goes on to deliver herself of her sentiments concerning the difference
of opinion as regards women writers that was current in Italy and in
England.

Lady Mary held strong views on what are called to-day, or at least were
so called until they were lately in the main conceded, women's rights.
Although she said that she did not complain that it was men, and men
only, who were privileged to exercise the power of government, it is not
unlikely that she yielded this point in order the more effectively to
emphasise some other. Anyhow she was unfeignedly pleased to be able to
record (to Lady Pomfret, March, 1737) a "rumpus" made by ladies who
regarded their exclusion from a debate in Parliament as unwarrantable.


"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,