would persuade me, that to believe one's eyes is a | amiable, and banished every kind of deformity sure way to be deceived; and have often advised me by no means to trust anything so fallible as my senses. What I have to beg of you now is, to turn one speculation to the due regulation of female literature, so far, at least, as to make it consistent with the quiet of such whose fate it is to be liable to its insults; and to tell us the difference between a gentleman that should make cheesecakes and raise a paste, and a lady that reads Locke, and understands the mathematics. which you will extremely oblige T. In "Your hearty friend and humble Servant, "ABRAHAM THRIFTY." No. 243.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1711. Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem honesti vides: quæ si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret sapientiæ.-FULL. Offic. You see, my son Marcus, virtue as if it were embodied, which if it could be made the object of sight, would (as Plato says) excite in us a wonderful love of wisdom. I Do not remember to have read any discourse from the person in whom it resided. It is a common observation, that the most aban doned to all sense of goodness, are apt to wish those who are related to them of a different character; and it is very observable, that none are more struck with the charms of virtue in the fair sex, than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a desire of ruining it. A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms. As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but those which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good qualities which render us beneficial to each other. For this reason even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a false generosity, is often more beloved and esteemed than a person of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular. The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in the most advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and goodnature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not easy within himself. They are both very requisite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many serious thoughts it is engaged in, and to written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without considering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I design therefore this speculation as an essay upon that subject, in which I shall consider virtue no further than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after I have premised, that I understand by the word virtue such a general notion | hinder its natural hatred of vice from souring into as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honor. Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind. We learn from Hierocles, it was a common saying among the heathens, that the wise man hates nobody, but only loves the virtuous. Tully has Tully a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to show how amiable virtue is. "We love a virtuous man," says he, "who lives in the remotest parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit." Nay, one who died several ages ago, raises a secret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his story. Nay, what is still more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by justice and humanity, as in the instance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occasion in opposition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of virtue. Stoicism, which was the pedantry of virtue, ascribes all good qualifications of what kind soever to the virtuous man. Accordingly, Cato, in the character Tully has left of him, carried matters so far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a philosophical rant than the real opinion of a wise man; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the excellence of virtue, if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all possible perfections; and therefore did not only suppose, that it was transcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body severity and censoriousness. If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can suffer their aversion for a party to blot out all the merit of the person who is engaged in it? A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who be lieves that there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppose one another in some particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to those qualities which are of so amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in dispute. Men of virtue, though of different interests ought to consider themselves as more nearly united with one another, than with the vicious part of mankind, who embark with them in the same civil concerns. We should bear the same love toward a man of honor who is a living antagonist, which Tully tells us in the fore-men tioned passage, every one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. In short, we should esteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend. I speak this with an eye to those cruel treatments which men of all sides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many persons of undoubted probity and exemplary virtue, on either side, are blackened and defamed? How many men of honor exposed to public obloquy and reproach? Those therefore who are either the instruments or abettors in such infernal dealings, ought to be looked upon as persons who make use of religion to promote their cause, not of their cause to promote religion.