass without 
 comment. 
 
 "You perfectly understand 'tis true how to maintain 
 your grandeur and noble haughtiness upon just occasions. 
 As when a cluster of Tradesmen, thinking they have an 
 Enghsh right to ask their own, intrude into your ante- 
 chambers, if cunning face or fees can procure them that 
 privilege, and not content to pass for humble suitors, 
 will needs show themselves to be troublesome duns: when 
 an ill-bred Fellow Endeavors to protect a wife or daughter 
 or other virtuous woman, from your very civil addresses, 
 your noble courage never fails of being rous'd upon such 
 great provocations and if the vile offender don't sneak out 
 of your way, imarm'd as he is, you know how to whip him 
 thro' the lungs most vahantly ! — 
 
 "One has not, I confess, heard of your fame from Hoch- 
 sted, Ramellies, etc., but everybody knows that the world 
 is envious and ungrateful, 'tis to your sedate wisdoms, 
 your healing, vigorous councils, wise debates, and prudent 
 management, that the English name has retrieved or even 
 excelled its glory. You who are our household Gods 
 could not indeed be permitted to leave the Island, and 
 expose your precious lives, your all, upon a foreign shore: 
 wit so consummate as yours knows how to gather them 
 at home at less expense, and to reap the fruits of victory 
 far from the dangers of war. For to speak a bold truth, 
 upon your principles, none but an Englishman, who has 
 more courage than brains, would expose his person, and 
 run the risk of his life in a battle, or in the trenches, did 
 
128 MARY ASTELL 
 
 he not believe to the utmost, and strive to have hope that 
 he shall come off safely. — " ^e 
 
 This introduction had sufficient power not to be dis- 
 regarded by those against whom it was directed, and 
 Swift and Steele both answered it by attacks on Mary 
 Astell in the Tatler?'' 
 
 In her reply to these attacks in the Advertisement of 
 the second edition Mary Astell is very moderate, taking 
 them as persecution for righteousness' sake. She does, 
 however, reprove the Tatler for including her friends, 
 especially Lady Elizabeth Hastings, in the attack, as not 
 consistent with his policy of recommending honor and 
 virtue. "Nor is it agreeable to the many declarations of 
 our censor, nor to what he would believe was his general 
 purpose, viz., to recommend Truth, Innocence, Honour, and 
 virtue to make free with the character of virgins, not less 
 distinguished by their piety than by their quality." '' 
 
 She seems not to recognize that Swift was the offender, 
 but puts the blame of the attacks on Steele. Although 
 she is not unconscious of the merits of the Tatler ("The 
 Tatler tells a tale very agreeably when he pleases, but he 
 has scattered none of his attic salt on this " '^) she feels 
 that in this case he is writing as directed by his patron. 
 But she has a good hand to show against his: "One cannot 
 help pitying him to see how he writes against the grain 
 and labours under the Task his noble Benefactors improved. 
 The harmless satyr does not bite: and tho' it shew'd its 
 teeth against the Proposal to the Ladies our honest com- 
 pilator has made an honourable Amends to the Author 
 (I know not what he has to the bookseller.) by trans- 
 
 '° Ibid., Preface, pp. 7-9. 
 
 " Cf. Chap. I, pp. 25-27. 
 
 '8 Enquiry after Wit, ed. 1722. Advertisement. 
 
 s» Ibid. Advertisement. 
 
REUGIOUS TRACTS 129 
 
 cribing above an hundred Pages into his Ladies Library 
 verbatim: except in a few places which if the Reader takes 
 the Trouble to compare he will not find improved. He 
 has also made satisfaction to Religion in several Papers, 
 particularly in Tatler where he treats his friends with 
 proper but coarser Language than the Enquirer thought 
 fit to use."" 
 
 It is interesting to note that, although time may have 
 had something to do with her attitude, Mary Astell is 
 less resentful because of the personal insults, than because 
 of the attacks on religion. Like the other women of her 
 time, even the looser writers like Aphra Behn and Mrs. 
 Manley, she expected her work, as the work of a woman, 
 to be the object of direct attack. There may have been 
 also some underlying feeling that the bitterness of her 
 words deserved a reply, but it is more likely that she felt 
 she was the prophetess of righteousness. 
 
 In the preface to the second edition, she also gives an 
 explanation of her attack on the Tatler' s grand patron, "so 
 well known by the name of Mouse," *' who was suspected 
 of being the author by the friends who asked her to review 
 the pamphlet, and who, she continues to believe, by 
 approving and encouraging the pamphlet, is a partner 
 in the crime. 
 
 The progress of Mary Astell's mental development 
 appears in her successive religious pamphlets. As a young 
 woman, in the letters to John Norris, she shows a pliable 
 
 *" Ibid. Advertisement. Mary Astell was not alone in her objec- 
 tion to the unaccredited use of her work in The Ladies Library. Royston 
 Meredith, publisher of Bishop Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying, 
 resented from a financial standpoint Steele's use of Bishop Taylor's 
 ideas, and, upon receiving satisfaction neither from Mr. Tonson nor 
 Mr. Steele, published an account of his wrongs. 
 
 *' The title "Mouse" was given to Lord Halifax because of his 
 share in The Country Mouse and City Mou^e. 
 
130 MAHT ASTELL 
 
 mind, a sympathetic heart, and a keen power of discrim- 
 ination. The Platonic and mystical appeals to her, and 
 she loses herself in its mazes. She accepts Norris's neo- 
 platonism and his philosophy based upon Malebranche's 
 explanation of the Cartesian dualism. There is no bitter- 
 ness nor satire in her presentation: but neither is needed, 
 for she writes to a sympathetic listener. With the devel- 
 oping of her mind and her wider study, the tone of her 
 writing changes. She passes through her period of polit- 
 ical and religious controversy, following her adversaries 
 in the prevailing method of religious pamphleteering. She 
 reads philosophy and history, as well as the controversial 
 pamphlets of the day. The desire for reason, so pre- 
 dominant in the age, becomes in her the search for a 
 reasonable basis on which to establish her Christian faith, 
 a basis clear and simple enough to be presented to women 
 as a foundation for their belief. To this end she studies 
 Descartes's method and Locke's theories. Her best reli- 
 gious pamphlet thus becomes eclectic, based, unconsciously 
 to her in many cases, upon what she has read. Descartes's 
 rules of reasoning become the foundation of her method. 
 His philosophy, however, is accepted in the form in which 
 Malebranche carried it out; Platonic rhapsody occasionally 
 appears, but all are tempered by a staimch faith in the 
 purity and the stability of the church. By the time of 
 her last pamphlet. An Enquiry after Wit, her indignation 
 at the deism and the irreligion of the day had brought 
 into her religious writings a more bitter spirit. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 
 
 PKOBLEMS_i3jLjCLhiirj^__M.4..state were .so.. intermingled 
 in the days of QueenA^e that a writer of religious pam- 
 phlets was almost necessarily a sharer in political discus- 
 sions as well. To this rule Mary Astell was no exception, 
 as, in addition to writing purely religious pamphlets, she 
 entered into the controversy brought about by the question. 
 of o_cca,sional conf ormitY. In 1662 the final Act of Uniform- 
 ity was passed and, according to report, two thousand 
 ministers were ejected from their livings on St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Day of the same year. Various other disability 
 acts followed, such as the Corporation and Test Acts of 
 1673. Upon the accession of William III in 1689 the 
 Toleration Act was passed, but, to the disappointment of 
 the king and the dissenting interests, it gave only partial 
 relief. A dissenter by taking oaths of supremacy and 
 allegiance and by making the declaration against trans- 
 substantiation was freed from the statutes enforcing 
 church attendance but was still deprived of the privilege 
 of holding civil and military oflBces. 
 
 By 1697, although the Corporation and Test Acts of 
 1673 still remained in force, many non-conformists had 
 been elected to prominent civil positions. As they had 
 fulfilled the law in regard to taking communion with the 
 church of England, they were allowed to hold office. Thus 
 the class of occasional conformists arose. No open objec- 
 tion was made to the practice by either party until 1697, 
 when Sir Humphrey Edwin, a presbyterian elected Lord 
 
 131 
 
132 MARY ASTELL 
 
 Mayor of London, attended both the dissenting and the 
 church of England services on a single Sunday and had 
 his regaha of office carried before him to the dissenting 
 meeting-house. His action was attacked by high church 
 men and non-conformists, as well as by the wits of the 
 day. One of the earliest tracts in the controversy was 
 Defoe's An Enquiry into the Oecasional Conformity of 
 Dissenters, published early in 1698, a pamphlet opposing 
 any conformity on the part of dissenters. In 1701 the 
 same situation arose in connection with Sir Thomas Abney, 
 Lord Mayor of London, and was met by Defoe with 
 a republication of his tract; instead of the preface to the 
 Lord Mayor, however, it contained one addressed to Mr. 
 Howe, the pastor of the dissenting congregation to which 
 Sir Thomas Abney belonged. 
 
 By 1702 a bill against occasional conformity was being 
 projected by the Tories as a political measure. It was 
 introduced November 4, 1702, and, although much more 
 stringent than the Corporation Act of 1661, was passed 
 by the House of Commons. The amendments by the 
 upper house were not accepted by the Commons and the 
 measure was lost. Meanwhile fanaticism had been aroused 
 among high church men of the type of Sacheverell. Dur- 
 ing the discussion in 1702, Defoe published his famous 
 Shortest Way with the Dissenters. This was followed 
 shortly by his brief explanation of its meaning and by his 
 More Short Ways with the Dissenters in 1704, with numerous 
 other tracts on the same topic during the period. To the 
 Shortest Way with the Dissenters replies were made by 
 approving high church men and disapproving dissenters. 
 Even when the hoax was discovered and Defoe was paying 
 the penalty, the replies continued. 
 
 In 1703, Rev. James Owen, a dissenting minister at 
 Shrewsbury, took the side of the occasional conformists 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 133 
 
 in his pamphlet Moderation a Virtue; or the Occasional 
 Conformist Justified. Replies to this pamphlet were made 
 from all standpoints. Defoe defended the sincerity of the 
 dissenters in his reply of 1703, Leslie wrote two pamphlets 
 from the high church standpoint, and Mary Astell con- 
 tinued the discussion in 1704 with Moderation truly Stated. 
 In her reply to Owen she shows her familiarity with all 
 the pamphlets mentioned, as well as with Dr. Davenant's 
 Essays on Peace and War published in 1704, which Defoe 
 had discussed in The Sincerity of the Dissenters Vindicated 
 1703, and to which she replied in the preface to Moderation 
 truly Stated. She also took occasion to attack Defoe's 
 The Shortest Way and More Short Ways in her pamphlet A 
 Fair Way vnth the Dissenters and their Patrons, etc., 1704. 
 One more political pamphlet, An Impartial Enquiry into 
 the Cause of Rebellion and Civil War in the Kingdom, 1704, 
 was her final printed expression of royalist fervor, although 
 her activity did not cease, as she expressed her political 
 views in her two later religious pamphlets and aided Dr. 
 John Walker in securing material for The Sufferings of 
 the Clergy. 
 
 In the preface to her first political pamphlet, Moderation 
 truly Stated, Mary Astell answers Dr. Davenant's pam- 
 phlets. Dr. Davenant in his Essays on Peace at Home 
 and War Abroad starts with the thesis that the stability 
 of a coimtry is aided by peace at home and war abroad, 
 because with war outside the country's domains, its factions 
 at home must be united for the preservation of the state. 
 Thus pernicious factions (for he takes the side that fac- 
 tions are dangerous) must be removed that unity in the 
 nation may be gained. This aim he expresses in the 
 epistle to the Queen. "'Tis Union at Home must make 
 Your Armies and Your Fleets victorious Abroad and enable 
 Your Majesty to hold the Balance of Europe, and to 
 
134 MARY ASTELL 
 
 protect the Protestant Interest whereof You are the 
 Head." ' 
 
 He avows himself a strong churchman, a believer in 
 limited monarchy in which the authority of the King and 
 not that of the people is final; yet this monarchy is de- 
 pendent upon the church for its power. Perhaps, for one 
 who does not believe in the power of the people, he relies 
 too much on the influence good men may have in the 
 state, as his first section on The Danger of Appealing to 
 the People from their Representatives in Parliament shows. 
 
 The course of his argument is that there should be no 
 factions in the state, but he inconsistently shows when 
 factions may be an advantage. He believes that at times 
 a good man may withdraw from his own party and remain 
 "neuter" or become a member of a "Flying Squadron"; 
 then, if his own party has turned aside from the right, 
 he may join another group for the purpose of improving 
 the state. Men to do this, however, must be of superior 
 judgment and must withdraw from their own parties only 
 when their own opinions become altered and not merely 
 for political advancement. In order that the state may 
 secure secrecy and dispatch in business, it must be united. 
 The duty of the ministers of state and princes then is to 
 heal divisions and to prevent the growth of factions. 
 Davenant explains when this is to be done rather than how, 
 as he does not show what power is to carry out his sug- 
 gestions. The cure for factions in the kingdom, he says, 
 is for all to unite on some great man, or for the king to 
 reduce parties by the approval of the good, since a part of 
 the people will always remain untainted by evil. That this 
 is merely the statement of his approval of one faction 
 Davenant does not seem to consider. The king can 
 
 1 Essays upon Peace at Home and War Abroad. Part I. By Charles 
 D'Avenant, LL.D., London, 1704. The Epistle Dedicatory. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 135 
 
 assure this unity by toleration and by keeping liberty 
 of conscience among his subjects. Davenant argues that 
 a successful state must be founded upon religion. Though, 
 at times, the state may have seemed irreligious, yet so 
 strong was the feeling that "they who desir'd to rise in 
 the World, if they had no true Piety, were obliged at 
 least to take upon 'em its' Appearance; so that it was not 
 held in Derision by the great Ones in such a Degree as 
 utterly to deprave the Manners of the Common People." 
 There have been troubles within the church itself due to 
 irreligion; there have been sects formed which in changes 
 of govermnent are likely to unite with political parties 
 against the state; the church, however, will stand if it 
 is upheld by the principles of the sovereign. 
 
 Since the church of England doctrine is the purest and 
 seems to agree with the English type of government, it is 
 the duty of the Enghsh rulers to uphold it, since "the 
 Regal Authority has no other solid Basis to rest upon but 
 the Church." ^ Although this is true, yet "the Piety of 
 Princes, and their care of the establish'd Religion, ought 
 never to raise a Spirit of Persecution in those who are 
 favor'd and coimtenanc'd." ' At this point Davenant's 
 statements are so liberal that, were they consistent and 
 sincere, he would rank as a leader of his generation in 
 toleration. He says: "As one Side deserves Favour, the 
 others have a Right to Protection as Subjects, and as Men; 
 not to have their Consciences constrain'd, perhaps they 
 have a natural Right which himian Laws are not to alter. 
 
 "But some who are fully persuaded in their Minds that 
 they maintain the Cause of God, and his true Religion 
 are apt to think they can never carry it on with too high 
 a Hand, and so are brought to deviate from the Doctrine 
 of their sacred Master who came into the World to teach 
 2 lUd., p. 232. ' lUd., p. 232. 
 
136 MARY ASTELL 
 
 the Ways of Peace." * Unfortunately for the later accept- 
 ance of his argument, Davenant does not keep to this 
 high plane of thought. 
 
 He desires toleration, not for the sake of abstract justice 
 as Locke and Bishop Burnet argued for it, or as his state- 
 ments just quoted would imply, but as a matter of policy 
 because it is necessary to maintain the state. The main- 
 taining of such an act, he argues, would set the minds of 
 the people at rest and break up the strict discipline of 
 the dissenting churches by arousing no persecution to unite 
 them; and the members would return to their worldly 
 concerns. Such had been the case under the Huguenot 
 persecution in France, since, when Henry IV ^ gave them 
 toleration, their numbers decreased. He, however, shut 
 them out from any management of affairs. 
 
 The situation in England was such that Davenant felt 
 there was no danger in repealing the laws allowing liberty 
 of conscience, if the dissenters were not led to affect supe- 
 riority over the established church. Of the real point 
 before the country, the Bill against Occasional Conformity, 
 Davenant makes no direct mention; since he feels that it 
 is not wise to disturb the dissenters. "And thus a Thing 
 perhaps in its own nature indifferent offer'd, or let alone, 
 oppos'd or consented to without any consequence to either 
 side may be so improv'd by their wicked Arts who promote 
 Division as to inflame a Country." * 
 
 The dissenters are not many of them high in rank, 
 he thinks, and have not much education; therefore few of 
 them attempt to enter state positions; the conscientious 
 ones not at all, and, no matter what the requirements, 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 233-234. 
 
 ' Davenant and Mary Astell following him write Henry III for 
 Henry IV. 
 
 » lUd., p. 243. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 137 
 
 the bad ones will be willing to meet them. If the execu- 
 tive power attempts to interfere and refuses to employ 
 those to whom religion is indifferent, such men may decide 
 to remain in their own church and by pretending reform- 
 ative zeal may get a following large enough to secure the 
 balance of power. 
 
 The wisest plan for the country to follow under the 
 circumstances is toleration, leaving the punishment of 
 hypocrisy to God. And the cure of evils is in the hands 
 of good Princes "when their Rule is in the main without 
 Reproach: when they proceed by gentle and not rough 
 Methods, holding their Reigns, however, with a strong 
 and steady Hand, and especially when they take care to 
 remove from warm and angry Minds any Pretence of 
 ranging themselves one Side against the other under the 
 Banners of Religion." ' 
 
 Unfortunately for the success of Dr. Davenant's appeal 
 for toleration and moderation, he had not always taken 
 that side. During the time of King James II he had been 
 made a commissioner of the excise, but had lost his position 
 at the time of the Revolution. During King William's 
 reign he had written books on Balance of Trade against 
 the Whig policies when a new East India company was 
 being organized; his Treatise on Grants and Resumptions, 
 when the parliament recalled those in Ireland; and his 
 Collection of Treaties on the Partition to oppose the min- 
 istry. His Dialogue between Whiglove and Tom Double had 
 its effect on the parliamentary elections. On the acces- 
 sion of Queen Anne, he was made Secretary to the Union 
 with Scotland and later Inspector General. His change 
 of policy shown in Essays on Peace and War is ascribed by 
 his opponents to this rise in favor at court, as he is said 
 to have written the work by the encouragement of Godol- 
 ' Ibid., pp. 263-264. 
 
138 MART ASTELL 
 
 phin, and rumor asserted that the Earl of Halifax also had 
 a share m his conversion. 
 
 Many replies were made to him. An anonymous pam- 
 phlet, listed by Canon Beaching in his recent life of 
 Bishop Atterbury as possibly one of Atterbury's, appeared 
 under the title, The True Tom Double or an account of 
 Dr. Davenant's late conduct and writings particularly with 
 relation to the Xlth section of his Essays on Peace at Home 
 and War abroad, with some Latin Memorandums for the 
 Doctor's use. The anonymous pamphleteer accuses Dr. 
 Davenant of varying his ideas to suit his ends, especially 
 as to his change of attitude in regard to occasional con- 
 formity. "But the nicest Point upon which the Dr. hath 
 been prevail'd with to try his Skill, is The Bill of Occa- 
 sional Conformity.^ He had unfortunately been twice an 
 eager Sollicitor for it, and it was Hard, therefore, that he 
 should be put now upon writing against it. He, himself, 
 was so sensible of the Difficulties which attended this Part 
 of the Task, that, if Fame says true, he would fain have 
 gotten Leave to drop it. But the Command was peremp- 
 tory and prevail'd. Besides if it was known that he had 
 Compos'd such Papers, and should afterward have con- 
 cealed them from the Public, it would have been imputed 
 rather to his Fears than his Honesty."* This changed 
 attitude gained for him the name of Trimmer, or as the 
 anonymous writer puts it a Doubler, a name derived from 
 the one he had assumed in Whiglove and Tom Double. 
 
 To Davenant Mary Astell replied in a preface to Mod- 
 eration truly Stated, her pamphlet directed against Owen's 
 Moderation a Virtue. To show her consistent devotion to 
 her cause as against Davanent's doubling tendencies, she 
 chose the pseudonym Tom Single. The main part of her 
 
 » H. C. Beeching, Francis Atterbury, London, 1909, p. XVI. 
 ' The True Tom Double, Part I. London, (no date), p. 19. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 139 
 
 pamphlet was already written when his appeared. "I 
 was under some apprehensions when your Book appear'd," 
 she writes, "lest mine should be contrary to the Maxims of 
 such a Master, But upon Perusal, I found to my Comfort 
 we Agree in the main, at least so far as my Understanding 
 admits me into your Politicks." '" 
 
 Their agreement, however, did not prevent her from 
 noting the inconsistencies, not only with her own views, 
 but also with the views that he had previously expressed. 
 She had read carefully all of his essays as well as Tom 
 Double's criticisms. (The reader wonders if Bishop Atter- 
 bury were the author of this pamphlet, and if so whether 
 there were any discussion between the two of the work in 
 hand.) She made a list of the inconsistencies, a much 
 larger one, she says, than she has shown in her pamphlet. 
 Then in a skillful manner she wove together the Doctor's 
 opinions with comments of her own so as to bring out the 
 change in his views. Inconsistencies there are in plenty, 
 which Mary Astell never fails to find, and touches with a 
 keen satire; at times, however, the spirit of argument 
 leads her to magnify differences and to read into the context 
 statements that are not there. 
 
 She holds consistently to the position that there should ' 
 be no factions in government, and that there will be none 
 if the sovereignty is given over to the ruler. From her i 
 standpoint as a believer in the divine right of kings and 
 in the established church of England as the basis of sound 
 government, she cannot admit toleration any farther than ' 
 to let well enough alone; she does not of course accept 
 occasional conformity. ' 
 
 In her reply to Dr. Davenant she practically limits 
 herself to his chapter Of Religion and Ldberty of Conscience. 
 She shows that Davenant and she agree as to the mischief 
 "• Moderation truly Stated. Prefatory Discourse, p. 1. 
 
140 MARY ASTELL 
 
 of faction, but that he is inconsistent, at one time indicat- 
 ing the need of faction, again decrying it altogether. Mary 
 Astell's statements of the differences here seem stronger 
 than the actual statements made by Dr. Davenant. Both 
 agree as to the need of \mity and concord, sense and 
 moderation, but not as to the definition of moderation. 
 Both beheve the constitution must not be altered. She, 
 on the contrary, cannot accept Davenant's idea of a "Fly- 
 ing Squadron," because the honest man must always be 
 on one side, that side to her mind being of course the side 
 of the government. Hence also questions of secrecy and 
 dispatch in business may better be left to the Prince, 
 "Provided the People can Trust the Prince, as sure they 
 may when that Prince is entirely English." ^^ 
 
 Mary Astell agrees with Davenant, that if faction exists, 
 it should be subdued, but calls attention to the fact that 
 he has neglected to show how. Her own suggestion is 
 hardly more constructive than his, since she trusts every- 
 thing to the righteousness and good sense of the ruler, 
 who must "let his own Prudence Govern, and not the 
 Artifice or Insolence of any of his Subjects." ^^ Both 
 agree that there should be no factions, but argue somewhat 
 beside the point, since to Mary Astell faction consists in 
 "making of a Party in Opposition to the Laws and the 
 EstabUsh'd Government; or else the pursuing of a Publick 
 Good by Unlawful Means." " With this definition she 
 can allow for no difference of opinion as Davenant does, 
 and believes no good men can differ from her opinion 
 unless they lack intelligence. 
 
 She also replies to other seeming inconsistencies such 
 
 as Davenant's suggestion that, in cases of faction, strong 
 
 remedies and all legal means might become necessary, and 
 
 that faction might better be dealt with by gentle than by 
 
 " Ibid., p. VII. " Ibid., p. X. " Ibid., p. XXVI. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 141 
 
 rough remedies. With the keenness that had already- 
 won for her the respect and the fear of her opponents, 
 the admiration of her friends, and the bitter satire of her 
 detractors, she finds the lack of power in his arguments, 
 the "peradventures and perhaps" without constructive 
 statesmanship. As she says, "In the mean time, Sir, and 
 to confess my Dulness, which is more than every body 
 will submit to, I am not able to find out what it is you 
 would have us do in relation to Offenders. Shall we 
 Punish them? No, for neither the Princes noble Nature 
 nor Necessary Prudence will allow it. Shall we acquit 
 them? No, not this neither, for total Impunity brings 
 Contempt upon the Laws, and begets a lasting Succession 
 of ill Government. . . . What then are we to do? Must 
 we neither Punish them, nor let them go Unpunish'd? 
 this is a little Extraordinary; and if you would please to 
 inform us, where the Mean lies, or what is Moderation 
 on this Case 'twould be a great Discovery and oblige 
 the World extremely." ^* 
 
 The discussion of moderation is left to the last as being 
 most important, and then is treated according to one of the 
 Hterary fashions of the times adopted by many religious 
 controversialists for the sake of adding popular interest to 
 their works. John Nokes and William Styles, represent- 
 ing the moderate church men, engage in a dialogue upon 
 the subject, in which Nokes, weaving together inconsistent 
 statements of Dr. Davenant speaks against the bill oppos- 
 ing occasional conformity, and Styles argues for it. Both 
 use in large measure Dr. Davenant's words and thus show 
 his inconsistencies. As it is always easier to be consistent 
 when arguing for conformity than for moderation, Mary 
 Astell, in the person of Styles, comes out victor. Styles, 
 then turning the words of Dr. Davenant against his side, 
 " Ibid., p. XII. 
 
142 MART ASTELL 
 
 appeals for the rejection of the bill, because "a Church 
 can never fail to Flourish, when Sovereigns by their own 
 Principles are entirely firm to the Interests and Religion 
 of the Church Establish'd, and consequently are enclined to 
 Countenance those who have the truest zeal to support 
 it. And this is the best Policy as well as the Sincerest 
 Religion, since the Regal Authority has no other solid 
 Basis to rest upon but the Church." '^ 
 
 After the bitterness of the dialogue is over, a lady is 
 introduced to speak for the women as Davenant had 
 mentioned them among the dissenting group and to re- 
 prove him for having "in books dedicated to her Majesty" 
 taken upon himself to tell the world that "Ln this Kingdom 
 no more Skill, no more Policies are requisite, than what 
 may be comprehended by a Woman." ^^ "As if," Mary 
 Astell remarks, "there were any Skill, any Policy that a 
 Woman's Understanding could not reach." ^'' After this 
 digression of several pages a person of "great candor and 
 temper" enters. As a plain man he hopes to conclude the 
 argument by referring to a method suggested by the 
 extraordinary Dr. Davenant in his late essays. There 
 follows a caustic discussion of one of the weakest points 
 of Dr. Davenant's argument, where he illustrated his 
 point by using the attitude of Henry IV of France toward 
 the Huguenots, in giving them toleration and not requiring 
 conformity, but, says the worthy doctor, "He shut 'em 
 out from the Management of Affairs by a general Care 
 in the Executive Power: he took none of that Persuasion 
 into Familiarity of the Service of his Household. He 
 excluded 'em from all offices of the Crown, the Revenue, 
 Courts of Justice, Governments of Provinces and Places, 
 and from all Emplojonents in the Army.'* The plain man 
 
 « Ibid., p. XL VI. " Ibid., p. LII. 
 
 i" lUd., p. LII. " Essays, pp. 237-238. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 143 
 
 speaking for Mary Astell suggests that this is the proper 
 method and, as a result of his words, "The Company were 
 extremely pleas'd with this Expedient and so they broke 
 up, some promis'd to carry it to the Lords and others to 
 the Commons; That if they in their Wisdoms should think 
 fit to tender a Bill to her Majesty to Prevent Occasional 
 Conformity, which is just the same thing as Henry Ill's 
 [IV's] Method, the Church might know what Obliga- 
 tions She had to Dr. D'Avenant for contributing so much 
 to so good a Work." '^ 
 
 In her own person Mary Astell then sums up the dis- 
 cussion giving many arguments urged by others against 
 Davenant's position, with reference especially to his change 
 of sides politically. She closes with the words — " It 
 has cost me more Time and Pains to Answer you in the 
 Words of that Famous Author I have so often cited [TDave- 
 nant himself] than would have serv'd if I had us'd my 
 own. But I do not repent of the Labour, for tho' my 
 Sayings might have been disregarded, his must needs 
 weigh with you and all the World .^^ 
 
 The pamphlet of James Owen, already mentioned as 
 the occasion of Mary Astell's Moderation truly Stated 
 may be considered as a fair statement of the occasional 
 conformist side, from the standpoint of the conscientious 
 group to which Baxter and Owen belonged. To men 
 like Defoe, they seemed renegades; to men like Leslie 
 they seemed hypocrites: and the modern student has some 
 difiiculty in placing himself in their position sufficiently 
 to give them a fair hearing. James Owen was regarded 
 by them as one of their chief defenders, and, as such, they 
 honored his work. 
 
 " Moderation truly Stated, p. LVIII. 
 2» Ibid., p. LXV. 
 
144 MART ASTELL 
 
 His pamphlet opens with the title page — Moderation a 
 Virtue, or the Occasional Conformist Justify'd from the Im- 
 putation of Hypocrisy; wherein is shown The Antiquity, 
 Catholick Principles, and Advantage of Occasional Conformity 
 to the Church of England; and that Dissenters from the 
 Religion of the state have been employed in most govern- 
 ments under the several following heads. At once, however, 
 Owen disclaims any attempt to defend those who conform in 
 order to secure office; to him that is a scandalous practice. 
 Just why one should conform, otherwise, is somewhat 
 difficult to discern; but Owen has numerous reasons. "It 
 seems very unaccountable that the Protestant Dissenter's 
 Moderation toward the establish'd Church, which was 
 formerly reputed a Virtue in 'em, should be interpreted a 
 Crime, when it renders 'em useful to the State; That Occa- 
 sional Conformity, which they judg'd lawful in a private 
 Capacity should become sinful, when they happen to be 
 advanced to Public Stations: that they should be traduced 
 by a Set of Pamphleteers as Hypocrites and dangerous 
 Enemies of the Church, for their Charitable Sentiments 
 of it, and Friendly Approaches to it." ^^ 
 
 The first thesis to be established is that occasional con- 
 formity is no new thing, for Biblical examples prove the 
 practice justifiable on the ground that John the Baptist, 
 Jesus, the apostles, and Paul, as well as the Jews of the 
 early Christian Church, practiced it. The Jewish Church, 
 herself, had encouraged conformity in the case of heathen 
 kings, who had sacrifices offered for them in the temple 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 The English conformist, in the second place, acts from 
 a rehgious regard to God. Believing the estabhshed church 
 to be a true church and a bulwark against popery, he 
 
 21 Moderation a Virtue, or the Occasional Conformist Justify'd from 
 the Imputation of Hypocrisy, etc. London, 1703, pp. 5-6. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 145 
 
 does not feel that he can separate from her entirely; but, 
 because he believes the dissenting churches also are true 
 churches, he must hold communion with them. He does 
 not find in them the liturgy of which he disapproves, but 
 does find better preaching and a more strict discipline. 
 
