CHAPTER CCVI.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.—OPINIONS OF THE RABBIS.—ANECDOTE OF LADY JEKYLL AND A TART REPLY OF WILLIAM WHISTON'S.—JEAN D'ESPAGNE.—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF THE QUORUM QUARUM QUORUM GENDER.—THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN AGREE WITH MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS, BUT ARE OF OPINION THAT THE DEVIL IS AN HERMAPHRODITE.

Sing of the nature of women; and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: it shall be humourous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all and all in one.

MARSTON.

The Doctor had other theological arguments in aid of the opinion which he was pleased to support. The remark has been made which is curious, or in the language of Jeremy Taylor's age, _considerable_, that we read in Genesis how when God saw every thing else which he had made he pronounced that it was very good, but he did not say this of the woman.

There are indeed certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out of Adam's side: but that Adam had originally been created with a tail (herein agreeing with the well-known theory of Lord Monboddo) and that among the various experiments and improvements which were made in his form and organization before he was finished, the tail was removed as an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or superfluous part which was then lopt off, the Woman was formed.

We are not bound to believe the Rabbis in every thing, the Doctor would say; and yet it cannot be denied that they have preserved some valuable traditions which ought to be regarded with much respect. And then by a gentle inclination of the head—and a peculiar glance of the eye, he let it be understood that this was one of those traditions which were entitled to consideration. It was not impossible he said, but that a different reading in the original text might support such an interpretation: the same word in Hebrew frequently signified different things, and rib and tail might in that language be as near each other in sound or as easily miswritten by a hasty hand, or misread by an inaccurate eye as _costa_ and _cauda_ in Latin. He did not pretend that this was the case—but that it might be so. And by a like corruption (for to such corruptions all written and even all printed books are liable) the text may have represented that Eve was taken from the side of her husband instead of from that part of the back where the tail grew. The dropping of a syllable might occasion it.

And this view of the question he said, derived strong support from that well known and indubitable text wherein the Husband is called the Head; for although that expression is in itself most clear and significative in its own substantive meaning, it becomes still more beautifully and emphatically appropriate when considered as referring to this interpretation and tradition, and implying as a direct and necessary converse that the Wife is the Tail.

There is another legend relating to a like but even less worthy formation of the first helpmate, and this also is ascribed to the Rabbis. According to this mythos the rib which had been taken from Adam was for a moment laid down, and in that moment a monkey stole it and ran off with it full speed. An Angel pursued, and though not in league with the Monkey he could have been no good Angel; for overtaking him, he caught him by the Tail, brought it maliciously back instead of the Rib, and of that Tail, was Woman made. What became of the Rib, with which the Monkey got clear off, “was never to mortal known.”

However the Doctor admitted that on the whole the received opinion was the more probable. And after making this admission he related an anecdote of Lady Jekyll who was fond of puzzling herself and others with such questions as had been common enough a generation before her, in the days of the Athenian Oracle. She asked William Whiston of berhymed name and eccentric memory, one day at her husband's table to resolve a difficulty which occurred to her in the Mosaic account of the creation. “Since it pleased God, Sir,” said she, “to create the Woman out of the Man, why did he form her out of the rib rather than any other part.” Whiston scratched his head and answered. “Indeed Madam I do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked part of the body.” “There!” said her husband, “you have it now: I hope you are satisfied!”

He had found in the writings of the Huguenot divine, Jean D'Espagne, that Women have never had either the gift of tongues, or of miracle; the latter gift according to this theologian being withheld from them because it properly accompanies preaching, and women are forbidden to be preachers. A reason for the former exception the Doctor supplied; he said it was because one tongue was quite enough for them: and he entirely agreed with the Frenchman that it must be so, because there could have been no peace on earth had it been otherwise. But whether the sex worked miracles or not, was a point which he left the Catholics to contend. Female Saints there certainly had been,—“the Lord,” as Daniel Rogers said, “had gifted and graced many women above some men especially with holy affections; I know not,” says that divine, “why he should do it else (for he is wise and not superfluous in needless things) save that as a Pearl shining through a chrystal glass, so her excellency shining through her weakness of sex, might show the glory of the workman.” He quoted also what the biographer of one of the St. Catharines says, “that such a woman ought not to be called a woman, but rather an earthly Angel, or a heavenly homo: _hæc fœmina, sed potius Angelus terrestris, vel si malueris, homo cælestis dicenda erat, quam fœmina._” In like manner the Hungarians thinking it infamous for a nation to be governed by a woman—and yet perceiving the great advantage of preserving the succession, when the crown fell to a female, they called her King Mary, instead of Queen.

And Queen Elizabeth rather than be accounted of the feminine gender, claimed it as her prerogative to be of all three. “A prime officer with a White Staff coming into her presence” she willed him to bestow a place then vacant upon a person whom she named. “May it please your Highness Madam,” said the Lord, “the disposal of that place pertaineth to me by virtue of this White Staff.” “True,” replied the Queen, “yet I never gave you your office so absolutely, but that I still reserved myself of the _Quorum_.” “Of the _Quarum_, Madam,” returned the Lord, presuming, somewhat too far, upon her favour.—Whereat she snatched the staff in some anger out of his hand, and told him “he should acknowledge her of the _Quorum, Quorum, Quorum_ before he had it again.”

It was well known indeed to Philosophers, he said, that the female is an imperfection or default in nature, whose constant design is to form a male; but where strength and temperament are wanting—a defective production is the result. Aristotle therefore calls Woman a Monster, and Plato makes it a question whether she ought not to be ranked among irrational creatures. There were Greek Philosophers, who (rightly in his judgment) derived the name of _Ἀθηνῆ_ from _Θῆλυς_ and _alpha privativa_, as implying that the Goddess of wisdom, though Goddess, was nevertheless no female, having nothing of female imperfection. And a book unjustly ascribed to the learned Acidalius was published in Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women were not reasonable creatures, but distinguished from men by this specific difference, as well as in sex.

Mahomet too was not the only person who has supposed that women have no souls. In this Christian and reformed country, the question was propounded to the British Apollo whether there is now, or will be at the resurrection any females in Heaven—since, says the questioner, there seems to be no need of them there! The Society of Gentlemen who, (in imitation of John Dunton, his brother-in-law the elder Wesley, and their coadjutors,) had undertaken in this Journal to answer all questions, returned a grave reply, that sexes being corporeal distinctions there could be no such distinction among the souls which are now in bliss; neither could it exist after the resurrection, for they who partook of eternal life neither marry nor are given in marriage.

That same Society supposed the Devil to be an Hermaphrodite, for though by his roughness they said he might be thought of the masculine gender, they were led to that opinion because he appeared so often in petticoats.