notions. The King, he supposes, would have no objection to "grant
Hampton-Court, or some other palace, for the purpose;" and "as it is (he
continues, still addressing the Queen) to be immediately under your
majesty's patronage, so should your majesty be the first member of it.
Let the constitution of it be like that of a university, Your Majesty,
Chancellor; some of the first ladies in the kingdom sub-chancellors;
whose care it shall be to provide instructors of real merit. The classes
are to be distinguished by age--none by degree. For, as their
qualification shall be gentility, they are all on a level. The
instructors shall be women, except for the languages. Latin and Greek
should not be learned;--the frown of pedantry destroys the blush of
humility. The practical part of the sciences, as of astronomy, &c.,
should be taught. In history they would find that there are other
passions in man than love. As for novels, there are some I would
strongly recommend; but romances infinitely more. The one is a
representation of the effects of the passions as they should be, though
extravagant; the other, as they are. The latter is falsely called
nature, and is a picture of depraved and corrupted society; the other is
the glow of nature. I would therefore exclude all novels that show human
nature depraved:--however well executed, the design will disgust."

He concludes by enumerating the various good effects which the examples
of female virtue, sent forth from such an institution, would produce
upon the manners and morals of the other sex; and in describing, among
other kinds of coxcombs, the cold, courtly man of the world, uses the
following strong figure: "They are so clipped, and rubbed, and polished,
that God's image and inscription is worn from them, and when He calls in
his coin, He will no longer know them for his own."

There is still another Essay, or rather a small fragment of an Essay, on