 As this practice of conformity had been a custom before 
 the days of the occasional conformity bill, it is hard to 
 see how the accusation can be made that men are con- 
 forming merely for the sake of office, especially as many 
 ministers, among whom is Mr. Baxter, and many persons 
 of both sexes, none of whom expected profit from the 
 practice, have followed it. The third point is that there 
 is very little difference between the two communions, less 
 indeed than in the state church itself, as shown by the 
 debates over the power of Convocation, made necessary 
 by the position of the non-jurors. The points of dis- 
 agreements on the liturgy, ordination and ceremonies in 
 baptism he dismisses as of little consequence. 
 
 He argues for the continuance of the practice because 
 of its good effect upon the government. The employment 
 of dissenters in positions of trust strengthens the state: 
 they have shown a true interest in the established church 
 by opposing popery; they have faithfully served in the 
 armies of the country; and they have shared in the at- 
 tempts to improve the country's morals. In addition, as 
 the tendency of those who believe in occasional conformity 
 is toward the state church, the practice weakens the dis- 
 senters and is thereby an advantage to the church. The 
 failure to pass the bill against occasional conformity was 
 a decided advantage to the country; since, with its pass- 
 ing, all possibility of future imion would be over, and the 
 definite cleavage resulting would have weakened the estab- 
 lished church and strengthened the moderate dissenters. 
 England's church needs the union with the reformed 
 
146 MART ASTELL 
 
 churches abroad that is attained through the protestant 
 denominations at home. 
 
 That the custom of employing dissenters in nations and 
 governments is no new thing, history has shown. Joseph, 
 Daniel and his companions were dissenters. '"Tis true 
 they [Daniel and his companions] had powerful Enemies 
 at Court, who got a Law made for Uniformity of Worship, 
 by which they hoped to ruin 'em; but God rescued these 
 Conscientious Dissenters from the fiery Furnace, to the 
 confusion of those who plotted their Destruction." ^ 
 Further examples are quoted from ancient history, with the 
 statement in climax that even in popish coimtries dissenters 
 have not been forbidden the government. In view of these 
 facts it is a pity that the protestant bodies should not be 
 united against anything that might threaten their destruction. 
 
 The spirit of the times was becoming too much excited 
 for the replies to Owen's work to retain the tone of moder- 
 ation shown in his pamphlet. Charles Leslie, the non- 
 juror, answered with a vicious pamphlet that immediately 
 ran through several editions, and a flood of other pamphlets 
 followed. To them Owen replied with Moderation Still 
 a Virtue, a pamphlet directed chiefly against the anony- 
 mous Decagonal Conformity a most Unjustifiable Practice, 
 and Leslie's The Wolf Stripped of his Shepherds Clothing. 
 
 In the preface Owen criticizes the methods of attack 
 used by his antagonists, since the "Opponents divert 
 to other Things, which are beside the Design and the 
 Drift of the Discourse. Some of them violently oppose 
 all Moderation and confound it with Lukewarmness in 
 the Essentials and Vitals of Religion: so the verbose and 
 virulent Author of Moderation truly stated." ^ 
 
 ^ Moderation a Virtue, p. 37. 
 
 '^ Moderation still a Virtue in Answer to Several Bitter Pamphlets 
 Especially Two ErUitled Occasional Conformity a most Unjustifiable 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 147 
 
 The criticism upon Mary Astell's pamphlet is just as to 
 its arguing beside the point, since she did not hold to 
 Owen's definition of moderation. The patient reader who 
 reaches the one hundred and twentieth of the closely printed 
 pages of discussion of Owen's volume of half that length 
 and the sixty-sixth of the still more closely printed pages 
 in opposition to Davenant, accepts, at once, the criticism 
 verbose. "Virulent" in the days of political and religious 
 controversy, must necessarily be a relative term: yet the 
 attempts at a sane presentation and at a judicial attitude 
 in Mary Astell's work, while not entirely successful, 
 are sufficient to make the term "virulent" imjust. 
 
 Mary Astell's pamphlet Moderation truly Stated, a direct 
 reply to Owen's Moderation a Virtue, opens with an at- 
 tempted Biblical definition of the word Moderation, which 
 is explained to mean, according to Paul's usage, either a 
 contempt of the world or lukewarmness in religion. From 
 these definitions, she draws the conclusion that, "for a 
 Church-man to desire a Dissenter to be Moderate, is to 
 desire him to pay a partial Obedience, to halt between two 
 opinions, to be so far a False Friend as to get it in his 
 Power to be more effectually an Enemy. And if Obe- 
 dience, Order, and Uniformity, the Peace and Safety of the 
 Church be such indifferent things, it were best to give 
 them up all at once, and to make no more ado about 
 them. 
 
 "On the other hand, that Moderation the Dissenter de- 
 sires of the Church is the slackning the Reins of Discipline, 
 the Violation of Order, and Breach of Laws. — Nor can 
 the Dissenter, if he is an honest Man, allow himself to be 
 Moderate, for that were according to him, the giving up 
 
 Practice, and the Wolf Stripped of His Shepherd's Clothing, etc. By the 
 author of Moderation a Virtue. London, 1704. Preface, p. 11. 
 
148 MARY ASTELL 
 
 what he takes to be the Cause of God, and a parting tamely 
 with the Reformation and Purity of religion." ^ 
 
 In criticism of Owen's statement that Biblical precedents 
 can be found in plenty, both of good and evil, she accuses 
 him of misinterpretation and turns some of his conclu- 
 sions rather amusingly back upon him — notably the 
 illustration of Naaman, whom Owen had used as an ex- 
 ample of occasional conformity, but according to Mary 
 Astell, "when the Duty of his place carried him into the 
 house of Rimmon, and he bow'd himself there, the good 
 Man had the Conscience to ask God's Pardon for the little 
 harmless Compliance, which he would not pretend to 
 justify. He was convinc'd, it seems, that the Religious 
 Worship of the Israelites was the only true Worship, but 
 he was loath to quit a profitable convenient Place; who 
 can blame him? and therefore he hop'd that a little Occa- 
 sional Conformity might be dispens'd with." ^^ 
 
 Elijah refused to let pass the refusing to commimicate 
 regularly, in the question, "Why halt ye between two 
 opinions?" Korah and his company were for separate 
 assemblies and purer worship. — "Nor was Korah's party 
 despicable; they appear too numerous to be suppress'd 
 and too great to be disobliged." Hezekiah, in his own 
 time, was "in a certain Author's phrase, a narrow-spirited 
 zealot, making fierce opposition to Occasional Conformity. 
 For he remov'd the High Places, supprest all Separate 
 Congregations, even where Incense was offered to the 
 Lord, as well as where it was offer'd to idols." ^* Thus 
 through eight pages of illustrations Mary Astell over- 
 throws the value of Owen's Biblical illustrations. The 
 reader, far removed from the heat of controversy and un- 
 
 '* Moderation truly Stated, p. 20. 
 25 Ibid., p. 20. 
 2» Ibid., p. 21. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 149 
 
 accustomed to find his precedents so definitely before him, 
 still takes an intellectual enjoyment in the contest of wits. 
 The instance of the Samaritan woman is perhaps Mary 
 Astell's best illustration. The Samartians were dissenters, 
 she says, descendants of Nehemiah's good friends, "who 
 had very plausible pretences for their Way of Worship, 
 even the same with our Author's Precedents and Antiquity, 
 their very women being taught to alledge them; though 
 I think we'd as good let this Instance drop, since our 
 Saviour's reply to the Woman's Question, makes not much 
 for the Credit of those Dissenters. For he tells her they 
 worship'd they knew not what, and that Salvation was of 
 the Jews, the Church that GOD himself had Established." " 
 
 Turning from precedent as proof of the justness of 
 occasional conformity, Mary Astell argues that no govern- 
 ment can be wisely carried on by any men except those 
 who are satisfied with it. These she holds cannot be the 
 occasional conformists, who may be well affected toward 
 the civil government, but cannot be toward the eccle- 
 siastical, upon which she believes the civil is based. 
 
 In spite of the fact that Owen had insisted that his 
 argument did not cover the case of the hypocritical con- 
 formist, Mary Astell attempts to show the impossibility 
 of a man's conforming without his being a hypocrite. To 
 this point, Owen rightly objected in his second pamphlet, 
 stating that Mary Astell was arguing beside the point. 
 
 The arguments against Owen's points as to the justice of 
 a separate establishment are much more interesting to 
 Mary Astell than the practical effects of the existing con- 
 ditions on the political situation. She inquires why if 
 there be between the dissenters and the church such an 
 agreement as Owen states, they separated originally, since, 
 if the separation were justified, then the present plea for 
 " Ibid., p. 24. 
 
150 MABT ASTBLL 
 
 moderation might easily be acceded to; otherwise the 
 separation should be given up. But she argues plausibly 
 that there are causes oftentimes that are not reasons; 
 for, if the motives are not those of reason and conscience, 
 then the charges of hypocrisy and of searching for secular 
 preferment hold against them. The designs of the dis- 
 senters she believes to be power, preferment, and their 
 own establishment. To prove these charges true, she 
 quotes from Mr. Calamy's Abridgment of Baxter. Her in- 
 ability to look at a subject from other than the established 
 church point of view, leads her to argue in a circle in 
 stating that all acts which tend visibly to the ruin of the 
 church must be bad, and must show bad intention. If 
 the dissenters have been friends to the church of England 
 and good subjects to their ruler, when it was in their power 
 to be otherwise, then their separation may be justifiable. 
 But can they, by their principles, have this loyalty to 
 their church and their king? As readily disproving the 
 latter point, Mary Astell refers her reader to The Church's 
 Eleventh Persecution, the account of the clergy who were 
 turned out of their livings. The resulting conclusion is 
 that "considering the Time that these Histories take in 
 you will find that the Dissenters have made pretty good 
 use of their Time and Opportunities, and are not so much 
 behindhand with the Papists, in Peaceableness and Loyalty, 
 and other good Qualities." '^ 
 
 But "God was pleas'd indeed to Restore it in a Wonder- 
 ful Manner, by a Revolution that was truly His own Work, 
 that was as just as in its Foundation, as it was extraor- 
 dinary in its Progress, which could be justifi'd by Prin- 
 ciples as well as excus'd by Necessity. For when the Royal 
 Party were at the lowest, and all their Loyal Attempts 
 had been baffled, God was pleased to turn the Hearts of 
 ^ Ibid., p. 63. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 151 
 
 the People toward David their king, and to convince them 
 by Oppressions they had suffered under their Fellow-sub- 
 jects, that the Little Finger of an usurp'd Power is heavier 
 than the Loins of a Lawful Prince. 
 
 "And upon this Happy Revolution, the Government 
 which was then Restor'd with the King, might in all prob- 
 ability and Himianly speaking, have been secur'd beyond 
 the Fear of Danger, had not either the Good Nature of 
 King Charles II or some false Maxim which obtained, pre- 
 vail'd with him, not only to pardon His and the Nation's 
 Enemies (this every good Christian and good Englishman 
 sincerely desir'd) but even to treat them as Friends to 
 Promote and Trust them. Whereby he not only gave his 
 Enemies Opportunity to revive the Old Game, but which 
 was worse, left the Crown destitute of Friends. For tho' 
 the Loyal Party had many vertues and had given noble 
 Testimony of their Fidelity, yet they were but Men, 
 and thought themselves no longer Oblig'd to hazard all 
 that was dear to them for a Crown that had so httle Con- 
 sideration of their services, and made no Distinction but 
 to their Disadvantage, between their Merit and the Crimes 
 of the Disloyal." ^^ 
 
 Owen had said that "in the greatest extremity of the 
 Church, under King James they [the Dissenters] joined 
 with her." This Mary Astell feels was not proved by 
 the protestant willingness to accept the results of the re- 
 moving of the test. Here, in spite of her loyalty to the 
 king, she can find no praise for James II. Church is 
 higher than state in her mind. As to the position of the 
 dissenters imder William and Mary, "When these worthy 
 patriots, I say, had brought about the late Revolution the 
 Dissenters came in very readily and sincerely for they had 
 their Reasons, I do not pretend to judge how well these 
 29 Ibul., p. 66. 
 
152 MARY ASTELL 
 
 Reasons squar'd with the interest of the Church of Eng- 
 land." '"• All this revolution might have been avoided, 
 she believes, had the dissenters not joined with the papists, 
 and now they are trying to find a place for themselves in a 
 new government. 
 
 As she puts it, "We need not trace the Dissenters Be- 
 haviour any further only there wants a good Reason why 
 they made such a Bustle upon her Majestie's most Happy 
 and seasonable Accession to the Throne, and swarm with 
 so many Pamphlets about our Ears." '^ 
 
 All these seem to be sufficient proofs that the dissenters 
 have not been good subjects to the prince and friends to the 
 church of England when it was to their interest to do 
 otherwise. But men may go away from the right under 
 strong temptation; hence it is advisable to learn whether 
 their principles will allow them to be friends to the con- 
 stitution, to see whether they may return to its support 
 when the temptation is over. Proof of this is given 
 through thirty pages of quotations from history and statute 
 book, usually from the works of the dissenters themselves 
 showing their opposition to church and state, for, to a 
 loyalist such as Mary Astell was, opposition to one meant 
 opposition to both. That many of these speeches were 
 not accepted by a large majority of dissenters; that many 
 were uttered in the heat of political argimient; that in 
 sixty years, for many quotations are froni the debates of 
 1642, men may have changed opinions, has no weight with 
 Mary Astell in her quotations. Nor does she regard the 
 context. The strength of her argument lies in the histor- 
 ical method she pursues in going back to original sources. 
 She calls attention to the lack of toleration shown by the 
 dissenting bodies when they were in power, to the dis- 
 loyalty to king and constitution expressed by the author 
 '» Ibid., p. 68. » Ibid., pp. 68-69. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 153 
 
 of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, to the regicide 
 speeches justifying the regicides in their subversion of 
 the constitution. Nor do these dissenting bodies show 
 greater respect to parliaments than to kings; for they be- 
 lieve the rights were given parliament by the people them- 
 selves. The conclusion then is evident. It is not the 
 king to whom these bodies are opposed but the consti- 
 tution. Such says Mary Astell is the effect in practice of 
 the charitable sentiments of the dissenter, of his friendly 
 approaches to the church, and of his little peculiarities 
 which, according to Owen, should not be a bar to his 
 serving the government.'^ 
 
 In conclusion, Mary Astell expresses her conviction that 
 the dissenters are separating from the church, not for 
 reasons of conscience, but for poUtical purposes.'' Tolera- 
 tion, she believes, should therefore be given only in re- 
 ligious matters; for the dissenters from the church might 
 become the leaders of a faction opposed to the government, 
 especially since it is not liberty of conscience that they 
 desire, but an opportimity to gain power. 
 
 The pamphlet closes with the usual eulogy on Queen 
 Anne; "since it is so much for Her Majesty's Service 
 and Honour that all Contentions should cease and that as 
 the Reformation was compleated in the Reign of Her 
 Glorious Predecessor Queen Elizabeth, so Unity both in 
 Church and State may be the Blessing that Posterity 
 shall derive from the more Glorious Reign of Queen 
 Anne." ^ 
 
 In a postscript to A Fair Way with the Dissenters, Mary 
 Astell comments on Owen's second pamphlet. Moderation 
 Still a Virtue. She feels that the pamphlet is a repetition 
 of her arguments, not a reply to them. As readers un- 
 fortunately do not often take the pains to make compar- 
 32 Ibid., p. 79. =3 Ibid., p. 92. ^4 jf^^^^ p. ng. 
 
154 MAEY ASTELL 
 
 isons, she says she follows the usual example of writers, 
 the force of whose argument lies only in their assurance, 
 and she says the last word. 
 
 "Our Author has an admirable way of dispatching his 
 Opposers; those who take no notice of what is not to the 
 purpose, he says do not answer him; those who reply to 
 every shadow of an Argument that is offered for his Cause 
 by himself or others, he tells you are verbose. But he did 
 wisely in over-looking Moderation truly stated, for to have 
 consider'd it would have lost him one half of his Book. 
 And it is very true that several Pages are Verbose and Vir- 
 ulent, for they are taken up in answering the Dissenters 
 Arguments against Schism and Toleration in their own 
 Words, and their Virulency against the Government in 
 Church and State as by Law established. There you may 
 find that those expressions about Schism, which our Author 
 is so offended at p. 21, are the very words of Mr. Edwards 
 the Presbyterian. 
 
 "I should be too verbose, did I reckon up all our 
 Author's Mistakes and Disingenuities." '^ 
 
 Defoe's clear but brutal satire. The Shortest Way with 
 the Dissenters, reproducing in its tone the attitude of the 
 most rabid "Highflyers," brought many attacks upon him 
 when the object of his pamphlet was understood: for his 
 merciless putting into words of the political and commer- 
 cial ideas back of much of the religious argument of the 
 day was more than the high church party could stand. 
 It was not until 1704 that Mary Astell, at the request of 
 friends, who by this time were regarding her as a redoubt- 
 able champion of the church, discussed The Shortest Way 
 and More Short Ways in a curiously contradictory pamphlet 
 by far the weakest of her publications. She is conscious of 
 Defoe's satire and yet, with the severity of one lacking a 
 85 Fair Way with Dissenters, p. 24. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 155 
 
 sense of humor, she replies half seriously to his suggested 
 method for dealing with dissenters with the curious thesis 
 that "to strike at the root of dissenting interests neither 
 hurts the consciences, the persons nor the estates of Dis- 
 senters." '^ After formulating a long series of questions 
 arising from the pamphlets she concludes "that what the 
 Dissenters desire is evidently to bring all opposers to 
 truckle to them. It becomes the duty, then, of all church- 
 men to lay open the design of the Dissenters, thus doing 
 the greatest possible service to them by preserving public 
 peace, by restraining them from persecution, and by 
 preventing the destruction that would come to them in 
 this world and in the next." " Her loyalty and her re- 
 ligious fervor have in this pamphlet overbalanced her 
 reason. 
 
 The same year there fell into Mary Astell's hands the 
 sermon preached by Dr. White Kennett, Archdeacon of 
 Huntingdon, on January 31, 1703-4, the day of the fast 
 for the Martyrdom of Charles I. The occasion was a 
 complicated one to a man who recognized the growing 
 power of the dissenting interests and had something of a 
 sympathy with them. Dr. White Keimett seems to have 
 realized the dilemma in which he was placed; he must 
 praise the king and condemn the execution, without offend- 
 ing the parties concerned in the deed. Whether or not 
 these aims were in his own mind, his sermon very cleverly 
 avoids the main issue. His thesis is that the main cause 
 of the Rebellion was the French alliance of Charles I 
 which aroused fears of popery, and led to jealousy, 
 oppression, and illegal power, all these tending to the 
 growth of prof anen ess and immorality, and thus producing 
 the hypocrisy and perfidiousness that accomplished the 
 scandal of killing Charles I.^* None of these things, how- 
 s' lUd., p. 3. " Ibid., p. 23, ^ Sermon, p. 4. 
 
156 MARY ASTELL 
 
 ever, were to be laid to the charge of the king; he was a 
 loyal churchman but came under the suspicion of popery. 
 The English people by nature would never suffer itself 
 to be oppressed; and the king, with no evil design, fell 
 under the suspicions of the people who laid to his charge 
 the hard measures under which they labored. He answered 
 for the account with his life.'^ 
 
 The sermon aroused opposition: Defoe defended Dr. 
 Kennett in two tracts and Mary Astell replied in her last 
 political pamphlet An Impartial Enquiry into the Cause of 
 Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom. This pamphlet 
 has the weaknesses of a partisan discussion, and of a par- 
 tisan discussion based upon premises already rejected by 
 large bodies of the people, since, although their falsity 
 had not yet been acknowledged by the non-jurors, they 
 had been proved false by the very acceptance of William 
 of Orange as king. Mary Astell holds completely to the 
 theory of the divine right of kings and to the corollaries 
 deducible from this theory; yet she is not a non-juror. 
 She criticizes Dr. White Kennett severely for not stating 
 fairly the causes of the civil wars, which, following her 
 authority, Lord Clarendon's History, she bases upon the 
 factions within the state.*" To her mind the preacher 
 was at fault in not entirely exonerating the king, God's 
 anointed." Even had the causes stated been true, the 
 present danger is no longer popery, she thinks, but factions 
 among the people, which were the true cause of the death 
 of the king, and which still afford danger to the government 
 and to religion. The dangerous doctrine of popery, that 
 of putting some power higher than royalty, still exists 
 
 '' Sermon, p.. 11. 
 
 *" An Impartial Enquiry, pp. 38-39. 
 
 " Ihid., pp. 53-56. 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS 157 
 
 among the dissenters, and among them lies the future 
 danger to the church and state. 
 
 Although the publication of An Impartial Inquiry closed 
 Mary Astell's public career as a political writer, her pri- 
 vate activity did not cease. When Dr. John Walker was 
 collecting material for his book The Sufferings of the 
 Clergy she assisted him. There is in the Bodleian a letter 
 addressed to her imder the date of March 30, 1705, from 
 N. Ellison of Newcastle, written in reply to a request 
 from her as to information concerning the sufferings of the 
 clergy at Newcastle while they were deprived of their livings. 
 In her letter to Dr. Walker giving this material, she en- 
 closed the history of John Squire of St. Leonard, Shoreditch. 
 This material Dr. Walker used in his accoimt with the 
 comment, "And that only which distinguishes Mr. Squire's 
 case from the rest of them is, that the Particulars of his 
 Sufferings happen to be thus preserved, and their coming to 
 my Hand (which I cannot forbear to mention upon this 
 Occasion) is owing to the most ingenious Mrs. Astell; 
 to whom I beg Leave in this Place to pay my Thanks for 
 that great Favour." ^ 
 
 Through her political and religious writings of Mary Astell 
 had become favorably known among churchmen for her 
 defense of religion. She had received wide-spread praise 
 for a part of her work that is entirely lost sight of to-day, 
 in the changed aspect of the matters discussed and in 
 the more universal appeal of some of her contemporaries. 
 In addition to those already mentioned were Dr. Walker, 
 Dean Atterbury, who commended her wit rather than her 
 discretion, Henry Dodwell, who quoted Greek in his letters 
 out of compliment to her knowledge, and John Norris, who 
 
 *" An attempt towards Recovering an Account of the Numbers and 
 Sufferings of the Chrgy of the Church of England, etc. By John Walker, 
 M.A., London, 1714. Part II, p. 177a. 
 
158 MAKY ASTELL 
 
 praised her for her "most exalted and seraphic strains." 
 Dr. George Hickes and Dr. Charlett, Master of Univer- 
 sity College were also interested in her writings, as the 
 following letter gives proof. 
 
 "Decern. 9, 1704. 
 "Hon<J Master: 
 
 You will shortly see Published a book against the Presbyterians 
 dedicated to the House of Lords. Another against Occasional Com- 
 munion by way of Appeal to the Cath. Church for the first Centurys 
 and the Church of England since the Reformation, and you may now 
 assure yourself that Mrs. Astell is the Author of the other Book against 
 Occasional Communion which we justly admired so much. 
 "I am Sir, with all respect 
 "Your most obliged 
 "humble servant 
 
 "Geo. ffickes."" 
 
 Dr. Daniel Waterland referred a young theological 
 student to her comment on one of Tillotson's sermons, 
 which he says "is modestly and judiciously examined by 
 an ingenious Lady in a very good book entitled 'The 
 Rehgion of a Church of England Woman.' " " 
 
 Her admirers seem to have been more impressed with 
 her theological than with her historical ability, as was 
 natural both from the tendencies of the time and from the 
 power of her work. She was not unskillful, however, as 
 compared with her contemporaries, in pamphleteering, and 
 she seems to have thought as logically as her false premises 
 and the argumentative spirit of the times would allow. 
 She was, however, widely read in the history of both 
 sides of the discussions and depended often upon first hand 
 parliamentary reports for her material. In spite of the 
 basic falsity of her position from the modern viewpoint, 
 
 « BaUard Ms. 62 : 85. 
 
 ^ The Works of the Rev. Danid Waterland-D.D., etc. Oxford, 
 1823, 10 vols. Vol. VI, p. 319 n. 
 
POLITICAIi PAMPHLETS 159 
 
 she gives an impression of reasonableness and rationality 
 often lacking in the political and religious discussions of 
 her contemporaries. Although seldom presenting new 
 material, she re-states the old with a vigor and sincerity 
 that justified her friends in regarding her as a suitable 
 defender of the church. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 Although Mary Astell's chief interest was in the edu- 
 cation of women, the variety of subjects she discussed 
 and the different groups of people she knew show a cath- 
 olic taste. Her interests lay, however, more in speculative 
 writing than in pure literature. She had read widely in 
 political and religious controversy and had a fair acquaint- 
 ance with current philosophy. The "great Mr. Locke" 
 she knew and respected, however much she might refuse 
 to accept his opinions. She had dared to oppose Swift, 
 Steele, and Defoe, but she commented only on their polit- 
 ical writings and activities, as their best literary work was 
 not done until she had ceased to write. Politically she 
 differed from Milton, whom she regarded as "a better 
 poet than divine or politician"; yet his blank verse moved 
 her. In general it is the controversial that attracts her 
 attention, especially when her opposition is aroused as by 
 Dryden's The Hind and the Panther and Prior and Mon- 
 tagu's Hind and Panther Transversed} 
 
 Perhaps as an inheritance from Vives, perhaps from her 
 own observation as to their bad effects, she was opposed to 
 romances and plays for women, and she had read with 
 interest Jeremy Collier's attack on the stage, "a very 
 Learned and Ingenious tract writ against this growing 
 evil." From an educational standpoint, also, she had 
 followed the controversy as to ancient and modern learn- 
 ing, where she ranged herself with the moderns. 
 
 ' An Enquiry after Wit, p. 73. 
 160 
 
CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 161 
 
 In her estimate of writers of her own sex, her judgment 
 is over-balanced by her pride in them as women. She com- 
 pliments Madam Dacier and Madam Scud^ry, forgetting, 
 in her zeal, her opposition to plays and romances. The 
 Matchless Orinda receives her unquaUfied approval, as 
 showing what a woman can do if she makes the effort, 
 and Lady Mary Montagu is praised for her masculine 
 intelligence. It is curious that Mary Astell leaves un- 
 noticed such a writer as Anne Schurman, whose pamphlets 
 were then available in an English translation, and whose 
 point of view and general attitude toward life was so 
 closely allied to her own. 
 
 It is difficult to give a general criticism of the style of 
 Mary Astell; the first pamphlets differ from the later ones; 
 the political, from the religious. In the early writings, the 
 style, always smooth and rounded becomes eloquent in its 
 sincerity when expressing deep religious feeling. There is 
 a regular rhythm, a recurring rise and fall in its periodicity 
 and sonorousness, often reminiscent of Milton's time. The 
 Reflections on Marriage, a pamphlet of the middle period, 
 is simpler, more ejaculatory, with clear-cut statements and 
 balanced structure. In its concluding passages it too rises 
 into swelling cadences. The later pamphlets are more 
 involved, although in The Christian Religion, Mary Astell 
 returns somewhat to the emotional style of her earlier 
 pamphlets. In the ironic she is most successful. Keen 
 and trenchant from the first, her work later becomes hard 
 and bitter. It is too heavy for wit, although the turns 
 of expression are sometimes very happy, as, "A Woman 
 may put on the whole ai-mour of God without degenerating 
 into a masculine temper." ^ There is an attractive use of 
 figures, commonplace often, but given a new turn by their 
 placing. "Nothing is so lovely," she writes, "as a Life 
 * Christian Religion, p. 103. 
 
162 MART ASTELL 
 
 that's all of a Piece the same even Thread running through 
 it from beginning to end." ' 
 
 Mary Astell's style of presentation and her choice of 
 subject matter show several traits of her character, her 
 religious sentiment, her deep love for the church, her in- 
 tensity of feeling drawn out by any opposition to either 
 church or state, and the isolation of viewpoint that comes 
 to a pioneer. Most of her biographers have emphasized 
 the austerity of her nature. In this she is often misjudged. 
 The character of her later years is the one that has come 
 down to us, with its oddities and austerities accentuated 
 by the pens of satirists. Lady Arabella Stuart has given 
 much the same portrait, when, hardened by opposition and 
 disappointment and by the misunderstanding and the 
 lack of sympathy of her associates, Mary Astell withdrew 
 into herself. A more attractive picture is the one she 
 presents in the preface to Letters Concerning the Love of 
 God, where with a mother's tenderness she is brooding 
 over the waywardness of the women about her, before 
 repulses and discouragements have narrowed her sym- 
 pathies. Her reticence and her womanly fear that the 
 purpose of her letters to Dr. Norris should be misimder- 
 stood are far different from the caustic statements of An 
 Enquiry after Wit. 
 
 Mary Astell's independence of thought and action has 
 given to her the credit of being the "first Enghsh suffra- 
 gette," a title that can in no way be applied to her in the 
 usual meaning of the term. She had no conception of 
 woman as a factor in politics except through the use of 
 intrigue, of which she entirely disapproved. In fact her 
 belief in the reigning sovereign was such that she would 
 give but limited opportunity for men in political affairs. 
 
 ' im., p. 116. 
 
CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 163 
 
 It was not until her latest pamphlet, Christian Religion, in 
 1705 that she touched upon the question. She says: 
 
 "Your Ladiship it's like will wonder why I say so much 
 in a matter wherein women are supposed to be uncon- 
 cerned. My reason is because the Divines who write 
 Letters and Explain Principles to Ladies insist upon the 
 rest, and because a little practice of the world will con- 
 vince us, that Ladies are as grand Politicians and every 
 whit as Intriguing as any Patriot of the Good-old-cause. 
 Perhaps because the gentleness of their temper makes 
 them fitter to insinuate and gain proselytes, or that being 
 less suspected they may be apter to get and to convey 
 Intelligence and are therefore made the tools of crafty 
 and designing demagogues. This made me think it not 
 improper to take Notice in this Matter. That if Ladies 
 will needs be Politicians, they may not build upon a rotten 
 and Unchristian Foundation. A Foundation destructive 
 of all government in general, leaving no sort of settled 
 quiet any longer than till a party can be formed strong 
 enough to overthrow it. How busie looks and grand con- 
 cern about that Bill and t'other Promotion, how whispers 
 and cabals, eternal disputes and restless solicitations, with 
 all the equipage of Modern Politicians, become the Ladies, 
 I have not skill to determine. But if there be anything 
 rediculous in it, I had rather leave the observation to the 
 Men as being both more proper for their Wit and more 
 agreeable to their Inclination." * 
 
 A few pages farther on she writes more moderately, 
 with a little prophecy of the future: "the sphere alloted 
 to us women, who are subjects, allows us no room to serve 
 our country either with our Counsel or our Lives. We 
 have no Authority to Preach vertue or to Punish vice, as 
 we have not the Guilt of Establishing Iniquity by Law, 
 * Christian Religion, pp. 176-178. 
 
