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.'
