Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
This vain gay thing sets unfor man, But seemt fate attends him
The powd’ring Barber first began, The Barber Surgeon endst.
AN
ESSAY
In Defence of the
FEMALE SEX.
To Her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark.
If in adventuring to lay this littlePiece at your Highnesses Feet, andhumbly beg your Royal Protectionof it, I have presum’d too far, be pleas’dto impute it to your own, most graciousGoodness, the knowledge of whichencourag’d me. Our Sex are by Naturetender of their own Off-spring,and may be allow’d to have morefondness for those of the Brain, thenany other; because they are so few,and meet with so many Enemies attheir first appearance in the World.I hope therefore to find pardon, if likean indulgent Parent, I have endeavour’dto advance my first Born, byentering it very early into your HighnessesService.
I have not presum’d to approachyour Highness out of any Confidencein the merits of this Essay, but of theCause which it pleads, wherein theHonour of the whole Sex seem’d toexact of me no less a Patronage thanthat of the Best, as well as Greatestamong ’em, whom they are all ambitiousto see at their head. I haveonly endeavour’d to reduce the Sexesto a Level, and by Arguments toraise Ours to an Equallity at mostwith the Men: But your Highnessby Illustrious Example daily convincesthe World of our Superiority,and we see with wonder, Vertues inyou, Madam, greater than your Birth.In this I am peculiarly happy, that Iam exempted from the common Taskof other Dedicators, who lie underan Obligation of publishing to theWorld those Excellencies of theirPatrons, which perhaps appear nowhere bu