--How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? Itold 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. (The Romish Rituals direct the baptizing of the child, in cases of danger, before it is born;--but upon this proviso, That some part or other of the child's body be seen by the baptizer:--But the Doctors of the Sorbonne, by a deliberation held amongst them, April 10, 1733,--have enlarged the powers of the midwives, by determining, That though no part of the child's body should appear,--that baptism shall, nevertheless, be administered to it by injection,--par le moyen d'une petite canulle,--Anglice a squirt.--'Tis very strange that St. Thomas Aquinas, who had so good a mechanical head, both for tying and untying the knots of school-divinity,--should, after so much pains bestowed upon this,--give up the point at last, as a second La chose impossible,--'Infantes in maternis uteris existentes (quoth St. Thomas!) baptizari possunt nullo modo.'--O Thomas! Thomas! If the reader has the curiosity to see the question upon baptism by injection, as presented to the Doctors of the Sorbonne, with their consultation thereupon, it is as follows.)It is 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 presente a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne Vide Deventer. Paris Edit. 4to, 1734, p. 366.
