Hor. That is merry enough, to assert that scurrility is the effect of politeness.
Cleo. You shall call it what you please, but in its original it is a plain shift to avoid fighting, and the ill consequences of it; for nobody ever called another rogue and rascal, but he would have struck him if it had been in his own power, and himself had not been withheld by the fear of something or other: therefore, where people call names without doing further injury, it is a sign not only that they have wholesome laws amongst them against open force and violence, but likewise that they obey and stand in awe of them; and a man begins to be a tolerable subject, and is nigh half civilized, that in his passion will take up and content himself with this paultry equivalent; which never was done without great self-denial at first: for otherwise the obvious, ready, and unstudied manner of venting and expressing anger, which nature teaches, is the same in human creatures that it is in other animals, and is done by fighting; as we may observe in infants of two or three months old, that never yet saw any body out of humour; for even at that age they will scratch, fling, and strike with their heads as well as arms and legs, when any thing raises their anger, which is easily, and at most times unaccountably provoked; often by hunger, pain, and other inward ailments. That they do this by instinct, something implanted in the frame, the mechanism of the body before any marks of wit or reason are to be seen in them, I am fully persuaded; as I am likewise, that nature teaches them the manner of fighting peculiar to their species; and children strike with their arms as naturally as horses kick, dogs bite, and bulls push with their horns. I beg your pardon for this digression.
Hor. It was natural enough, but if it had been less so, you would not have slipt the opportunity of having a fling at human nature, which you never spare.
Cleo. We have not a more dangerous enemy than our own inborn pride: I shall ever attack, and endeavour to mortify it when it is in my power: For the more we are persuaded that the greatest excellencies the best men have to boast of, are acquired, the greater stress it will teach us to lay upon education; and the more truly solicitous it will render us about it: And the absolute necessity of good and early instructions, can be no way more clearly demonstrated, than by exposing the deformity as well as the weakness of our untaught nature.
Hor. Let us return to speech: if the chief design of it is to persuade, the French have got the start of us a great way; theirs is really a charming language.
Cleo. So it is without doubt to a Frenchman.
Hor. And every body else, I should think, that understands it, and has any taste: do not you think it to be very engaging?
Cleo. Yes, to one that loves his belly; for it is very copious in the art of cookery, and every thing that belongs to eating and drinking.
Hor. But without banter, do not you think that the French tongue is more proper, more fit to persuade in, than ours?
Cleo. To coax and wheedle in, I believe it may.