Cleo. I do not care to drink any more.
Hor. Just as you please; otherwise I was going to name a health, which would not have come mal à propos.
Cleo. Whose is that, pray?
Hor. I was thinking on the man to whom we are in a great measure obliged for the production and culture of the exotic, we were speaking of, in this kingdom; Sir Matthew Decker, the first ananas or pine-apple, that was brought to perfection in England, grew in his garden at Richmond.
Cleo. With all my heart; let us finish with that; he is a beneficent, and, I believe, a very honest man.
Hor. It would not be easy to name another, who, with the same knowledge of the world, and capacity of getting money, is equally disinterested and inoffensive.
Cleo. Have you considered the things we discoursed of yesterday?
Hor. I have thought on nothing else since I saw you: This morning I went through the whole Essay, and with more attention than I did formerly: I like it very well; only that passage which you read yesterday, and some others to the same purpose, I cannot reconcile with the account we have of man’s origin from the Bible: Since all are descendants from Adam, and consequently of Noah and his posterity, how came savages into the world?
Cleo. The history of the world, as to very ancient times, is very imperfect: What devastations have been made by war, by pestilence, and by famine; what distress some men have been drove to, and how strangely our race has been dispersed and scattered over the earth since the flood, we do not know.
Hor. But persons that are well instructed themselves, never fail of teaching their children; and we have no reason to think, that knowing, civilized men, as the sons of Noah were, should have neglected their offspring; but it is altogether incredible, as all are descendants from them, that succeeding generations, instead of increasing in experience and wisdom, should learn backward, and still more and more abandon their broods in such a manner, as to degenerate at last to what you call the state of nature.