press, who is therefore emphatically called "the reader." Well, sir? MR. CROTCHET. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Why, sir, to "the reader" aforesaid, (supposing either of our Universities to have printed an edition of Plato,) or to any one else who can be supposed to have read Plato, or indeed to be ever likely to do so, I would very willingly shew these figures; because to such they would, I grant you, be the outward and visible signs of poetical and philosophical ideas: but, to the multitude, the gross carnal multitude, they are but two beautiful women, one half undressed, and the other quite so. MR. CROTCHET. Then, sir, let the multitude look upon them and learn modesty. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I must say that, if I wished my footman to learn modesty, I should not dream of sending him to school to a naked Venus. MR. CROTCHET. Sir, ancient sculpture is the true school of modesty. But where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we have cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had any thing that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but cant, cant, cant. And, sir, to shew my contempt for cant in all its shapes, I have adorned my house with the Greek Venus, in all her shapes, and am ready to fight her battle, against all the societies that ever were instituted for the suppression of truth and beauty. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. My dear sir, I am afraid you are growing warm. Pray be cool. Nothing contributes so much to good digestion as to be perfectly cool after dinner. MR. CROTCHET. Sir, the Lacedæmonian virgins wrestled naked with young men; and they grew up, as the wise Lycurgus had foreseen, into the most modest of women, and the most exemplary of wives and mothers. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Very likely, sir; but the Athenian virgins did no such thing, and they grew up into wives who stayed at home,-stayed at home, sir; and looked after their husbands' dinner, his dinner, sir, you will please to observe. MR. CROTCHET. And what was the consequence of that, sir? that they were such very insipid persons that the husband would not go home to eat his dinner, but preferred the company of some Aspasia, or Lais. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Two very different persons, sir, give me leave to remark. MR. CROTCHET. Very likely, sir; but both too good to be married in Athens. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, Lais was a Corinthian. MR. CROTCHET. Od's vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and any other Athenian name of the same sort of person you like THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I do not like the sort of person at all: the sort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who stays at home and looks after her husband's dinner. MR. CROTCHET. Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians. They preferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about sitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in Italy did to Canova: one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an English lady, "how she could bear it?" answered "Very well; there was a good fire in the room." THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, the English lady should have asked how the Italian lady's husband could bear it. The phials of my wrath would overflow if poor dear Mrs. Folliott : sir, in return for your story, I will tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott. The devil haunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful damsel; but all he could get from the exemplary |