supported an invalid husband, two poor relations, and three children by her pen; and what more could any struggling authoress of our own century be reasonably expected to accomplish?
Another interesting fact presented for our consideration, in these days of Civic Clubs and active training for citizenship, is that one of the first Englishwomen who entered the field of letters professionally, as a recognized rival of professional men writers, entered it as a politician, and a very acrid and scurrilous politician at that, who made herself as abhorrent and abhorred as any law-giver in England. This was Mary Manley, who, in the reign of Queen Anne, wrote the "New Atalantis," allying herself vigorously with the Tories, and pouring forth the vials of her venom on the Duke of Marlborough, and—what is harder for us to forgive—on Richard Steele, whom all women are bound to honor a little and love a great deal, as having been, in spite of many failings, our true and chivalrous friend. Not one of all the modern apologists who prate about us endlessly to-day in print, in pulpit, on the platform, and on the