-C No. 244.1 MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1711. art. As the shadows in a picture represent the "I CANNOT, without a double injustice, forbear expressing to you the satisfaction which a whole clan of virtuosos have received from those hints which you have lately given the town on the cartoons of the inimitable Raphael. It should, methinks, be the business of a Spectator to improve the pleasures of sight, and there cannot be a more immediate way to it than by recommending the study and observation of excellent drawings and pictures. When I first went to view those of Raphael which you have celebrated, I must confess I was but barely pleased; the next time I liked them better, but at last, as I grew better acquainted with them, I fell deeply in love with them; like wise speeches, they sunk deep into my heart; for you know, Mr. Spectator, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the present, but if he has not discretion, his merit soon vanishes away; while a wise man that has not so great a stock of wit, shall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lasting satisfaction. Just so it is in a picture that is smartly touched, but not well studied; que may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the meantime be in danger of being called a fool. On the other hand, a picture that is thoroughly understood in the whole, and well performed in the particulars, that is begun on the foundation of geometry, carried on by the rules of perspective, architecture, and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, a just and natural coloring, and such passions and expressions of the mind as are almost peculiar to Raphael; this is what you may justly style a wise picture, and which seldom fails to strike us durab, until we can assemble all our faculties to make let a tolerable judgment upon it. Other pictures are de for the eyes only, as rattles are made for children's ears; and certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without representing some well-chosen part of nature or other, does but show what fine colors are to be sold at the color-shop, and mocks the works of the Creator. If the best imitator of nature is not to be esteemed the best painter, but he that makes the greatest show and glare of colors; it will necessarily follow, that he who can array himself in the most gaudy draperies is best drest, and he that can speak loudest the best orator. Every man when he looks on a picture should examine it according to that share of reason he is master of, or he will be in danger of making a wrong judgment. If men as they walk abroad would make more frequent observations on those beauties of Nature which every moment present themselves to their view, they would be better judges when they saw her well imitated at home. This would help to correct those errors which most pretenders fall into, who are overhasty in their judgments, and will not stay to let fel reason come in for a share in the decision. It is for want of this that men mistake in this case, and in common life, a wild extravagant pencil for one that is truly bold and great, an impudent low for a man of true courage and bravery, hasty and unreasonable actions for enterprises of spirit and resolution, gaudy coloring for that which is truly beautiful, a false and insinuating discourse for simple truth elegantly recommended. The parallel will hold through all the parts of life and painting too; and the virtuosos above-mentioned will be glad to see you draw it with your terms of serious or melancholy, so the lights do the bright. and lively thoughts. As there should be but one forcible light in a picture which should catch the eye and fall on the hero, so there should be but one object of our love, even the Author of nature. These and the like reflections, well improved,. might very much contribute to open the beauty of that art, and prevent young people from being poisoned by the ill gusto of an extravagant workman that should be imposed upon us. "I am, Sir, your most humble Servant." "MR. SPECTATOR, "Though I am a woman, yet I am one of those who confess themselves highly pleased with a speculation you obliged the world with some time ago, from an old Greek poet you call Simonides, in relation to the several natures and distinctions of our own sex. I could not but admire how justly the characters of the women in this age fall in with the times of Simonides, there being no one of those sorts I have not some time or other of my life met with a sample of. But, Sir, the subjects of this present address are a set of women, comprehended, I think, in the ninth species of that speculation, called the Apes: the description of whom I find to be, 'That they are such as are both ugly and ill-natured, who have nothing beautiful themselves, and endeavor to detract from, or ridicule, everything that appears so in others. No, Sir, this sect, as I have been tolu, is very frequent in the great town where you live; but as circumstance in life obliges me to reside altogether in the country, though not many miles from London, 1 cannot have met with a great number of them, nor indeed is it a desirable acquaintance, as I have lately found by experience. You must know, Sir, that at the beginning of this summer a family of these apes came and settled for the season not far from the place where I live. As they were strangers in the country, they were visited by the ladies about them.. of whom I was one, with a humanity usual in those who pass most of their time in solitude. The apes lived with us very agreeably our own way until toward the end of the summer, when they began to bethink themselves of returning to town; then it was, Mr. Spectator, that they began. to set themselves about the proper and distinguishing business of their character; and as it is said of evil spirits, that they are apt to carry away a piece of the house they are about to leave, the apes, without regard to common mercy, civility, or gratitude, thought fit to mimic and fall foul on the faces, dress, and behavior of their innocent neighbors, bestowing abominable censures and disgraceful appellations, commonly called nicknames, on all of them; and, in short, like true fine ladies, made their honest plainness and sincerity matter of ridicule. I could not but acquaint you with these grievances, as well as at the desire of all the parties injured, as from my own inclination. I hope, Sir, if you cannot propose entirely to reform this evil, you will take such notice of it in some of your future speculations, as may put the deserving part of our sex on their guard against these creatures; and at the same time the apes may be sensible, that this sort of mirth is so far from an innocent diversion, that it is in the highest degree that vice which is said to comprehend all others. т. "I am, Sir, your humble Servant, "CONSTANTIA FIELD." to see me almost every night; for he is not one of those giddy young fellows that cannot live out of a playhouse. When we are together, we very often make a party at Blind-man's-Buff, which is a sport that I like the better, because there is a good deal of exercise in it. The colonel and I are blinded by turns, and you would laugh your heart out to see what pains my dear takes to hoodwink us, so that it is impossible for us to see the least glimpse of light. The poor colonel sometimes hits his nose against a post, and makes us die with