164 MABY ASTELL 
 
 neither can we execute Judgment and Justice. And since 
 we are not allow'd a share in the Honourable offices in the 
 commonwealth, we ought to be ashamed and scorn to 
 drudge in the mean trades of Faction and Sedition." * 
 
 It may not be entirely unfair to lay claim to Mary Astell, 
 with Ballard, as the first defender of "the rights and priv- 
 ileges of her sex," and there is often excuse for much of her 
 caustic satire because of the attitude of the period toward 
 women. Under the existing social conditions, the posi- 
 tion of woman in relation to men not of her family brought 
 with it something of a problem in her own life as well 
 as in the lives of those around her. Mary Astell had no 
 patience with the theory of Platonic friendship, which by 
 this time had degenerated into coarse love. She had, 
 however, corresponded widely with men interested in 
 church affairs, and she confesses that she found it a help 
 at times to ask a man's advice upon business or religious 
 problems, but that social conditions made natural relations 
 of friendship between men and women practically impos- 
 sible.* She was too independent to let fear of criticism 
 shut her off entirely from society, and her home was open 
 to her friends of either sex. 
 
 Mary Astell belongs more to this century than to her 
 own, and would find to-day the support she lacked in her 
 own time. Yet, even then, she did not stand alone. She 
 was the spokeswoman of a body of women interested in 
 the social and educational ideas of the day not in the dilet- 
 tante fashion of the Femmes Savantes or their English imi- 
 tators, but with an attempt to grasp problems and to 
 change conditions that pointed to the modem attitude of 
 sociologists. How much her ideas infiuenced the next 
 generation it is impossible to state, since it is dangerous to 
 attempt to trace streams of influence when the influence 
 ' Ibid., p. 323. • Ibid., pp. 219-220. 
 
CHARACTEE AND INFLUENCE 165 
 
 is not that of an individual, but of the developing thought 
 of an age. Lady Masham and Elizabeth Elstob sought 
 education for girls, but neither saw so fully as did Mary 
 Astell its bearing on life. That the women of the next 
 generation were indebted to her in some measure Lady 
 Mary Montagu shows clearly. Sarah Chapone, the mother- 
 in-law of Hester Chapone, had Mary Astell's pamphlets in 
 her library and was interested in their contents. Catherine 
 Talbot, Mrs. Delaney, who, as Mrs. Pendarves, was the 
 friend and benefactor of Elizabeth Elstob and the Chapones 
 may have formed a connecting link between the work of 
 Mary Astell and that of the Blue-stockings, but no one 
 imtil Mary WoUstonecraft so caught the modem sprit. 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, it is true, wanted to establish a 
 "college" for girls, but the general attitude of the Blue- 
 stockings toward education was that of Mrs. Barbauld, 
 who, in spite of her own experience in securing an educa- 
 tion, refused to take charge of the proposed school, because 
 she believed herself unfitted to teach music, dancing, and 
 embroidery, the accomplishments of a lady, which could 
 be acquired better under the paternal roof. 
 
 Interesting as such a relation would be, there seems no 
 proof that Mary Astell's writings had any direct influence 
 on Mary WoUstonecraft. Suffice it to say that both were 
 laboring to bring in a new era for women: the one, a 
 sincere, earnest daughter of the church, sought education, 
 freedom of reason and, where needful, economic inde- 
 pendence for women, who thus might have an opportunity 
 to know and to practice righteousness. Mary Astell's 
 idea of freedom was the breaking away from convention 
 only as it hampered the development of the religious ideal. 
 To Mary WoUstonecraft freedom had a far different mean- 
 ing. A liberal in religion and the product of a hundred 
 years more of thought, she was unhampered by tradition 
 
166 MABY ASTELL 
 
 as Mary Astell was not. Her views were based upon 
 personal experience and upon personal wrongs. She asked 
 for more than the prevention of unhappy marriages; she 
 asked for opportunities in education and in labor equal to 
 those of men. Such ideas were merely a carrjdng out to 
 its logical conclusions of Mary Astell's desire for economic 
 independence. 
 
 Mary Astell's originality in thought lies not wholly, as 
 has been seen, in her plan for the education of women. 
 Lettice Falkland had hinted at economic independence; 
 Mary Astell definitely asked for it. Although both had in 
 mind only gentlewomen, this was an advance when even 
 gentlemen had not learned to work. The Essay in 
 Defence of the Female Sex suggests that English women 
 should take up sedentary occupations as the Dutch women 
 had done, thus leaving men free to fight. The discussion 
 had only begun. In The Gentleman's Magazine of 1739 
 appeared a letter entitled "A new Method for making 
 Women as useful and as capable of maintaining themselves 
 as the Men are: and consequently preventing their becom- 
 ing old Maids or taking ill courses. By a Lady," and suc- 
 ceeding issues continued the discussion. It is Mary Astell's 
 presentation of the economic position of women in society 
 and her attempt to show the relation between woman's 
 education and her economic position in marriage that calls 
 attention to her to-day. In this attempt lies her value 
 at present when the grave questions of the vocational edu- 
 cation and the political enfranchisement of women are 
 bound up closely with the problems of the economic rela- 
 tion between women's education and marriage, and when 
 Mary Astell's desire for the education of women, carried 
 out beyond the reach of her wildest vision, seems to be 
 finding its fulfillment in women's search for her highest 
 freedom. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Probably the first contemporary notice of Mary Astell 
 occurs in John Evelyn's Numismata, 1697. He says, after 
 enumerating famous English women from Boadicea and 
 Abbess Hilda to Queen Elizabeth and several foreign 
 women, "Among these Royal and Illustrious Ladies, we 
 do not forget the late Dutchess of Newcastle either for her 
 learning, — or love of learning: nor for both, Mrs. Philips 
 and our Sappho, Mrs. Behn: Mrs. Makins, the learned 
 sister of the Learned Dr. Pell, nor without the highest 
 ingratitude for the satisfaction I still receive by what I 
 read of Madam Astall's of the most sublime." ' 
 
 References to her work were made in contemporary 
 literature as already quoted, but no further biographical 
 notice appeared until the edition of Bayle's General Dic- 
 tionary published in 1738. Although no article is devoted 
 to her work, mention is made of her under John Norris 
 in a note to the discussion of Letters Concerning the Love 
 of God. The comment is as follows: "The Lady whose 
 letters are published in this collection was Mrs. Astell, 
 who wrote among other books, A serious proposal to the 
 Ladies for the Advancement of their true and greatest interest 
 in two parts in 12 mo. Some Reflections upon Marriage 
 occasioned by The Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case in 
 8 vo, and The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter 
 of the Church of England in 8 vo. Bishop Atterbury's opinion 
 will appear from the following letter." Then follows the 
 
 ' Numismata, p. 265. 
 167 
 
168 MARY ASTELL 
 
 letter of Bishop Atterbury to Smalridge concerning Mary 
 Astell's trenchant comments on Bishop Atterbury's sermon 
 against Hoadly.^ It was quoted from the manuscript 
 in the possession of Thomas Birch,' and, since the time of 
 its pubUcation, it has appeared as one of the stable facts 
 of Mary Astell's biography. 
 
 John Wilford's Memorials and Characters Together with 
 the Lives of Divers Eminent and Worthy Persons, 1741, 
 contains no mention of her, although including the varied 
 group of dissenters, high church woman with catholic 
 tendencies, and church woman with non-juring and meth- 
 odist connections, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, Susannah 
 Hopton, and Elizabeth Rowe. 
 
 Ballard, the protagonist in the play for women's honor, 
 felt the same difficulty in getting an audience for his books 
 on women that the women themselves had been conscious 
 of earlier, and because of which they had published anony- 
 mously. Even his friends saw no place for such a book, 
 and the difficulties of its sale were evidence that they 
 judged more acciurately than he the current lack of interest 
 in women's intellectual achievement. He, at least, has the 
 honor of standing, not indeed as the writer of The Legend 
 of Good Women, but as the writer who gave the impulse to 
 the long series of books on great women. In reply to 
 Ballard's inquiries, one of his friends, Mr. Welton, ob- 
 jected to the imdertaking, saying that there were no 
 learned ladies, that even Madam Dacier was a mere pedant.* 
 This criticism disturbed Ballard, but, upon meditation and 
 consultation with others, he decided to continue his work. 
 This he discusses in a letter to the brother of the Mr. 
 Welton mentioned above. "For, if we have not above one 
 or two Ladys worthy to be taken notice of, I must conse- 
 quently be a very stupid Blockhead to put myself to so 
 
 2 Chap. IV, p. 116. ' Ballard Ms. 37:49. * BaUard Ms. 42:17. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 169 
 
 much expense and to lavish away so much Time and Pains 
 to so little Purpose. But the more I reflected on what I 
 had done, the more I was established in a favourable 
 opinion of it. It was no small Satisfaction and Pleasure 
 to me to recollect that most of the Lady's whose memoirs 
 I am collecting have been applauded or extolled by the 
 pens of some of the greatest or most learned men that this 
 nation can boast of." 
 
 "... I hear of several Persons who are pleased to per- 
 stringe me (and) my Illustrious Train of Learned and 
 worthy Ladies, or who have assurance enough to affirm 
 that women were never intended or designed to be made 
 acquainted with the Arts or Sciences, that 'tis a thing 
 quite out of their sphere . . . and that no person of solidity 
 or judgment would engage himself in such a trifling ridicu- 
 lous employment. From whence those monopolizers im- 
 bibed such unchristian and brutish notions I know not, 
 but, certain it is, the wisest among the Heathens wou'd 
 have abhor'd or detested such vile sentiments." ^ 
 
 Ballard draws consolation from the heathen writers, 
 from Socrates and Aspasia, from Plato's female scholars, 
 and from the assistance Pliny had from his wife. These 
 with Biblical examples encouraged him, until he concludes 
 — "So that upon the whole I cannot for my life conceive 
 how it can possibly be any reproach to me or even to the 
 greatest man living to be engaged in such an under- 
 taking." « 
 
 Unfortunately when the book was to be sold, Ballard 
 found a lack of interest wider than he expected. Eliza- 
 beth Elstob replied to one of his complaints in a letter 
 of January 16, 1752. 
 
 "I am extremely sorry to hear of the disappointments 
 you have met with and for the little success I have had 
 6 Ballaxd Me. 42:17. • lUd., 42:17. 
 
170 MABY ASTELL 
 
 in my endeavors to serve you; this is not an Age to hope 
 for any encouragement to Learning of any kind. For your 
 part I am sorry to tell you the choice you have made for 
 the Honour of the Females was the wrongest subject you 
 could pitch upon. For you can come into no company of 
 Ladies or Gentlemen where you shall not hear an open and 
 vehement exclamation against Learned women, and by 
 those women who read much themselves to what purpose 
 they know best." ' 
 
 In the Ballard collection of manuscripts in the Bodleian 
 are many interesting estimates and comments made by those 
 to whom Ballard wrote for material for his Memoirs of 
 Several Ladies of Great Britain. In the course of this gath- 
 ering of material Ballard managed to revive an interest in 
 the biography and writings of several women, among them 
 Mary Astell. She seems to have been little known by this 
 time, even less than ten years after her death, and her 
 books were somewhat hard to obtain, if Ballard's difficulties 
 are any criterion. He wrote for information to women who 
 might have known her, and secured some material from Eliz- 
 abeth Elstob and Mrs. Sarah Chapone. 
 
 Such learned men as Richard Rawlinson, antiquarian 
 of Oxford, and Thomas Birch of dictionary fame, gave facts 
 as to the life and writings of Mary Astell. Thomas Raw- 
 lins, William Parry and others had their interest sufficiently 
 aroused to cause them to read and discuss her pamphlets. 
 The fulsomeness^ their compliments to a writer several 
 years dead was not exceeded by those who praised her 
 during her lifetime. 
 
 By 1766 Mary Astell's name had begun to appear regu- 
 larly in the books of biography devoted especially to 
 women. Biographium Foemineum which appeared that 
 year contained among the Memoirs of the Most Illustrious 
 ■• Ibid., 43:47. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 171 
 
 Ladies of all Ages and Nations who have been eminently 
 distinguished for Magnanimity, Learning, Genius, Virtue, 
 Piety and other excellent endovrments, eight pages on Mary 
 Astell. Edward Phillip's Theatrum Poetarum, edition of 
 1765, failed to mention her, but she is included in later 
 editions among modem women along with Anne Bradstreet, 
 Anna Maria Schurman, Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, 
 and Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle. These were but 
 the forerunners of other biographical dictionaries dealing 
 with women. 
 
 The increased interest in feminine affairs aroused in 
 part by Mary WoUstonecraft, in part merely one more 
 stage in woman's intellectual development, brought out a 
 number of books of this kind at the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century, all mentioning Mary Astell and basing 
 the facts of her biography upon Ballard. She has a place 
 in the motley company of the Eccentric Biography, or 
 Memoirs of Remarkable Female Characters Ancient and 
 Modem Including Actresses, Adventurers, Authoresses, 
 Fortune tellers, Gipsies, Dwarfs, Swindlers and Vagrants; 
 in Mrs. Pil^dngton's Memoirs of celebrated Female Char- 
 acters; and in various other "female Biographies" of that 
 character. The Biographia Britannica mentions Mary 
 Astell under the article on John Norris. Watt's Bibliotheca 
 Britannica gives the most complete bibliography of her 
 works, including, however. Six Familiar Essays upon Mar- 
 riage, Crosses in Love and Friendship, not before ascribed 
 to her and from the style and treatment obviously not her 
 work. Succeeding biographical dictionaries both French 
 and English derive their material from Ballard and from 
 Watt's Dictionary and many of them perpetuate the errors 
 of BaUard with no credit to the source. By the middle 
 of the nineteenth century, through the kind offices of the 
 makers of biography, Mary Astell has become a "divine 
 
172 MARY ASTELL 
 
 and a philosopher, " ' so well educated in the learned lan- 
 guages that the most difficult authors, Plato, Epictetus, 
 Cicero, and Antonius were as familiar to her as the writings 
 of her own coimtrymen.' The Dictionary of National 
 Biography adds little new material. Articles appear in the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica until the last edition which omits 
 her name. 
 
 Only within the last few years since the activity of 
 women has turned students back to the pioneers, has the 
 interest come to be in her educational and feminist activity 
 rather than in her personal relation to such writers as 
 Swift, Defoe, and Lady Mary Montagu. Miss Mcllquham 
 in an article in The Westminster Gazette called attention to 
 some of her works, and Prof. Karl Biilbring in the Journal 
 of Education gave the earliest analysis of her position in 
 educational development, showing her failure to formulate 
 new theories. In June 1893 Miss Pattison of Gateshead 
 published an article in The Pall Mall Gazette. It adds 
 nothing to the biography of Mary Astell, although material 
 was near at hand in Newcastle. Moreover the history 
 of the time is portrayed from a strong anti-puritan stand- 
 point, and a narrow interpretation of Mary Astell's views 
 is given. Several recent books dealing with different phases 
 of the feminist movement refer to Mary Astell '" and pop- 
 ular articles, both in England and the United States, are 
 attempting to show her relation to present day move- 
 ments. 
 
 ' Hawks, Pictorial Cyclopaedia, p. 56. 
 
 » Blake, A General Biographical Dictionary, p. 67. 
 
