classes of life, who, from either the loss of their parents, or from
poverty, are without the means of being brought up suitably to their
station. He refers to the asylum founded by Madame de Maintenon, at St.
Cyr, as a model, and proposes that the establishment should be placed
under the patronage of Her Majesty, and entitled "The Royal Sanctuary."
The reader, however, has to arrive at the practical part of the plan,
through long and flowery windings of panegyric, on the beauty, genius,
and virtue of women, and their transcendent superiority, in every
respect, over men.

The following sentence will give some idea of the sort of eloquence with
which he prefaces this grave proposal to Her Majesty:--"The dispute
about the proper sphere of women is idle. That men should have attempted
to draw a line for their orbit, shows that God meant them for comets,
and above our jurisdiction. With them the enthusiasm of poetry and the
idolatry of love is the simple voice of nature." There are, indeed, many
passages of this boyish composition, a good deal resembling in their
style those ambitious apostrophes with which he afterwards ornamented
his speeches on the trial of Hastings.

He next proceeds to remark to Her Majesty, that in those countries where
"man is scarce better than a brute, he shows his degeneracy by his
treatment of women," and again falls into metaphor, not very clearly
made out:--"The influence that women have over us is as the medium
through which the finer Arts act upon us. The incense of our love and
respect for them creates the atmosphere of our souls, which corrects and
meliorates the beams of knowledge."

The following is in a better style:--"However, in savage countries,
where the pride of man has not fixed the first dictates of ignorance