READ the men-writers on this art, and you will find interspersed in most of them, amidst the most flagrant proofs of their own ignorance of it, reproaches to that of the midwives, too just, perhaps as to some, but shamelessly absurd in them, who to that ignorance substitute their own subtilities of theory, which, when reduced to practice, are infinitely worse than any deficiency in some particular female-practitioners; being mostly, in truth, fit for nothing so much, as to prepare dreadful work for their instruments.

BUT if they so falsely exalt their own learning above the ignorance of women; they have their reason for it. They seek to drive out of the practice those who stand in the way of their private interest : that private interest, to which the public one is for ever sacrificed under the specious and stale pretext of its advancement.

CAN it then be wrong in any of our sex and profession to endeavor, at least, to justify ourselves, and to undeceive the public, of the ill and false impressions which have been given it of our talents and ability? Pernicious prejudices have sometimes their