Hamilton, admiring the genius which beamed through this excentricity of pernicious inculcation, sought the acquaintance of Jemima, and was received with great complacency. She saw he was not yet a convert to her doctrines, or to those of her friends, Topsiturvy and St. Leon; she hoped that her philosophy would at length prevail over his present prejudices, that he might become a powerful cooperator in the grand work of _transmogrifying_ human nature; and she judged him peculiarly qualified for the conversion of women. Ever since Jemima undertook to form a new sect, she, in imitation of Whitfield, the coalheaver, and other _pattern makers_, held private meetings to discuss with the pupils the symptoms of conversion, their progress in the new faith, and the probability of complete proselytism. Though a woman presided at these assemblies, they did not resemble the secrecy and mystery of the Bona Dea of ancient Rome, to whose festivals no male creature was suffered to enter; and where a Clodius must disguise himself in a woman’s habit before he could be admitted. To be received into Jemima’s meetings, a Clodius need only avow his proper character, than which none could be better fitted for the practical extension of Jemima’s doctrines. To one of these meetings our hero received an invitation. He found a considerable number of guests, but chiefly females. Jemima, having unfortunately forgotten that an assembly was held at a tavern, to deliberate _after_ dinner upon politics and philosophy, the last subject not to begin till after the _sixteenth_ round of toasts, and that some of her particular friends must be of the party, had fewer visitors than usual. The first quarter of an hour shewed no kind of revolution in manners and customs, being occupied by the fair attendants in the same way as if they had been at church before the service began, that is, in critical remarks on the bonnets, cloaks, and handkerchiefs of each other; the dress, face, and figure of the men. Under the two last heads our hero received great commendation. One lady that was near him declared, in an audible whisper, that he was an Adonis, Apollo, and Hercules, in one; “but then,” said another lady, “he is married;” “married!” replied the first, with great contempt, “you, a disciple of Jemima, and a votary of St. Leon, talk of marriage! Marriage is a shameful aristocratical monopoly. Why should so charming a man be _engrossed_?”--“Pray do not talk so loud, Madam,” said the other. “There again,” said the first, “you forget the precepts of the adorable Jemima, and the divine St. Leon, that in converse between the sexes nothing is more unbecoming than secrecy.” “You yourself,” said a third, “forget the precepts of our great instructors; you used the term divine, a sound without meaning.”--“I stand corrected; but the language of old prejudice and darkness will intrude insensibly into new philosophy and light.” The second lady, observing a