“I confess I have often been complimented, since I have been in Italy, on the books I have given the public.  I used at first to deny it with some warmth; but, finding I persuaded nobody, I have of late contented myself with laughing whenever I heard it mentioned, knowing the character of a learned woman is far from being ridiculous in this country, the greatest families being proud of having produced female writers; and a Milanese lady being now professor of mathematics in the university of Bologna, invited thither by a most obliging letter, wrote by the present Pope, who desired her to accept of the chair, not as a recompense for her merit, but to do honour to a town which is under his protection.  To say truth, there is no part of the world where our sex is treated with so much contempt as in England.  I do not complain of men for having engrossed the government:  in excluding us from all degrees of power, they preserve us from many fatigues, many dangers, and perhaps many crimes.  The small proportion of authority that has fallen to my share (only over a few children and servants) has always been a burden, and never a pleasure, and I believe every one finds it so who acts from a maxim (I think an indispensable duty), that whoever is under my power is under my protection.  Those who find a joy in inflicting hardships, and seeing objects of misery, may have other sensations; but I have always thought corrections, even when necessary, as painful to the giver as to the sufferer, and am therefore very well satisfied with the state of subjection we are placed in:  but I think it the highest injustice to be debarred the entertainment of my closet, and that the same studies which raise the character of a man should hurt that of a woman.  We are educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get above their nurses’ instructions, our knowledge must rest concealed, and be as useless to the world as gold in the mine.  I am now speaking according to our English notions, which may wear out, some ages hence, along with others equally absurd.  It appears to me the strongest proof of a clear understanding in Longinus (in every light acknowledged one of the greatest men among the ancients), when I find him so far superior to vulgar prejudices as to choose his two examples of fine writing from a Jew (at that time the most despised people upon earth) and a woman.  Our modern wits would be so far from quoting, they would scarce own they had read the works of such contemptible creatures, though, perhaps, they would condescend to steal from them, at the same time they declared they were below their notice.  This subject is apt to run away with me; I will trouble you with no more of it.”