 >» Cf. Appendix II, p. 180. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 AUTHORSHIP OF ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE 
 FEMALE SEX 
 
 Until recently there has been no question as to the 
 authorship of An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex.^ In 
 January 1913 Professor A. H. Upham read at the meeting of 
 the Modern Language Association a paper in which he ques- 
 tioned the. ascription to Mary Astell, as the subject matter 
 of the pamphlet seemed to him hardly consistent with her 
 ideas as expressed in her other work, and as the entire 
 tenor of the Defence seems more in line with a group of 
 French pamphlets that were having a wide vogue in Eng- 
 land at the time. Bibliographical data seem to bear out 
 Professor Upham's contention. In the 1738 edition of 
 Bayle's General Dictionary but three pamphlets are enu- 
 merated "among other works" and An Essay in Defence of 
 the Female Sex is not one of the three. Ballard mentioned 
 the pamphlet as "a witty piece commonly ascribed to 
 her." 2 Under the date of January 19, 1739^0, Thomas 
 Rawlins wrote to Ballard, evidently in reply to Ballard's 
 attempt to secure a copy of the book. 
 
 "Ye Essay in Defense of ye Female Sex I have not seen. 
 I know Mrs. Astell has published something of ye nature. 
 I shd be glad to see this book and then, I will give you my 
 sentiments upon it.' A further investigation as to the 
 authorship on the part of Mr. Rawlins brought him this 
 
 • The Journal of English and German Philology. Vol. XII, No. 2, 
 pp. 262-276. 
 
 * Ballard, Memoirs, p. 449. 
 3 Ballard, Ms., pp. 41:91. 
 
 173 
 
174 MARY ASTELL 
 
 letter under the date of April 1740 and signed A.B. "The 
 Essay in defense of the female Sex has been always thought 
 Mrs. Astell."^ A little later, June 1742, Thomas Raw- 
 lins desires to secure from Mrs. Chapone "Mrs. Astell's 
 Proposal to the Ladies and also her Essay in defence of the 
 Female Sex." 
 
 The references in the other bibhographical articles men- 
 tioned by Professor Upham have no especial value in deter- 
 mining the authorship of the book, as nearly all follow 
 Ballard merely stating definitely points concerning which the 
 by no means accurate Ballard is in doubt. Watt's Bibliotheca 
 Britannica includes the essay but also lists among Mary 
 Astell's works Six Familiar Essays on Marriage which 
 is not given previously as hers. There is inaccuracy also 
 in the ascription of The Letter Concerning Enthusiasm to 
 a Colonel Hunter. The fact that the Dictionary of National 
 Biography omits it proves nothing, for Canon Overton 
 does not give a complete and accurate bibliography, listing 
 Moderation truly Stated as Occasional Communion 1705, 
 according to the title given it by Ballard, who had not seen 
 the book, and mentioning Christian Religion incidentally, 
 in saying that Mary Astell also wrote against Locke, 
 Tillotson, and Dr. White Kennett. The Enquiry after 
 Wit is unmentioned. Halket and Lang's Dictionary of 
 the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great 
 Britain, 1888, ascribes it to Mary Astell but gives no 
 authority for the ascription. The British Museum Cata- 
 logue, Miss McIIquham in the Westminster Review,^ and 
 the Cyclopedia of Education, are merely following tradition 
 already established. The Nouvelle Biographic Universelh 
 going back to Ballard as authority speaks of An Essay 
 in Defence of the Female Sex as an " ouvrage d'une autorit6 
 
 « Ibid., 2:37. 
 
 ' Westminster Review, CLXIX: 444, April, 1898. 
 
ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE FEMAX.E SEX 175 
 
 contests." ' The evidence of the bookseller might be 
 prized more highly, but An Essay in Defence of the Female 
 Sex does not appear in the list of books advertised in the 
 1720 edition of Mary Astell's Some Reflections on Marriage. 
 A curious edition noted in Welford's Men of Mark, 
 Tvnxt Tine and Tweed would seem to point to the author- 
 ship by someone who would have a reading public in New- 
 castle. Welford says that an early edition was published 
 there under the title "An Essay in Defense of the Female 
 Sex Interspersed with Reflections upon Love and Taste Written 
 for the Honour of the Fair Sex By a Lady, London, Printed 
 for C. Hitch in Paternoster Row and R. Akenhead, jun., 
 at the Globe opposite the Bridge-End. Coffee House, 
 Newcastle."' This was expanded he says, in 1697, into 
 the third edition in which the character of a beau, etc. 
 was inserted. Miss Hope Dodds of Newcastle who has had 
 access to this edition assures me that it must be a later 
 condensed edition, as it contains a reference to Pope's 
 Essay on Criticism which would fix the date as after 1711. 
 While the publication of one edition in Newcastle would 
 tend toward the ascription to jNIar}' Astell, a copy noted 
 in a volume of the publications of E. Curll, the bookseller, 
 seems to settle the question. In a catalogue of E. Curll's 
 publications and of second hand books sold after 1741, 
 a copy of the Defence of the Female Sex 1696 was listed as 
 written by Mrs. Drake,* probably a sister of Dr. James 
 Drake, who attended to the publication of the pamphlet. 
 This ascription is confirmed by a pencil note in the British 
 Museum copy, "By ZMrs. Drake," and seems to establish 
 the pamphlet as not that of Mary Astell. 
 
 ' NouveUe Biographie Universette, Vol. Ill, p. 472. 
 
 7 Welford, Vol. I, p. 124. 
 
 8 For this information I am indebted to Prof. Wm. P. Trent of 
 Columbia University. 
 
176 MABY ASTELL 
 
 The student of Mary Astell's work, however much he 
 may realize the difference in point of view between the 
 ideas of that pamphlet and her educational views, is sorry 
 to deprive her of the reputation of its authorship, both 
 because of its modern atmosphere and because of its clever 
 satire. As Professor Upham suggests, it probably belongs 
 to the wide group of English pamphlets published at this 
 period after the style of the French, some translations, 
 some imitations, and some more or less original. 
 
 The subject matter of The Essay in Defence of the Female 
 Sex is different from that of any of Mary Astell's works. 
 It lacks the religious tone that was so prominent at this 
 period in her writing. The whole discussion is based upon a 
 more free relationship of the sexes than she was likely to 
 approve, as the question at issue is whether or not "the 
 Time an ingenious Gentleman spends in the company of 
 women, may justly be said to be misemploy'd or not?" ^ 
 Pleasure and profit of the mind are to be the topics of 
 discussion and the point will be made if either one is proved. 
 The discussion as to woman's lack of education is men- 
 tioned, the usual curriculum being needle-work, dancing, etc., 
 and language limited to French, but the writer believes 
 this may not be a disadvantage in conversations, where 
 heavier subjects such as religion are to be tabooed, and 
 raillery on questions of love, marriage, etc., to be admitted. 
 Mary Astell had expressed strong opposition to the Platonic 
 relationship, and at the time of the publication of this 
 pamphlet was urging reUgion as the chief aim of study. 
 Nor was the literature suggested for reading as cultivating 
 conversational powers a type such as she would entirely 
 approve: Shakspere (whom Mary Astell had not men- 
 tioned), Otway, Dryden, Etherege, etc., poets from Spenser 
 through Milton, Denham and Suckling, prose from Bacon 
 ' Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, p. 6. 
 
ESSAY IN DEFENCE OP THE FEMALE SEX 177 
 
 to Sir Roger L'Estrange, Locke's Essay on Human Under- 
 standing. The critics, Mr. Dennis and Mr. Rymer, are 
 recommended, but Mary Astell had taken the other side 
 in the stage controversy and had praised Jeremy Collier's 
 opposition to plays. The Contempt of the Clergy, recom- 
 mended as humorous, would hardly appeal to her, nor would 
 she be likely to enjoy the "facetious dialogues of Mr. 
 Brown," and Halifax's Advice to a Daughter was distinctly 
 obnoxious to her. 
 
 No relation between An Essay in Defence of the Female 
 Sex and any of the French pamphlets has yet been estab- 
 lished, but an interesting example of parallel cases exists. 
 In 1672 Poulain de la Barre's De L'Egalite des deux Sexes 
 Discours Physique et Moral was published in Paris. With 
 some indebtedness to earlier French discussions, it presented 
 in well-reasoned fashion the theory that, if her disabilities 
 were removed, woman would be equal to man. After show- 
 ing how woman is able to study mathematics, jurispru- 
 dence, and church history, Poulain de la Barre draws the 
 conclusion that a woman who can study such subjects 
 is able to practice them, and advocates for women as 
 liberal positions as those open to men, including ecclesias- 
 tical preferment. The English translation The Woman as 
 Good as the Man, or the Equality of Both Sexes, 1677, does 
 not seem to have been known to Mary Astell. The power 
 of Poulain de la Barre's pamphlets is somewhat vitiated, 
 and the question as to his serious purpose is raised by the 
 fact that he answered his own pamphlet two years later in 
 De I'excellence des hommes contre I'igalite des sexes. 
 
 Upon the English translation of Poulain de la Barre's first 
 pamphlet was based an English pamphlet in 1739, Woman 
 not inferior to man . . . by Sophia a person of Quality.^'' 
 
 ^" Woman not inferior to man: or a short and modest vindication of 
 the natural right of the fair sex to a perfect equality of power, dignity and 
 
178 MARY ASTELL 
 
 Sophia claims that men are governed by prejudice in their 
 judgments, and reasons from what has been to what will 
 always be. She proves that women are not necessarily 
 inferior to men in capacity, and that women need knowledge 
 as much as men for the understanding of their moral obli- 
 gations. The fact that women pedants have abused knowl- 
 edge itself is no reason for withholding it, as men also 
 have suffered from insufficient knowledge of science. So 
 far the points under discussion, common to both these 
 pamphlets, are the ones usual in the discussion of the sex 
 problem in both coimtries. 
 
 The French pamphlet goes further than the common- 
 places of the discussion: it compliments the women who, 
 unmarried, remain in the world as patterns of modesty 
 and Christian piety. Then it claims for woman the full 
 right to a knowledge of all the sciences as a direct out- 
 growth of all the duties incmnbent upon her. She is cap- 
 able of natural philosophy and medicine: the study of law 
 is an outgrowth of her duties as mistress of a home, which 
 duties would also lead to a knowledge of geography. Even 
 a study of canon and secular law is not outside her juris- 
 
 esteem with the men. By Sophia u person o/ Quality. London, 
 1739. 
 
 Man superior to woman ; containing a plain confiUation of the falla- 
 cious arguments of Sophia in her kite Treatise, intitled Woman not 
 Inferior to Man, 1739. 
 
 Woman's superior excellence over Man or a reply to the author of a 
 late treatise entitled Man superior to Woman. In which the excessive 
 weakness of that Gentleman's answer to Woman not inferior to Man is 
 exposed. London, 1740. 
 Beauty's Triumph 
 
 Part I. Woman not inferior to Man By Sophia. 
 Part II. Being an attempt to refute Sophia's argument. 
 Part III. Proving Woman superior in excellence to Man, by 
 Sophia. London, 1757. 
 
ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE FEMALE SEX 179 
 
 diction, for woman has an equal right to happiness with 
 men and hence a right to all knowledge that leads to 
 happiness. The most advanced statement in the pamphlet 
 lies in its assertion of the right of women to preach. 
 
 "The Employment which approacheth most to a school- 
 master is that of Pastour or Minister in the Church, and 
 there can be Nothing else but custom shewn which remove 
 women therefrom. They have a spirit as well as we, 
 capable of the Knowledge and love of God, and thereby 
 able to incline others to know and love him. Faith is 
 common to them with us. And the Gospel with the 
 Promises thereof are likewise addressed to them. Charity 
 also comprehends them in its duties: and, if they know how 
 to put in practice the actions thereof, may not they like- 
 wise publicly teach its Maxims? Whosoever can preach 
 by Example, from stronger reason can do so by words: 
 And a Woman that should join her Natural Eloquence 
 with the morality of Jesus Christ should be as capable as 
 another, to Exhort, Direct, Correct, Admit into Christian 
 Society, those who deserved, and cut off such who after 
 having submitted themselves thereto, should refuse to 
 observe the rules thereof. And if men were accustomed to 
 see women in a pulpit, they would be no more startled 
 thereat, than the women are at the sight of men." " 
 
 Women might govern: they are queens, and "We may 
 easily conclude that if Women are capable to possesse 
 severally all publick authority, they are still more to be 
 sub-ordinate Officers and Ministers: As Vice-Queens, 
 Governants, Secretaries, Counsellors of State and Treas- 
 urers." ^ They may even be allowed to judge and to lead 
 armies: in fact women are suited for all employments. 
 Since this is true they must study to make themselves 
 
 " The Woman, as good as the Man, pp. 124-125. 
 »2 Ibid., p. 127. 
 
180 MARY ASTELL 
 
 ready. "If their Parlours were turned into Academies, 
 their Entertainments would be Greater, more Solid, and 
 more Pleasing." "They would be admitted into the 
 Entertainments of the Learned and reigne amongst them 
 upon a double Respect. They would enter into the Man- 
 agement of Affairs: Their Husbands would not refuse to 
 abandon to them the Conduct of their Families and to 
 take their Advice in all Things." ^' 
 
 The statement as to the public ofl&ces open to women 
 Sophia quotes almost verbatim from the English transla- 
 tion of Poulain de la Barre's pamphlet. She is not willing 
 however, to let women into the ministry. "Thus far 
 I insist there is no science or public office in a state 
 which women are not as much qualified for by nature as 
 the ablest of Men. With regard to divinity, our natural 
 capacity has been restrain'd by a positive law of God: 
 and therefore we know better than to lay claim to what 
 we cou'd not practice without sacrilegious intrusion." " 
 
 How much seriousness of spirit is to be attached to, 
 pamphlets of this type is hard to determine: they are 
 signs of the times, it is true, for the satirist points the way 
 to future development, but it seems as yet unfair to claim 
 them as expressing views of a wronged woman as is done 
 by Miss Mcllquham,^^ who believes Sophia to be Lady Mary 
 Montagu, and by those who follow her ascriptions,^^ until 
 authorship and source shall be further investigated and the 
 question be answered as to whether the pamphlet is merely 
 one of the wit combats preceding more serious conflicts or 
 
 " lUd., pp. 131-133. 
 
 " Woman not inferior to man, p. 45. 
 
 " Westminster Review. CLXIX: 444, April, 1898. 
 
 " W. Lyon Blease, The Emancipation of English Women, 1910, 
 pp. 43-47. George Elliott Howard, History of Marriage Institutions. 
 Chicago, 1912, 3 vols. Vol. Ill, p. 237. AUene Gregory, The French 
 Revolution and the English Novelists, 1915, p. 233. 
 
ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE FEMALE SEX 181 
 
 the opening of the conflict itself. The close reasoning of the 
 Sophia pamphlet and its French original might suggest the 
 latter, although it at once became a part of a series of pam- 
 phlets more or less humorous. The answer, Man Superior to 
 Woman is humorously intended, but written with a caustic 
 tone that may imply belief in the seriousness of the dis- 
 cussion it is answering." The Sophia pamphlets quote 
 freely from Young and Pope, and would seem to be an 
 adaptation of French method and material to the current 
 satirical discussions on women. 
 
