INTRODUCTION.
IN the enumeration of those studies which the fair sex may properly be permitted to employ some part of their time in an application to, given in our last Number, it may be remembered that history and natural philosophy stood foremost in the list. Curiosity is one of the most prevalent, and, when properly applied, one of the most amiable, passions of the human mind; nor can it in any way find a more rational scope for exertion, than in the recollection of historical facts, and a curious inquisition into the wonders of creation. To this application of that passion the female part of the world are unquestionably most happily adapted. Undisturbed by the more intricate affairs of business; unburthened with the load of political entanglements; with the anxiety of commercial negotiations; or the suspense and anguish which attend on the pursuit of fame or fortune, the memories of the fair are left vacant to receive and to retain the regular connection of a train of events, to register them in that order which fancy may point out as most pleasing, and to form deductions from them such as may render their lives more agreeable to themselves, and more serviceable to every one about them. Their more exalted faculties, not being tied down by wearisome attention to mathematical investigations, metaphysical chimeras, or abstrusescholastic learning, are more at liberty to observe with care, see with perspicuity, and judge without prejudice, concerning the amazing world of wonders round them than those of men, who, very frequently by attempting to arrive at everykind of knowledge, find themselves stopped short in their career by the limited period of life, before they can properly be said to have reached any
To gratify and furnish food for this laudable curiosity, therefore, in both these branches of knowledge, shall be one of our principal aims in the prosecution of this work; yet as amusement no less than instruction will ever constitute one of the main columns of our edifice, and that our wish is to render the ladies though learned not pedantic, conversable rather than scientific, we shall avoid entering into any of those minutiae, or diving into those depths of literature, which may make their study dry to themselves, or occasion its becoming tiresome to others.
If therefore we treat of philosophy, it shall be polished from the rust of theoretical erudition, and adorned with all those advantages which a connexion with the politer arts and sciences can throw upon it. If of history, a pleasing relation of the most interesting facts shall be endeavoured at, the movement of the grand machine of government shall indeed be set before our readers, and the influence of each apparent wheel be rendered visible: but we shall think it unnecessary to look into every secret spring whereby these wheels were actuated; and shall dispense with entering into the never to be discovered causes of the rise and fall of nations now no more, to make room for the more useful knowledge of those movements of the human heart on which depend the happiness or ruin of individuals. If geography should form, as we propose it shall, one portion of each number, it will not be with us the meer description of large tracts of land, where woods and plains, mountains and valleys, rivers and sandy deserts occur alike in all; but only a detail in every country of those things which are peculiar to itself: a picture not of the face of the earth, of sea and air, in different latitudes and longitudes, but a more varied prospect of human nature diversified by different laws, by different constitutions, and different ideas.
Thus much will be sufficient to premise in regard to the matter of our researches on these kind of subjects, in order to obviate the horrid idea which the word philosophy might perhaps otherwise impress on the minds of our female readers, who might from that term expect to find a work intended and calculated chiefly for their amusement and instruction, loaded with dry and abstruse investigations, which some of them might not have time, or others even want attention, to examine with the application necessary to become mistresses of them; and which if they were attained would stand a chance of more than ten to one of exciting the outcry of the world against them.
As to the method we intend to pursue, however, something, though not much, will be necessary to add. Which will be only to observe that no regular course of philosophy, no long train of historical events, nor any close confinement to one branch of geographical knowledge, shall be aimed at in our essays on these subjects. Variety is the soul of study, as well as the pleasure of life; and a thousand useful pieces of knowledge steal into the vacancies of our mind when detached, which would never find their way thither if they were entangled with each other, or mingled in the grand mass of philosophical enquiries.
Learning, in short, is the old man’s bundie of rods: when bound up in the cluster, it is almost impossible to be overcome, yet every single twig may easily be mastered. In short, we see not the labour we have to go through, when it is presented to us in minute portions; yet still it answers the end proposed, ‘Small sands the mountain, moments make the year.’ We accumulate knowledge by golden grains, and find ourselves possessed of an ample treasure before we are even aware that we have attained the necessary store for our passing easily through life.
To render this accumulation therefore thus easy, we shall fix ourselves to no peculiar order, but make variety our aim; transport our reader by turns through all the regions of earth, air, and ocean, and to different climates, with expedition beyond the power of a magician’s wand. No bars of time, of place, or distance, or even impossibility itself, shall stop our progress. One Number of our work perhaps shall leave us admiring the stupendous fabric of the immense extended universe; the next shall find us aiding our limited sight by help of glasses in observations on a world of unknown beings contained within a drop of fluid, or forests waving in the narrow circuit of a small piece of moss. To-day we shall converse with almost our cotemporaries, enquire their actions, and censure or applaud them as we please; to-morrow shall introduce us to an intercourse with the great founders of long abolished empires. One page shall teach the manners used by nations where splendour and magnificence surpass even the most volatile imagination; the next point out the various artifices which want, the parent of inventive labour, instructs the poor unhappy savage to make use of for the supply of those necessities which barren wilds and mountains desolate deny the fuller solace of. In short, every thing curious, every thing instructive, every thing entertaining, shall be carefully sought out, and offered to the view, without distinction or respect to order; still leaving to the mind of every reader to range and form them into systems according to his pleasure.
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