to follow the Train of the Muses; they piously obeyed the Admonition, and were rewarded. Had
Virgil
attended the Bar, his modest and ingenious Virtue would surely have made but a very indifferent Figure; and
Tully's
declamatory Inclination would have been as useless in Poetry. Nature, if left to her self, leads us on in the best Course, but will do nothing by Compulsion and Constraint; and if we are not satisfied to go her Way, we are always the greatest Sufferers by it.
Wherever Nature designs a Production, she always disposes Seeds proper for it, which are as absolutely necessary to the Formation of any moral or intellectual Excellence, as they are to the Being and Growth of Plants; and I know not by what Fate and Folly it is, that Men are taught not to reckon him equally absurd that will write Verses in Spite of Nature, with that Gardener that should undertake to raise a Jonquil or Tulip without the Help of their respective Seeds.
As there is no Good or bad Quality that does not affect both Sexes, so it is not to be imagined but the fair Sex must have suffered by an Affectation of this Nature, at least as much as the other: The ill Effect of it is in none so conspicuous as in the two opposite Characters of
Cælia
and
Iras