 Such a direct borrowing from the French raises some 
 doubt as to the native character of The Essay in Defence 
 of the Female Sex, which, as shown by Professor Upham, 
 has an interesting Ukeness to the French type, and is not 
 by Mary Astell as has generally been supposed. It is being 
 quoted by propagandists and by educational writers as 
 representing the sincere feelings of men and women of the 
 period, regardless of the fact that it may be merely a 
 humorous pamphlet or an academic discussion. Professor 
 Howard so uses it in his discussion of the history of mar- 
 
 " "Women," says the opposer of Sophia, "conscious of their own 
 Inabilities have cheerfully acknowledged the Authority which Wisdom 
 gives to Men over them, content with the soft dominion which Love 
 secures to them over the Men. In a word, the little Glimmering of 
 Reason which Heaven bestowed on them out of Compassion to us, 
 that they might be in some Degree a Sort of Rational Amusement 
 to us, was sufficient to convince them of the justness of their subjec- 
 tion. Nor would the woman enjoy any more the interpretation of 
 her creation. After the creation of man there was still some imper- 
 fection in him. The Creator 'therefore extracted from the rest of his 
 Body whatever he found of man, imperfect, and savouring too much 
 of the Animal and confined it to a single Rib, — The Creator, then, 
 took from him this Rib, this Sink of his Defects and shaped it into 
 Woman, little concerned about any Perfections in the Soil but such as 
 immediately tend to the Production of that Noble Fruit for which it 
 was saved from Reprobation.' " 
 
182 MARY ASTELL 
 
 riage institutions,'* and Professor Taylor takes it even more 
 seriously, regarding it as expressing the feelings of a woman 
 who considers woman as an inferior kind of man, having 
 unlike sexual functions, and who pleads for the higher 
 education of woman on the ground that she will thus 
 become more interesting to man." 
 
 The entire problem of these pamphlets with a study of 
 the social and intellectual conditions back of them offers a 
 fruitful field for a search into the development of social 
 and intellectual ideals. 
 
 " Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. Ill, p. 237. 
 " J. Lionel Tayler, The Nature of Woman, London, 1912, 
 pp. 11-13. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 I. A Serious Proposal To the Ladies For the Advancement of their 
 true and greatest interest. By a Lover of her Sex. London. 
 Printed for R. Wilkins at the King's Head in St. Paul's Church 
 Yard. 1694. £BTiiish Museum copy with corrections in Mary 
 Astell's hand, and on the fly leaf, "For the Honourable Md 
 Mountagu from her Ladiships Most humble servant, M. A.] 
 Licensed July 16th, 1694. 
 
 A Serious Proposal To the Ladies For the Advancement of their 
 True and Greatest Interest. By a Lover of the Sex. The Second 
 Edition Corrected. London. Printed for R. Wilkin. At the 
 King's Head in St. Paul's Church Yard. 1695. 
 
 The Third edition Corrected. 1696. 
 A Serious Proposal To the Ladies Part II. Wherein a Method is 
 off'd for the Improvement of their Minds. London. Printed for 
 Richard Wilkin at the King's Head in St. Paul's Church Yard. 
 1697. 
 
 [The Dedication is changed from one to Ladies in General to a 
 special one "To her Royal Highness The Princess Anne of 
 Denmark."] 
 
 A Serious Proposal To the Ladies for the Aovance-ment of their 
 True and Greatest Interest. In two Parts. By a Lover of her 
 Sex. The Fourth Edition. London. Printed for Richard Wilkin 
 at the King's Head in St. Paul's Church Yard. 1697. 
 
 A Serious Proposal to the Ladies For the Advancement of then- 
 True and Greatest Interest. Part I. By a Lover of her Sex. 
 The Foin-th Edition. London. Printed by J. R. and R. Wilkin 
 at the King's Head in St. Paul's Church Yard. 
 
 [Bound with above] A Serious Proposal to the Ladies wherein a 
 Method is offer'd for the Improvement of their Minds. London. 
 Printed for Richard Wilkin at the King's Head in St. Paul's Church 
 Yard. 1697. 
 
 183 
 
184 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 II. Letters Concerning the Love of God Between the Author of the 
 Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris, wherein his 
 Discourse shewing That it ought to be entire and exclusive of all 
 other Loves, is further cleared and justified. Published by J. 
 Norris, M. A., Rector of Bemerton near Sarum. London. 
 Printed for Samuel Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange 
 in Cornhill, and Richard Wilkin at the King's Head in St. Paul's 
 Church Yard. 1695. Imprimatur. October 7, 1694. C. Alston. 
 [The first edition is dedicated as foUows: 
 
 To the Truly Honourable Lady The Lady Catherine Jones in due 
 Acknowledgment of her Merits, and in Testimony of that Just and 
 therefore very Great and Unfeigned Veneration which is paid to 
 her Ladiships vertues. These Letters Are most Humbly Dedi- 
 cated and Presented. 
 
 The Book Contains: The Preface. To the Reader. Letter to 
 M. Astell. Reply from M. Astell. Postscript. Letters between 
 M. Astell and J. Norris.] 
 
 The second edition, corrected by the authors, with some few things 
 added. 1705. 
 
 III. Some Reflections upon Marriage Occasion'd by the Duke & 
 Dutchess of Mazarine's Case which is also considered. London. 
 Printed for John Nutt, near Stationers Hall. 1700. 
 [Contents: 1. Advertisement. 2. Reflections.] 
 
 Reflections upon Marriage. The Third Edition. To which is 
 added a Preface in answer to some Objections. 
 London. Printed for R. Wilkin, at the King's Head in St. Paul's 
 Church Yard. 1706. 
 
 [Contents: 1. Preface. 2. New Preface by Reflector. 3. Reflec- 
 tions.] 
 
 Some Reflections upon Marriage with additions. The Fourth Edi- 
 tion. London. Printed for William Parker at the King's Head in 
 St. Paul's Churchyard, 1730. 
 
 IV. Moderation truly Stated; or a Review of a Late Pamphlet 
 entitl'd Moderation a Vertue with a Prefactory Discourse to Dr. 
 D'Aveanant concerning His late Essays on Peace and War. 
 London. Printed by J. L. for Rich. Wilkin at the King's Head in 
 St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1704. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 
 
 V. A Fair Way with the Dissenters and their Patrons. Not writ by 
 
 Mr, L y, or any other Furious Jacobite whether Clergyman or 
 
 Layman, but by a very Moderate Person and Dutiful Subject 
 to the Queen. London, Printed by E. P. tor R. Wilkin at the 
 King's Head, in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1704. 
 [Contents: 1. Fair Way with Dissenters. 2. Postscript concern- 
 ing "Moderation Still a Virtue."] 
 
 VI. An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil 
 War in this Kingdom. In an examination of Dr. Kennett's Ser- 
 mon Jan. 31, 1703-4 and vindication of the Royal Martyr. 
 London. Printed by E. P. for R. Wilkin at the King's Head in 
 St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1704. 
 
 VII. The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church 
 of England. London. Printed by S. H. for R. Wilkin at the 
 King's Head in St. Paul's Church Yard. 1705. 
 
 Third Edition. 1730 (?) Cf. Ballard Ms. 41:132. 
 [The third edition of Christian Religion is advertised in the Re- 
 flections on Marriage, ed. of 1730.] 
 
 VIII. Bart'lemy Fair or an Enquiry after Wit in which due Respect 
 is had to a Letter Concerning Enthusiasm. To my Lord XXX. 
 By Mr. Wotton. 
 
 London. Printed for R. Wilkin. At the King's Head in St. 
 Paul's Church Yard. 1709. 
 
 An Enquiry after Wit Wherein the Trifling Arguing and Impious 
 Raillery Of the Late Earl of Shaftsbury In his letter concerning 
 Enthusiasm and other Profane Writers, are fully answered, and 
 justly exposed. The Second Edition. Printed by John Baleman 
 at the Hat and Star in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1722. 
 [Contents: 1. Preface. 2. Essay. Ballard XLI: 132. 
 Letter from Rawlins to Ballard dated 1742-3. "Mrs. Astell's 
 works are lately reprinted from Wm. Parkes at ye King's Head 
 in St. Paul's Church Yard — to wit Reflexions on Marriage . . . 
 edition with additions. Serious Proposal to ye Ladies, 4th 
 Edition. The Xtian ReUgion as profess'd by a Dgh 3rd edit."] 
 
PAMPHLET ATTRIBUTED TO MARY ASTELL 
 
 An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex in which are inserted the 
 characters of A Pedant. A Squire. A Beau. A Vertuoso. A 
 Poetaster. A City-critick. C. In a Letter to a Lady written by a 
 Lady. London. Printed for A. Roper and E. Wilkinson at the 
 Black Boy and R. Clavel at the Peacock in Fleet Street, 1696. 
 [In the British Museum copy after "written by a Lady are penciled 
 the words 'Mrs. Drake.'"] 
 
 [Contents: 1. Dedication to Princess Anne of Denmark. 2. Pref- 
 ace. 3. Drake's poem. 4. Essay.] 
 
 An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. Second edition, 1696. 
 [Advertisement in The Post Boy, No. 181, from Thursday July 2 
 to Thursday, July 4, 1696.] 
 
 An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. In which are inserted the 
 characters of a Pedant, a Squire, a Beau, a Virtuoso, a Poetaster, 
 a City-Critick. C. In a Letter to a Lady written by a Lady. 
 
 The Third edition with additions. London. Printed by M. A. 
 Roper at the Black Boy and R. Cavel at the Peacock in Fleet- 
 street, 1697. 
 
 [Contents: 1. Dedication to Princess Anne of Denmark. 2. Pref- 
 ace. 3. Poem by J. Drake. 4. Letter from J. Drake. 5. The 
 Lady's Answer. 6. Essay.] 
 
 An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. In a Letter to a Lady 
 written by a Lady. The Fourth Edition. Corrected. London. 
 Printed by S. Butler, next Bernard's Inn in Holborn. MDCCXXI. 
 [Contents: As in third edition.] 
 
 An Essay in Defence ef the Female Sex. Interspersed with Reflec- 
 tions upon Love and Taste. Written for the Honour of the Fair 
 Sex by a Lady. In what will all Men's Ostentation end? 
 
 London. Printed for C. Hitch in Paternoster Row and R. Akenhead, 
 jun., at the Globe opposite the Bridge-End Coffee House, New- 
 castle. 
 
 [Welford makes the mistake of considering this the original edition 
 expanded in 1697 (3rd. ed.) This is obviously incorrect as ref- 
 erences to Pope's Essay on Criticism and to other writers show 
 this to be a later working over of the original.^ 
 
 1 Welford. Mm of Mark. Vol. I., p. 124.] 
 186 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abney, Sir Thomas, 132 
 Abridgment of Baxter, 150 
 Addison, Joseph, 46, 47, 126 
 Addresse to Persons of Quality and 
 
 Estate, An, 76 
 Advice to a Daughter, 45, 46, 80, 
 
 81, 82, 83, 177 
 Advice to the Ladies, 71 
 Agnes de Castro, 40 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, The, 77 
 Anglo-Saxon Orammar, 40 
 Anne, Princess, 22, 23 
 Anne, Queen, 131, 137, 153 
 Arminian Nunnery, The, 66 
 Astell, Isaac, 4 
 Astell, John, 6 
 Astell, Mrs. (mother of Mary), 3, 
 
 4,7 
 Astell, Peter (father of Mary), 2, 
 
 3,4,6 
 AsteU, Peter (brother of Mary), 2 
 Astell, Ralph, 5 
 AsteU, Rudolph, 4 
 AsteU, Thomas, 6 
 AsteU, Thomas (uncle of Mary), 4 
 AsteU, WUUam (brother of Mary), 
 
 2,3 
 AsteU, William (grandfather of 
 
 Mary), 2, 4, 5 
 Athenian Mercury, The, 46 
 Atterbury, Bishop Francis, 9, 113, 
 
 116, 138, 139, 157, 167, 168 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 176 
 Balance of Trade, The, 137 
 
 BaUard, George, 1, 6, 8, 10, 21, 27 n, 
 33, 34 n, 164, 168, 169, 170, 171, 
 173, 174 
 
 Ballard Ms., 8, 21, 113, 158, 168, 
 169, 170, 173, 174 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs. Letitia Aiken, 165 
 
 Bart'lemy Fair or an Enquiry after 
 Wit, (See also under Enquiry 
 after Wit), 20, 25, 119-128 
 
 Barre, Poulain de la, 58, 177, 180 
 
 Basset Table, The, 29 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 143, 145 
 
 Behn, Aphra, 28, 40, 129, 167, 
 171 
 
 Bibliotheca Britannica, 171, 174 
 
 Biographia Britannica, 171 
 
 Biographical Dictionary, A Gen- 
 eral, 172 
 
 Biographium Foemineum, 170- 
 171 
 
 BosweU, James, 16 
 
 Bradstreet, Anne, 171 
 
 Brathwayte, Richard, 37, 38, 60, 
 63,78 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 78 
 
 Bruni, Leonardo, 58 
 
 Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, 21, 22, 23, 
 70, 74, 136 
 
 Burnet, Elizabeth, 22 
 
 Burnet, Thomas (of Kemney), 
 20,70 
 
 Burton, Robert, 77 
 
 Bute, Lady Mary, 12 
 
 Bute, John Stuart, Marquis of, 
 13 
 
 187 
 
188 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Carlisle, Lady, 47 
 
 Carter, Elizabeth, 47 
 
 Gary, Lettice, 67 
 
 Case in View, A, 117, 118 
 
 Castiglione, Baldassare, 36 
 
 Catherine of Aragon, 36 
 
 Centlivre, Mrs. Susannah, 29, 
 
 40 
 Chapone, Hester, 165 
 Chapon (Chapone), Sarah, 34, 
 
 165, 170, 174 
 Charles II, 5, 6, 39, 151 
 Charlett, Dr., 158 
 Christian Blessedness, 108 
 Christian Religion, The, 6, 7, 9, 20, 
 
 23, 24, 75, 113, 115, 123, 161- 
 
 164, 167, 174 
 Church History of Great Britain, 
 
 69 n 
 Church's Eleventh Persectdion, The, 
 
 150 
 Gibber, Colley, 30 
 Cicero, 172 
 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, 1st 
 
 Earl of, 156 
 Clarissa Harlowe, 33-34 n. 
 Clarke, Samuel, 116 
 Collection of Treaties, A, 137 
 Collett, Anne, 64, 65 
 Collett, Mary, 64, 65 
 Collier, Jeremy, 53, 160, 177 
 Comenius, 48 
 Companion for the Festivals of the 
 
 Church of England, A, 75 
 Complete Key to the Tale of a Tub, 
 
 A, 125 
 Concerning Divinity and IncamOf 
 
 tion, 113 
 Goningsby, Lady Frances, 33 
 Contempt of the Clergy, The, 177 
 Cooke, Sir Anthony, 47 
 
 Country Mouse and the City Mouse, 
 
 The, 126, 129 
 Coventry, Lady Anne, 10, 32 
 Crosses in Love and Friendship, 
 
 171 
 Cudworth, Damaris, 110 
 Cudworth, Ralph, 110 
 
 Dacier, Madam, 161, 168 
 Danger of Appealing to the People 
 
 from their Representatives in 
 
 Parliament, 134 
 Davenant (D'Avenant), Dr. 
 
 Charles, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 
 
 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 147 
 Decay of Christian Duty, The, 41 n. 
 Defence of a Vindication of the 
 
 Deprived Bishops, 119 
 Defense of Reflections upon Ancient 
 
 and Modem Learning, 121 n. 
 Defoe, Daniel, 20, 21, 70, 132, 
 
 133, 143, 154, 160, 172 
 De ingenii mulierihus ad doctrinam 
 
 et meliores liUeras aptUudine, 
 
 38 n. 
 De I'egalite des denjix sexes, 177 
 De I'egalite des hommes et des 
 
 femmes, 38 n. 
 De I'excellence des hommes conire 
 
 etc., 177 
 Delaney, Mrs. Patrick, (Mrs. Pen- 
 
 darves), 165 
 Denham, John, 176 
 Dennis, John, 177 
 Descartes, 57, 60, 130 
 Dialogue between Whiglove and 
 
 Tom Double, 137, 138 
 Diary of Ralph Thoresby, 10 
 Dictionary of Anonymous and 
 
 Pseudonymous Literature of 
 
 Great Britain, 174 
 
INDEX 
 
 189 
 
 Dicthmary of National Biography, 
 
 The, 172, 174 
 Discourse Concerning the Love of 
 
 God, A, 109, 111, 112, 113, 115 
 Dodwell, Henry, 6, 20, 117, 118, 
 
 119, 157 
 Drake, James, 175 
 Drake, Mrs., 175 
 Dramatic Works of Mrs. CenUivre, 
 
 40 
 Dryden, John, 160, 176 
 Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine's 
 
 Case, The, 80 
 Dviy of Inferiors towards their 
 
 Superiors, 97 n. 
 
