Manly and Mrs. Afra Behn in the chair of literature. His summary
of woman's character and occupations was given earlier, with more
brevity and wit, and no less truth, by Pope. To Sophia's historical
illustrations he opposes female types named Tremula, Bellnina,
Novilia, etc. But in truth the production is so excessively scurrilous
that one needs to remember that those were the times of Congreve and
Fielding to believe that the author could have the right to style
himself "A GENTLEMAN." We shudder with pity for poor Sophia, who had
such a mass of filth flung at her. But that decorous personage is not
disconcerted: she does not lose her head or her temper, but opens her
mouth with a freedom of speech which was the prerogative of an honest
woman in those days, and rejoins with a second pamphlet: "_Woman's
Superior Excellence over Man_" Her first thrust is to regret, in
behalf of the other sex, that neither Achilles nor Hector appears as
their champion, but Thersites. Either her adversary was silenced, or
the publishers considered that what he said was not worthy of
preservation, for no further words of his appear, so that in any case
she had the best of it.
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