that I have here been exciting;
but there is another, and still more furious, bull to take by the horns,
and which would have been encountered some pages back (that being the
proper place), had I not hesitated between my duty and my desire to
avoid giving offence; I mean the employing of _male-operators_, on those
occasions where females used to be employed. And here I have _every
thing_ against me; the now general custom, even amongst the most chaste
and delicate women; the ridicule continually cast on old midwives; the
interest of a profession, for the members of which I entertain more
respect and regard than for those of any other; and, above all the rest,
_my own example to the contrary_, and my knowledge that every husband
has the same apology that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, it is
not less, but rather more, my duty to endeavour to dissuade others from
doing the same. My wife had suffered very severely with her second
child, which, at last, was still-born. The next time I pleaded for _the
doctor_; and, after every argument that I could think of, obtained a
reluctant consent. Her _life_ was so dear to me, that every thing else
appeared as nothing. Every husband has the same apology to make; and
thus, from the good, and not from the bad, feelings of men, the practice
has become far too general, for me to hope even to narrow it; but,
nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving my opinion on the subject.

235. We are apt to talk in a very unceremonious style of our _rude_
ancestors, of their _gross_ habits, their _want of delicacy_ in their
language. No man shall ever make me believe, that those, who reared the
cathedral of ELY (which I saw the other day), were _rude_, either in
their manners or in their minds and words. No man shall make me believe,
that our ancestors were a rude and beggarly race, when I read in an act
of parliament, passed in the reign of Edward the Fourth, regulating the
dresses of the different ranks of the people, and forbidding the
LABOURERS to wear coats of cloth that cost _more_ than _two shillings a
yard_ (equal to _forty shillings_ of our present money), and forbidding
their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, _trimmed with gold
or silver_. No man shall make me believe that this was a _rude_ and
beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in
canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that
that was a _rude_ and beggarly state