Samuel Johnson would have enjoyed the truly Quixotic irony that, however scholars tilt at the windmill of the Johnson myth, it stubbornly persists. His misogyny is as firmly established in the public mind as his “amorous propensities” behind the scenes of Garrick's theatre. At best, he is seen as patronizing the “pretty dears.” The most familiar pronouncement seems to say it all: “Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all” (Life, i, 463). Less well known but certainly more representative is Johnson's assertion that “Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves” (v, 226). Unsurprisingly, Johnson does share with his contemporaries firm ideas on the demarcation between the genders, but he demonstrates in his writing an extraordinary sympathy with women. Showing the limitations imposed on them by social conditions, he consistently advocates their education, and places a supreme value on “female” qualities of tenderness, gentleness, and emotional responsibility, for both men and women.