laugh Fictions, to please, should wear the face of truth. THERE is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence, when it has in it a dash of folly. At the same time that one esteems the virtue, one is tempted to laugh at the simplicity which accompanies it. When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his coming. I have generally had the good luck not to hurt myself, but I am very often above half an hour before I can catch either of them; for you must know we hide ourselves up and down in corners, that we may have the more sport. I only give you this hint as a sample of such innocent diversions as I would have you recommend; and ain most esteemed Sir, "Your ever loving Friend, "TIMOTHY DOODLE." position, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions. The Cordeliers tell a story of their founder St. Francis, that as he passed the streets in the dusk of the evening, he discovered a young fellow with a maid in a corner; upon which the good man, say they, lifted up his hands to heaven with secret thanksgiving, that there was still so much Christian charity in the world. The innocence of the saint made him mistake the kiss of the lover for a salute of charity. I am heartily The following letter was occasioned by my last concerned when I see a virtuous man without a Thursday's paper upon the absence of lovers, and competent knowledge of the world; and if there the methods therein mentioned of making such be any use in these my papers, it is this, that without representing vice under any false alluring notions, they give my reader an insight into the ways of men, and represent human nature in ⚫all its changeable colors. The man who has not been engaged in any of the follies of the world, or, as Shakspeare expresses it, "hackney'd in the ways of men," may here find a picture of its follies and extravagances. The virtuous and the innocent may know in speculation what they could never arrive 'at by practice, and by this means avoid the snares of the crafty, the corruptions of the vicious, and the reasonings of the prejudiced. Their minds may be opened without being vitia ted. It is with an eye to my following correspondent, Mr. Timothy Doodle, who seems a very wellmeaning man, that I have written this short preface, to which I shall subjoin a letter from the said Mr. Doodle. "SIR, I could heartily wish that you would let us know your opinion upon several innocent diver sions which are in use among us, and which are very proper to pass away a winter night for those who do not care to throw away their time at an opera, or at the play-house. I would gladly know, in particular, what notion you have of hotcockles; as also, whether you think that questions and commands, mottos, similes, and cross-purposes, have not more mirth and wit in them than those public diversions which are grown so very fashionable among us. If you would recommend to our wives and daughters, who read your papers with a great deal of pleasure, some of those sports and pastimes that may be practiced within doors, and by the fire-side, we, who are masters of families, should be hugely obliged to you. I need not tell you that I would have these sports and pastimes not only merry but innocent; for which reason I have not mentioned either whisk or lanterloo, nor indeed so much as one-andthirty. After having communicated to you my request upon this subject, I will be so free as to tell you how my wife and I pass away these tedious winter evenings with a great deal of pleasure. Though she be young and handsome, and good humored to a miracle, she does not care for gadding abroad like others of her sex. There is a very friendly man, a colonel in the army, whom I am nightily obliged to for his civilities, that comes absence supportable: "SIR, "Among the several ways of consolation which absent lovers make use of while their souls are in that state of departure, which you say is death in love, there are some very material ones that have escaped your notice. Among these, the first and most received is a crooked shilling, which has administered great comfort to our forefathers, and is still made use of on this occasion with very good effect in most part of her majesty's dominions. There are some, I know, who think a crown piece cut into two equal parts, and preserved by the distant lovers, is of more sovereign virtue than the former. But since opinions are divided in this particular, why may not the same persons make use of both? The figure of a heart, whether cut in stone or cast in metal, whether bleeding upon an altar, stuck with darts, or held in the hand of a Cupid, has always been looked upon as talismanic in distresses of this nature. I am acquainted with many a brave fellow, who carries his mistress in the lid of his snuff box, and by that expedient has supported himself under the absence of a whole campaign. For my own part I have tried all these remedies, but never found so much benefit from any as from a ring, in which my mistress's hair is plaited together very artistically in a kind of true-lover's knot. As I have received great benefit from this secret, I think myself obliged to communicate it to the public for the good of my fellow-subjects. I desire you will add this letter as an appendix to your consolations upon absence, and am "Your very humble Servant, "Т. В." I shall conclude this paper with a letter from a university gentleman, occasioned by my last Tuesday's paper, wherein I gave some account of the great feuds which happened formerly in those learned bodies, between the modern Greeks and Trojans. "SIR, "This will give you to understand, that there is at present, in the society whereof I am a mem ber, a very considerable body of Trojans, who, upon a proper occasion, would not fail to declare ourselves. In the meanwhile we do all we can to annoy our enemies by stratagem, and are resolved by the first opportunity to attack Mr. Joshua Barnes, whom we look upon as the Achilles of the opposite party. As for myself, I have had the reputation ever since I came from school of being a trusty Trojan, and am resolved never to give quarter to the smallest particle of Greek, wherever I chance to meet it. It is for this reason I take it very ill of you, that you sometimes hang out Greek colors at the head of your paper, and sometimes give a word of the enemy even in the body of it. When I meet with anything of this nature, I throw down your speculations upon the table, with that form of words which we make use of when