The Yazoo Democrat

The philosopher David Hume, of polite writing, thinks:

WOMEN THE ARBITRATORS:—"I am of opinion that women—that is, women of sense and education (for to such alone I address myself)—are much better judges of all polite writing than men of the same degree of understanding; and that it is a vain panic, if they be so far terrified with the common ridicule that is levelled against learned ladies, as utterly abandon every kind of books and study to our sex. Let the dread of that ridicule have no other effect than to make them conceal their knowledge before fools, who are not worthy of it, nor of them. Such will still presume upon the vain title of the male sex to effect a superiority above them: but my fair readers may be assured, that all men of sense who know the world, have a great deference for their judgment of such books as lie within the compass of their knowledge, and repose more confidence in the delicacy of their taste, though unguided by rules, than in all the dull labors of pedants and commentators. In a neighboring nation, equally famous for good taste and gallantry, the ladies are, in a manner, the sovereigns of the learned world, as well as of the conversable; and no polite writer pretends to venture before the public, without the approbation of some celebrated judges of that sex. Their verdict is, indeed, sometimes complained of; and in particular, I find that the admirers of Corneille, to save that great poet's honor, upon the ascendant that Racine began to take over him, always said, that it was not to be expected that so old a man could dispute the prize, before such judges, with so young a man as his rival.—But this observation has been found unjust, since posterity seems to have ratified the verdict of that tribunal, and Racine, though dead, is still the favorite of the fair sex, as well as of the best judges among the men."