text:  Many a grave and pompous gentleman who is "free to confess " and "does not hesitate to utter" the dullest and most obvious commonplaces would sit down to the perusal of a work entitled "On the Government of Dependencies " or "Sermons on the Functions of Archdeacons and Rural Deans " though never so deficient in learning vigour and originality who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity these volumes in which the habits the interests the inalienable rights the sacred duties of one half of the species (and of that half to which at the most pliant and critical period of life the health the disposition the qualities moral and intellectual of the other half must of necessity be confided ) are discussed with exemplary fairness and placed in the most luminous point of view