we declare war upon an author, Græcum est, non potest legi. I give you this hint, that you may for the future C. or other had been his nurse. Hence Romulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf: Telephus the son of Hercules by a hind; Pelias the son of Neptune by a mare; and Ægisthus by a goat; not that they had actually sucked such creatures, as some simpletons have imagined, but that their nurses had been of such a nature and temper, and infused such into them. "Many instances may be produced from good authorities and daily experience, that children actually suck in the several passions and depraved inclinations of their nurses, as anger, malice, fear, melancholy, sadness, desire, and aversion. This Diodorus, lib. 2, witnesses, when Le speaks. saying, that Nero, the emperor's nurse had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero received from his nurse, and was so very particular in this, that the people took so much notice of it, as instead of Tiberius Nero, they called him Biberius Mero. The same Diodorus also relates of Caligula, predecessor to Nero, that his nurse used to moisten the nipples of her breast frequent No 246.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1711. ly with blood, to make Caligula take the better No amorous hero ever gave thee birth, So rough thy manners, so untam'd thy mind.-POPE. *MR. SPECTATOR, As your paper is part of the equipage of the rea-table. I conjure you to print what I now write o you; for I have no other way to communicate what I have to say to the fair sex on the most important circumstances of life, even 'the care of children.' I do not understand that you profess your paper is always to consist of matters which are only to entertain the learned and polite, but that it may agree with your design to publish some which may tend to the information of mankind in general: and when it does so, you do more than writing wit and humor. Give me leave then to tell you, that of all the abuses that ever you have as yet endeavored to reform, certainly not one wanted so much your assistance as the abuse in the nursing of children. it is unmerciful to see, that a woman endowed with all the perfections and blessings of nature can, as soon as she is delivered, turn off her innocent, tender, and helpless infant, and give it up to a woman that is (ten thousand to one) neither in health nor good condition, neither sound in mind nor body, that has neither honor nor reputation, neither love nor pity for the poor babe, but more regard for the money than for the whole child, and never will take further care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and presents she is forced to; like Æsop's earth, which would not nurse the plant of another ground, although never so much improved, by reason that plant was not of its own production. And since another's child is no more natural to a nurse, than a plant to a strange and different ground, how can it be supposed that the child should thrive: and if it thrives, must it not iambibe the gross humors and qualities of the urse, like a plant in a different ground, or like a graft upon a different stock? Do we not observe, That hold of them: which, says Diodorus, was the cause that made him so blood-thirsty and cruel all his lifetime after, that he not only committed frequent murder by his own hand, but likewise wished that all human kind wore but one neck, that he might have the pleasure to cut it off. Suchlike degeneracies astonish the parents, who not knowing after whom the child can take, see one incline to stealing, another to drinking, cruelty, stupidity; yet all these are not minded. Nay, it is easy to demonstrate, that a child, although it be born from the best of parents, may be corrupted by an ill-tempered nurse. How many children do we see daily brought into fits, consumptions, rickets, &c., merely by sucking their nurses when in a passion or fury? but indeed almost any disorder of the nurse is a disorder to the child, and few nurses can be found in this town but what labor under some distemper or other. The first question that is generally asked a young woman that wants to be a nurse, why she should be a nurse to other people's children, is answered, by her having an ill husband, and that she must make shift to live. I think now this very answer is enough to give anybody a shock, if duly considered; for an ill husband may, or ten to one if he does not, bring home to his wife an ill distemper, or at least vexation and disturbance. Beside, as she takes the child out of mere necessity, her food will be accordingly, or else very coarse at best; whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarse food for the child; for as the blood, so is the milk: and hence I am very well assured proceeds the scurvy, the evil, and many other distempers. I beg of you, for the sake of the many poor infants that may and will be saved by weighing this case seriously, to exhort the people with the utmost vehemence, to let the children suck their own mothers, both for the benefit of mother and child. For the general argument, that a mother is weakened by giving suck to her children, is vain and simple. I will maintain that the mother grows stronger by it, and will have her health better than she would have otherwise. She will find it the greatest cure a lamb sucking a goat changes very much its and preservative for the vapors and future miscarnature, nay even its skin and wool into the goat kind? The power of a nurse over a child, by in- er. Her children will be like giants, whereas oth fusing into it with her milk her qualities and disposition, is sufficiently and daily observed. Hence came that old saying concerning an ill-natured and malicious fellow, that he had imbibed his malice with his nurse's milk, or that some brute *The noted Greek professor of the university of Cambridge. riages, much beyond any other remedy whatsoeverwise they are but living shadows, and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is strong enough enough to bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt strong enough to nurse it afterward. It grieves me to observe and consider how many poor children are daily ruined by careless nurses; and yet how tender ought they to be to a poor in fant, since the least hurt or blow, especially upon sation. She blamed the bride in one "But I cannot well leave this subject as yet; for it seems to me very unnatural, that a woman that has fed a child as part of herself for nine