“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.”
“Nay, Amelia,” said Mrs. Atkinson, “you are now concerned as well as I am; for he hath now abused the whole sex, and quoted the severest thing that ever was said against us, though I allow it is one of the finest.”
“With all my heart, my dear,” cries Amelia. “I have the advantage of you, however, for I don’t understand him.”
“Nor doth she understand much better than yourself,” cries the doctor; “or she would not admire nonsense, even though in Virgil.”