 Earle, John, 28 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 47, 153, 167 
 
 Elsmere, Dr. Sloane, 33 n. 
 
 Elstob, EUzabeth, 10, 21, 27, 40, 
 47, 165, 169, 170 
 
 Empartial Enquiry into the Cause 
 of Rebellion and CivU War in 
 this Kingdom, An (See also un- 
 der Impartial, etc.) 
 
 English Gentlewoman, The, 37, 38, 
 63 
 
 Enquiry after Wit, An, (See also 
 under Bart'lemy Fair), 7, 11, 
 128, 129, 130, 160, 162, 174 
 
 Ervquiry into the Occasional Cotv- 
 formity of Dissenters, An, 132 
 
 Epictetus, 172 
 
 Erasmus, Desiderius, 36, 37, 65 
 
 Errington, family, 2 
 
 Errington, Mary, 2 
 
 Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, 
 An, 47, 166, 173-181 
 
 Essay on Criticism, 175 
 
 Essay on Human Understanding, 
 177 
 
 Essays on Peace and War, 133, 137 
 
 Essays on Peace at Home and 
 War Abroad, 133-137, 142. 
 
 Essay to revive the antient edu/:ation 
 of Gentlewomen, 48 
 
 Essay upon Projects, 70-72 
 
 Evelyn, John, 20, 74, 167 
 
 Extracts and Judgments of the 
 Characteristics of Men, Manners 
 and Opinions, 120 
 
 Extracts from the Records of the 
 Company of Hostmen of New- 
 castle-upon-Tyne, 2 
 
 Fair Way with Dissenters and their 
 Patrons, A, 20, 133, 153-155 
 
 Falkland, Lady Lettice, 37, 66, 
 67, 166 
 
 Feltham, Owen, 63, 64, 78, 79 
 
 Female Excellence, 78 
 
 Female Vertvoso, The, 28 
 
 Femmes Savantes, 21, 28 
 
 F^nelon, 51, 55, 75 
 
 Ferraj, Nicholas, 37, 64, 66 
 
 Fletcher, John, 28 
 
 Fuller, Thomas, 68, 69 
 
 General Biographical Dictionary, 
 
 A, 172 
 Gentleman's Calling, The, 41 
 GerUleman Instructed, The, 74, 75 
 Gentleman's Magazine, The, 11, 16, 
 
 34, 166 
 George I, 8 
 Govffnay, Mile. Marie de le Jars, 
 
 38 n. 
 Government of the Tongue, The, 
 
 41 n., 75 
 Guevara, Antonio de, 36 
 
 Hacket, Bishop John, 65, 66, 74 
 Halifax, Lord, (See Savile, George) 
 
190 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hastings, Lady Elizabeth, 10, 11, 
 22, 23, 25, 32, 33, 34, 128, 168 
 
 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 37 n. 
 
 Henry IV, 136 n., 142 
 
 Herbert George, 67 
 
 Hickes, George, 53, 74, 75, 158 
 
 Hie Mulier or the Manr-Woman, 
 42-43 n. 
 
 Hilda, Abbess, 167 
 
 Hind and the Panther, The, 160 
 
 Hind and Panther Transversed, 160 
 
 Historical and Topographical De- 
 scription of Chelsea and its 
 Environs, An, 33 
 
 history and Antiquities of the 
 Town and County of Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne, 3 
 
 History of Our Own Times, 22 
 
 History of the Battle of Blenheim, 
 The, 126 
 
 Hoadly, Bishop Benjamin, 116, 
 168 
 
 Holy Dying, 60, 129 n. 
 
 Holy Living, 60, 129 n. 
 
 Hostmen Records, 2, 3 
 
 Huntingdon, Lady, 10 
 
 Huntingdon, Lord, 10 
 
 Huntingdon, Theophilus, Seventh 
 Earl of, 10 
 
 Hutchinson, Lucy, 47 
 
 II Cortegiano, 36 
 
 Impartial Enquiry into the Cause 
 
 etc., (See also Empartial, etc.), 
 
 133, 156, 157 
 Instructions for the EducaMon of a 
 
 Daughter, 75 
 
 James I, 39 
 James II, 137, 151 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 16, 47 
 
 Jones, Lady Catherine, 7, 8, 9, 11, 
 
 32, 33, 34, 105 
 Jonson, Ben, 28 
 Joselyn, Elizabeth, 38 
 
 Keble, John, 34 
 
 Kemys, Anne, 68 
 
 Kemys, Mary, 68 
 
 Ken, Bishop Thomas, 68 
 
 Kennett, Dr. White, 156, 174 
 
 Kit-Kat Club, The, 25, 120, 125 
 
 Kit-Kat Club Described, A, 126 
 
 Ladies a Second Time Assembled, 
 
 The, 28 
 Ladies Cabinets, The, 39 
 Ladies Calling, The, 41, 42, 44, 45, 
 
 46, 60, 69, 75, 81 
 Ladies Dictionaries, The, 39 
 Ladies Library, The, 129 
 Ladies ParHament, The, 28 
 Ladies Religion, The, 113, 115 
 Lady Mary Montagu and her 
 
 Times, ("George Pasion"), 11 
 Lady's New-Year's-Gift or Advice 
 
 to a Daughter, 45 
 Lawes Resolution of Women's 
 
 Rights, The, 63 
 Learned Maid, The, 38 n., 59 n. 
 Le Clerc, Jean, 120 
 Legend of Good Women, The, 168 
 LesUe, Charles, 116, 133, 143, 146 
 L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 177 
 Letter Concerning Enthusiasm,, The 
 
 20, 119, 120, 124, 125, 174 
 Letter to an Unborn Child, 38 
 Letters Concerning the Love of God, 
 
 7, 8, 19, 48, 105-109, 162, 167 
 lAfe of Bishop Wilson, 34 
 Life of Johnson, 16 
 Life of Locke, 110, 111 
 
INDEX 
 
 191 
 
 lAfe of Mary Ward, The, 62-€3 
 lAfe, Unpublished Letters and 
 Philosophical Regimen of An- 
 thony, Earl of Shaftesbury, 125 
 Limborch, Philippus, 110, 111 
 Lives of the Apostles, The, 75 
 Locke, John, 60, 61, 104, 108, 109, 
 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 130, 
 136, 160, 174, 177 
 
 MadoneUa, 16, 25, 29 
 
 Maintenon, Mme. de, 51 
 
 Makin (Makins), Mrs. Bathusa, 
 
 47, 48, 167 
 Malebranche, Nicolas, 109, 130 
 Manley, Mrs. Mary de la Riviere, 
 
 27, 39, 40, 129 
 Man Superior to Woman, 178 n, 181 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 126 
 Mary II, 22, 151 
 Masham, Lady Damaris, 92, 104, 
 
 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 165 
 Masham, Sir Francis, 110 
 Mazarine, Duchess of, 9, 19, 80, 
 
 83 
 Meditations and Reflections Moral 
 
 and Divine, 10 
 Memoirs of Archbishop Williams, 
 
 65,66 
 Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great 
 
 Britain, 1, 170 
 Memorials and Characters together 
 
 with lives, etc., 168 
 Men of Mark Tvrixt Tyne and 
 
 Tweed, 5, 175 
 Milton, John, 77, 83, 86, 104, 160, 
 
 161, 176 
 Moderation a Virtue; or the Occas- 
 sional Conformist Justified, 133, 
 
 138, 144, 146, 147 
 Moderation Still a Virtue, 146, 153 
 
 Moderation Truly Stated, 20, 133, 
 138-154, 174 
 
 Moliere, Jean Baptiste PoqueUn, 
 28,30 
 
 Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 165 
 
 Montagu, Charles, 160 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary, 11, 12, 13, 
 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 161, 165, 172, 
 180 
 
 Montagu, Wortley, 11 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 36, 47 
 
 More Short Ways with the Dis- 
 senters, 132, 133, 154 
 
 Nelson, Robert, 75, 76 
 
 New Atalantis, 39 
 
 Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 
 
 167, 171 
 New Method for Making Women 
 
 Useful, etc.. A, 166 
 Norris, John, 10, 19, 48, 70, 104, 
 
 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 
 
 115, 123, 129, 130, 162, 167, 171 
 Numismata, 20, 74, 167 
 
 Occasional Conformity a most Un- 
 justifiable Practice, 146 
 
 Occasional Thoughts in Reference to 
 a Virtuous Christian life, 112 
 
 Of Friendship, 16, 17 
 
 Of the Education of Ladies, 47 
 
 Otway, Thomas, 176 
 
 On the Sacrifice and Satisfaction of 
 Christ, 113 
 
 Owen, Rev. James, 132, 133, 138, 
 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 
 153 
 
 Pakington, Lady, 41 n., 104 
 Pall Mall Gazette, The, 172 
 Pembroke, Countess of, 47 
 
192 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pendarves, Mrs. (See Mrs. De- 
 
 laney) 
 Petty, William, 48 
 Philips, Katherine, Orinda, 39, 46, 
 
 167, 171 
 Phillips, Edward, 171 
 Plain Dealer, The, 12 
 Plato, 7, 55, 60, 169, 172 
 Pliny, 169 
 Plutarch, 7 
 Poems of Anne, Countess of Win- 
 
 chelsea. The, 29 n. 
 Poor Rate Books of Chelsea, 8 
 Pope, Alexander, 175, 181 
 Pope Clement IX, 37 n 
 Pope Pius IX, 37 n 
 Post Man, The, 41 n 
 Practical Discourses, 112 
 Preface to Letters of the Right 
 
 Honorable Lady M — W — y 
 
 M — e, 13-16 
 Primitive Christianity, 75 
 Prior, Matthew, 160 
 Protestant Monastery, The, 72, 73, 
 
 74 
 
 Ranelagh, Earl of, 8 
 
 Ranelagh, Lady, 11 
 
 Rawlins, Thomas, 170, 173, 174 
 
 Rawlinson, Richard, 170 
 
 Reasonableness of Christianity, 
 The, 113 
 
 Reflections upon Ancient and Mod- 
 em Learning, 120 n. 
 
 Reflections upon Marriage (See also 
 mider Some Reflections, etc.), 
 79-103, 161 
 
 Reflections upon the conduct of 
 human life with reference to the 
 study of learning and knowledge, 
 109 
 
 Refusal, The, 30, 31 
 
 Remarks upon some of Mr. N orris's 
 
 Books, 108 
 Resolves, Divine, Moral, Political, 
 
 with several new additions, etc., 
 
 64, 78, 79 
 Richardson, Samuel, 33-34 n. 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 57 
 Rowe, Elizabeth, 104, 168 
 Rymer, Thomas, 177 
 
 Sacheverell, Dr. Henry, 132 
 
 Savile, George, Lord Halifax, 45, 
 67, 80, 81, 83, 129, 138, 177 
 
 Schurman, Anna Maria, 38 n., 46, 
 58, 69 n., 161, 171 
 
 Scudery, Madam, 161 
 
 Seneca, 7 
 
 Serious Proposal, A, 11, 12, 19, 
 20, 22, 23, 38 n., 40, 48-60, 74, 
 75, 76, 79, 80, 105, 113, 128, 167 
 
 Shaftesbury, Anthony, Earl of, 
 20, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126 
 
 Shakspere, William, 176 
 
 She Precise Hypocrite, A, 28 
 
 Shortest Way v>ith the Dissenters, 
 The, 132, 133, 164 
 
 Sincerity of the Dissenters Vindi- 
 cated, The, 133 
 
 Sir Patient Fancy, 28, 40 
 
 Six Familiar Essays upon Mar- 
 riage, 171 
 
 Sloane, Sir Hans, 8, 10, 31 
 
 Smalridge, George, 116, 168 
 
 Socrates, 121, 169 
 
 Some Reflections upon Marriage. 
 (See also under Reflections upon, 
 etc.), 19, 167, 175 
 
 Sophia Pamphlets, 177, 178 n, 180, 
 181 
 
 Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 20, 70 
 
INDEX 
 
 193 
 
 Spectator, The, 10, 47 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 176 
 
 Stanhope, Lord, 113 
 
 Steele, Richard, 27, 46, 124, 128, 
 
 129 n, 160 
 Stewart, Lady Louisa, 15, 16, 18 
 Stuart, Lady Arabella, 162 
 Suckling, John, 176 
 Sufferings of the Clergy, The, 20, 133 
 Swift, Dean, 20 n., 25, 29, 121 n., 
 
 124, 125, 128, 160, 172 
 Swift, Thomas, 121 n. 
 
 Talbot, Catherme, 165 
 
 Tale of a Tvh, The 121 n., 124, 125 
 
 Tatler, The, 11, 16, 25, 27, 29, 
 128, 129 
 
 Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, 60, 129 n. 
 
 Temple, Sir William, 121 n. 
 
 Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, 
 The, 153 
 
 Term Catalogues, 39, 41, 96 
 
 Theairum Poetarum, 171 
 
 Thoresby, Ralph, 9 
 
 Thoughts on Education, Lady 
 Masham, 92 
 
 Thoughts on Educaiion, Locke, 113 
 
 Tillotson, Archbishop, 113, 115, 
 158, 174 
 
 To Clio, 17 
 
 To the Most Illustrious Society of 
 the Kit cats, 124 
 
 Treaties on Grants and Resump- 
 tions, 137 
 
 Trotter, Catherine, 40 
 
 True Tom Double, The, 138 
 
 Tully, 7 
 
 Turkish Letters, 13 
 
 Vertuous Holy Christian Life and 
 Death of the late Lady Lettice 
 Vi-countess of Falkland, 67 
 
 Vives, 36, 37, 53, 55, 60, 78, 102, 
 160 
 
 Volpone, 28 
 
 Vota non Bella, 5-6 
 
 Walker, Dr. John, 20, 133, 157 
 Ward, Mary, 37, 62 n. 
 Waterland, Dr. Daniel, 158 
 Westminster Gazette, The, 172 
 Westminster, Review, The, 174, 180 
 Wheler, George, 72, 73 
 Whole Duty of Man, The, 41 n., 
 
 75 
 Wild Goose Chase, The, 28 
 WiUiam III, 131, 137, 151, 156 
 Wills, Somerset House, Lady 
 
 Catherine Jones, 33 
 Winchelsea, Countess of, 47 
 Wolf Stripped of his Shepherd's 
 
 Clothing, The, 146 
 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 97, 165, 171 
 Woman as Good as the man, etc., 
 
 The, 177, 179, 180 
 Woman not inferior to Man, 177, 
 
 178, 180 
 Woman's Superior Excellence over 
 
 Man, 178 n 
 Woman under Monasticism, 69 n. 
 Worcester, Bishop of, 114 
 Works of Lady Mary Montagu, 
 
 (Ed. by James Dallaway), 13 
 Wotton, William, 120-121 n, 125 
 Wright, Thomas, 28 
 
 Young, Edward, 181 
 
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