months, should have no desire to nurse it further, when brought to light and before her eyes, and when by its cry it implores her assistance and the office of a mother. Do not the very cruelest of brutes tend their young ones with all the care and delight imaginable! How can she be called a mother that will not nurse her young ones? The earth is called the mother of all things, not because she produces, but because she maintains and nurses what she produces. The generation of the infant is the effect of desire, but the care of it argues virtue and choice. I am not ignorant but that there are some cases of necessity, where a mother cannot give suck, and then out of two evils the least must be chosen; but there are so very few, that I am sure in a thousand there is hardly one real instance; for if a woman does but know that her husband can spare about three or six shillings a week extraordinary (although this is but seldom considered), she certainly, with the assistance of her gossips, will soon persuade the good man to send the child to nurse, and easily impose upon him by pretending indisposition. This cruelty is supported by fashion, and nature gives place to No. 247.] THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1711. We are told by some ancient authors, that Socrates was instructed in eloquence by a woman, whose name, if I am not mistaken, was Aspasia. I have indeed very often looked upon that art as the most proper for the female sex, and I think the universities would do well to consider whether they should not fill the rhetoric chairs with sheprofessors. It has been said in the praise of some men, that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honor of the other sex, that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman braach out into a long extempore dissertation upon the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for breaking a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric. gures Were women permitted to plead in courts of ju dicature, I am persuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubt this, let him but be present at those debates which frequently arise among the ladies of the British fishery. The first kind, therefore, of female orators which I shall take notice of, are those who are employed in stirring up the passions; a part of rhetoric in which Socrates' wife had perhaps made a greater proficiency than his above-mentioned teacher. The second kind of female orators are those who deal in invectives, and who are commonly known by the name of the censorious. The imagination and elocution of this sort of rhetoricians is wonderful. With what a fluency of invention, and copiousness of expression, will they enlarge upon every little slip in the behavior of another! With how many different circumstances, and with what variety of phrases, will they tell over the same story! I have known an old lady make an unhappy marriage the subject of a month's conver Place: pitied her in another; laughed at her in a third; wondered at her in a fourth; was angry with her in a fifth; and, in short, wore out a pair of coach-horses in expressing her concern for her. At length, after having quite exhausted the subject on this side, she made a visit to the new-married pair, praised the wife for the prudent choice she had made, told her the unreasonable reflections which some malicious people had cast upon her, and desired that they might be better acquainted. The censure and approbation of this kind of women are therefore only to be considered as helps to discourse. A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word gossips. Mrs. Fiddle-Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this sort of elo quence; she launches out into descriptions of christenings, runs divisions upon a head-dress, knows every dish of meat that is served up in our neighborhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy, before he is able to speak. The coquette may be looked upon as a fourth kind of female orator. To give herself the larger field for discourse, sbe hates and loves in the same breath, talks to her lap-dog or parrot, is uneasy in all kinds of weather, and in every part of the room. She has false quarrels and feigned obligations to all the men of her acquaintance; sighs when she is not bad, and laughs when she is not merry. The coquette is in particular a great mistress of that part of oratory which is called action, and indeed seems to speak for no other purpose, but as it gives her an opportunity of stirring a limb, or varying a feature, of glancing her eyes, or playing with her fan. As for newsmongers, politicians, mimics, storytellers, with other characters of that nature which give birth to loquacity, they are as commonly found among the men as the women: for which reason I shall pass them overin silence. I have often been puzzled to assign a cause why women should have this talent of a ready utterance in so much greater perfection than men. I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of suppressing their thoughts, as men have, but that they are necessitated to speak everything they think; and if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong argument to the Cartesians for the supporting of their doctrine that the soul always thinks. But as several are of opinion that the fair sex are not altogether strangers to the art of dissembling and concealing their thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that opinion, and have therefore endeavored to seek after some better reason. In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an excellent anatomist, has promised me by the first opportunity to dissect a woman's tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain juices which render it so wonderfully voluble or flippant, or whether the fibers of it may not be made up of a finer or more pliant thread; or whether there are not in it some particular muscles which dart it up and down by such sudden glances and vibrations; or whether, in the last place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and the heart to this little instrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluency of animal spirits. Nor must I omit the reason which Hudi bras has given, why those who can talk on trifles speak with the greatest fluency; namely, that the tongue is like a race-horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carries. Which of these reasons soever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's |