To the French wits of the last century, said Arabella.
And at what distance, madam, are the facts related in them from the age of the writer?
I was never exact in my computation, replied Arabella; but I think most of the events happened about two thousand years ago.
How then, madam, resumed the doctor, could these events be so minutely known to writers so far remote from the time in which they happened?
By records, monuments, memoirs, and histories, answered the lady.
But by what accident, then, said the doctor smiling, did it happen these records and monuments were kept universally secret to mankind till the last century?
What brought all the memoirs of the remotest nations and earliest ages only to France?
Where were they hidden that none could consult them but a few obscure authors?
And whither are they now vanished again that they can be found no more?
Arabella having sat silent a while, told him, that she found his questions very difficult to be answered; and that though perhaps the authors themselves could have told whence they borrowed their materials, she should not at present require any other evidence of the first assertion: