thers got
us, so that we are still at a loss how we afterwards commence
eternal; for _creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur_, which is
mentioned soon after, may allude only to flesh and blood as well as
the former. Your readers in this city, some of whom have very much
approved the warmth with which you have attacked free-thinkers,
atheists, and other enemies to religion and virtue, are very much
disturbed that you have given them no account of this remarkable
dissertation: and I am employed by them to desire you would with
all possible expedition send me over the ceremony of the creation
of souls, as well as a list of all the mortal and immortal men
within the dominions of Great Britain. When you have done me this
favour, I must trouble you for other tokens of your kindness, and
particularly I desire you would let me have the religious
handkerchief,[312] which is of late so much worn in England, for I
have promised to make a present of it to a courtesan of a French
Minister.

"Letters from the frontiers of France inform us, that a young
gentleman[313] who was to have been created a cardinal on the next
promotion, has put off his design of coming to Rome so soon as was
intended, having, as it is said, received letters from Great
Britain, wherein several virtuosi of that island have desired him
to suspend his resolutions towards a monastic life, till the
British grammarians shall publish their explication of the words
'indefeasible' and 'revolution.' According as these two hard terms
are made to fit the mouths of the people, this gentleman takes his
measures for his journey hither.

"Your 'New Bedlam' has been read and considered by some of your
countrymen among us; and one gentleman, who is now here as a
traveller, says your design is impracticable, for that there can be
no place large enough to contain the number of your lunatics. He
advises you therefore to name the ambient sea for the boundary of
your hospital. If what he says be true, I do not see how you can
think of any other enclosure; for according to his discourse, the
whole people are taken with a vertigo; great and popular actions
are received with coldness and discontent; ill news hoped for with
impatience; heroes in your service are treated with calumny, while
criminals