——How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter?
I told you in it, _That my mother was not a papist._——Papist! You told
me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, that
I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could
tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, I must have miss’d a page.—No, Madam,
you have not miss’d a word.—Then I was asleep, Sir.—My pride, Madam,
cannot allow you that refuge.—Then, I declare, I know nothing at all
about the matter.—That, Madam, is the very fault I lay to your charge;
and as a punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately
turn back, that is as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read
the whole chapter over again. I have imposed this penance upon the
lady, neither out of wantonness nor cruelty; but from the best of
motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she
returns back:—’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into
thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest
of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a
book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly
impart with them——The mind should be accustomed to make wise
reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along; the
habitude of which made _Pliny_ the younger affirm, “That he never read
a book so bad, but he drew some profit from it.” The stories of
_Greece_ and _Rome_, run over without this turn and application,—do
less service, I affirm it, than the history of _Parismus_ and
_Parismenus_, or of the Seven Champions of _England_, read with it.
———But here comes my fair lady. Have you read over again the chapter,
Madam, as I desired you?—You have: And did you not observe the passage,
upon the second reading, which admits the inference?—Not a word like
it! Then, Madam, be pleased to ponder well the last line but one of the
chapter, where I take upon me to say, “It was _necessary_ I should be
born before I was christen’d.” Had my mother, Madam, been a Papist,
that consequence did not follow.[1]
It is a terrible misfortune for this same book of mine, but more so to
the Republick of letters;—so that my own is quite swallowed up in the
consideration of it,—that this self-same vile pruriency for fresh
adventures in all things, has got so strongly into our habit and
humour,—and so wholly intent are we upon satisfying the impatience of
our concupiscence that way,—that nothing but the gross and more carnal
parts of a composition will go down:—The subtle hints and sly
communications of science fly off, like spirits upwards,—the heavy
moral escapes downwards; and both the one and the other are as much
lost to the world, as if they were still left in the bottom of the
ink-horn.
I wish the male-reader has not pass’d by many a one, as quaint and
curious as this one, in which the female-reader has been detected. I
wish it may have its effects;—and that all good people, both male and
female, from example, may be taught to think as well as read.
MEMOIRE presenté à Messieurs les
Docteurs de SORBONNE[2]
_UN Chirurgien Accoucheur, represente à Messieurs les Docteurs de_
SORBONNE, _qu’il y a des cas, quoique très rares, où une mere ne
sçauroit accoucher, & même où l’enfant est tellement renfermé dans le
sein de sa mere, qu’il ne fait parôitre aucune partie de son corps, ce
qui seroit un cas, suivant les Rituels, de lui conférer, du moins sous
condition, le baptême. Le Chirurgien, qui consulte, prétend, par le
moyen d’une_ petite canulle, _de pouvoir baptiser immediatement
l’enfant, sans faire aucun tort à la mere.——Il demand si ce moyen,
qu’il vient de proposer, est permis & légitime, & s’il peut s’en servir
dans les cas qu’il vient d’exposer._