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 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