Rambler. Abusive, now you're abusive Mr. Critick.
Crit. Sir I tell you we are abus'd: I hate these Petticoat-Authors; 't is false Grammar, there's no Feminine for the Latin word, 't is entirely of the Masculine Gender, and the Language won't bear such a thing as a she-Author.
Sullen. Come, come, you forget your self; you know 't was a Lady carry'd the Prize of Poetry in France t'other day; and I assure you, if the Account were fairly stated, there have been in England some of that Sex who have done admirably.
Crit. I'le hear no more on 't: Come Sir, drink about.
Rambler. To the Fair Author of The Fatal Friendship.
Crit. Ay, come; away with it, anything that the Glass may go round....
In Farquhar's The Inconstant (1703) one lady, named "Bisarre" because of her odd, capricious ways, illustrates Pope's "Most women have no character at all," so briskly does she change from "a starch'd piece of Austerity" to a pert madcap. As a prude she takes rank among the learned ladies. She has a grave, reverend air, and is dubbed "a Plato in Petticoats." She wins the affections of Captain Duretete—a man socially hampered by a University education—when she talks to him in his own language. "The Forms that Logicians introduce," she begins in pedantic tone, "and which proceed from simple Enumeration, are dubitable." Duretete interrupts in an ecstasy, "She's mine, Man; she's mine: My own Talent to a T. I'll match her in Dialectics, faith. I was seven Years at the University, Man, nurs'd up with Barbara, Celarunt, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton. Did you know that 't was Metaphysics made me an Ass?" Bisarre is the only heroine whose learning wins her a husband.
In Mrs. Centlivre's The Basset Table (1705) the charming young Valeria has a lover whom she intends to marry, but she is too much occupied with scientific research to have any time for darts and flames and lover's sighs. Fortunately Ensign cares so much for Valeria and her ducats that he is able to endure the tediousness of courtship in which laboratory experiments supersede passion.
Ensign. 'T is true, that little She Philosopher has made me do Penance more heartily than ever my Sins did; I deserve her by mere dint of Patience. I have stood whole Hours to hear her assert, that Fire cannot burn, nor Water drown, nor Pain afflict, and Forty ridiculous Systems....
Sir Jam. And all her Experiments on Frogs, Fish, and Flies, ha, ha, without the least contradiction.