_ Chapter I - To which we will prefix no preface.
The doctor found Amelia alone, for Booth was gone to walk with his
new-revived acquaintance, Captain Trent, who seemed so pleased with
the renewal of his intercourse with his old brother-officer, that he
had been almost continually with him from the time of their meeting at
the drum.
Amelia acquainted the doctor with the purport of her message, as
follows: "I ask your pardon, my dear sir, for troubling you so often
with my affairs; but I know your extreme readiness, as well as
ability, to assist any one with your advice. The fact is, that my
husband hath been presented by Colonel James with two tickets for a
masquerade, which is to be in a day or two, and he insists so strongly
on my going with him, that I really do not know how to refuse without
giving him some reason; and I am not able to invent any other than the
true one, which you would not, I am sure, advise me to communicate to
him. Indeed I had a most narrow escape the other day; for I was almost
drawn in inadvertently by a very strange accident, to acquaint him
with the whole matter." She then related the serjeant's dream, with
all the consequences that attended it.
The doctor considered a little with himself, and then said, "I am
really, child, puzzled as well as you about this matter. I would by no
means have you go to the masquerade; I do not indeed like the
diversion itself, as I have heard it described to me; not that I am
such a prude to suspect every woman who goes there of any evil
intentions; but it is a pleasure of too loose and disorderly a kind
for the recreation of a sober mind. Indeed, you have still a stronger
and more particular objection. I will try myself to reason him out of
it."
"Indeed it is impossible," answered she; "and therefore I would not
set you about it. I never saw him more set on anything. There is a
party, as they call it, made on the occasion; and he tells me my
refusal will disappoint all."
"I really do not know what to advise you," cries the doctor; "I have
told you I do not approve of these diversions; but yet, as your
husband is so very desirous, I cannot think there will be any harm in
going with him. However, I will consider of it, and do all in my power
for you."
Here Mrs. Atkinson came in, and the discourse on this subject ceased;
but soon after Amelia renewed it, saying there was no occasion to keep
anything a secret from her friend. They then fell to debating on the
subject, but could not come to any resolution. But Mrs. Atkinson, who
was in an unusual flow of spirits, cried out, "Fear nothing, my dear
Amelia, two women surely will be too hard for one man. I think,
doctor, it exceeds Virgil:
_Una dolo divum si faemina victa duorum est_."
"Very well repeated, indeed!" cries the doctor. "Do you understand all
Virgil as well as you seem to do that line?"
"I hope I do, sir," said she, "and Horace too; or else my father threw
away his time to very little purpose in teaching me."
"I ask your pardon, madam," cries the doctor. "I own it was an
impertinent question."
"Not at all, sir," says she; "and if you are one of those who imagine
women incapable of learning, I shall not be offended at it. I know the
common opinion; but
_Interdum vulgus rectum videt, est ubi peccat_."
"If I was to profess such an opinion, madam," said the doctor, "Madam
Dacier and yourself would bear testimony against me. The utmost indeed
that I should venture would be to question the utility of learning in
a young lady's education."
"I own," said Mrs. Atkinson, "as the world is constituted, it cannot
be as serviceable to her fortune as it will be to that of a man; but
you will allow, doctor, that learning may afford a woman, at least, a
reasonable and an innocent entertainment."
"But I will suppose," cried the doctor, "it may have its
inconveniences. As, for instance, if a learned lady should meet with
an unlearned husband, might she not be apt to despise him?"
"I think not," cries Mrs. Atkinson--"and, if I may be allowed the
instance, I think I have shewn, myself, that women who have learning
themselves can be contented without that qualification in a man."
"To be sure," cries the doctor, "there may be other qualifications
which may have their weight in the balance. But let us take the other
side of the question, and suppose the learned of both sexes to meet in
the matrimonial union, may it not afford one excellent subject of
disputation, which is the most learned?"
"Not at all," cries Mrs. Atkinson; "for, if they had both learning and
good sense, they would soon see on which side the superiority lay."
"But if the learned man," said the doctor, "should be a little
unreasonable in his opinion, are you sure that the learned woman would
preserve her duty to her husband, and submit?"
"But why," cries Mrs. Atkinson, "must we necessarily suppose that a
learned man would be unreasonable?"
"Nay, madam," said the doctor, "I am not your husband; and you shall
not hinder me from supposing what I please. Surely it is not such a
paradox to conceive that a man of learning should be unreasonable. Are
there no unreasonable opinions in very learned authors, even among the
critics themselves? For instance, what can be a more strange, and
indeed unreasonable opinion, than to prefer the Metamorphoses of Ovid
to the AEneid of Virgil?"
"It would be indeed so strange," cries the lady, "that you shall not
persuade me it was ever the opinion of any man."
"Perhaps not," cries the doctor; "and I believe you and I should not
differ in our judgments of any person who maintained such an opinion--
What a taste must he have!"
"A most contemptible one indeed," cries Mrs. Atkinson.
"I am satisfied," cries the doctor. "And in the words of your own
Horace, _Verbum non amplius addam_."
"But how provoking is this," cries Mrs. Atkinson, "to draw one in such
a manner! I protest I was so warm in the defence of my favourite
Virgil, that I was not aware of your design; but all your triumph
depends on a supposition that one should be so unfortunate as to meet
with the silliest fellow in the world."
"Not in the least," cries the doctor. "Doctor Bentley was not such a
person; and yet he would have quarrelled, I am convinced, with any
wife in the world, in behalf of one of his corrections. I don't
suppose he would have given up his _Ingentia Fata_ to an angel."
"But do you think," said she, "if I had loved him, I would have
contended with him?"
"Perhaps you might sometimes," said the doctor, "be of these
sentiments; but you remember your own Virgil--_Varium et mutabile
semper faemina_."
"Nay, Amelia," said Mrs. Atkinson, "you are now concerned as well as I
am; for he hath now abused the whole sex, and quoted the severest
thing that ever was said against us, though I allow it is one of the
finest."
"With all my heart, my dear," cries Amelia. "I have the advantage of
you, however, for I don't understand him."
"Nor doth she understand much better than yourself," cries the doctor;
"or she would not admire nonsense, even though in Virgil."
"Pardon me, sir," said she.
"And pardon me, madam," cries the doctor, with a feigned seriousness;
"I say, a boy in the fourth form at Eton would be whipt, or would
deserve to be whipt at least, who made the neuter gender agree with
the feminine. You have heard, however, that Virgil left his AEneid
incorrect; and, perhaps, had he lived to correct it, we should not
have seen the faults we now see in it."
"Why, it is very true as you say, doctor," cries Mrs. Atkinson; "there
seems to be a false concord. I protest I never thought of it before."
"And yet this is the Virgil," answered the doctor, "that you are so
fond of, who hath made you all of the neuter gender; or, as we say in
English, he hath made mere animals of you; for, if we translate it
thus,
"Woman is a various and changeable animal,
"there will be no fault, I believe, unless in point of civility to the
ladies."
Mrs. Atkinson had just time to tell the doctor he was a provoking
creature, before the arrival of Booth and his friend put an end to
that learned discourse, in which neither of the parties had greatly
recommended themselves to each other; the doctor's opinion of the lady
being not at all heightened by her progress in the classics, and she,
on the other hand, having conceived a great dislike in her heart
towards the doctor, which would have raged, perhaps, with no less fury
from the consideration that he had been her husband. _