_Lady E._ [_Endeavouring again at Vivacity._] That there may be such: but it's odds they are troublesome or insipid. Pure ingenuousness, I take it, is a rugged sort of thing, which scarcely will bear the polish of common civility; and for disinterestedness--young people sometimes set out with it; but it is like travelling upon a broken spring--one is glad to get it mended at the next stage. _Sir C._ Emily, I protest you seem to study after me; proceed, child, and we will read together every character that comes in our way. _Lady E._ Read one's acquaintance----delightful! What romances, novels, satires, and mock heroics present themselves to my imagination! Our young men are flimsy essays; old ones, political pamphlets; coquets, fugitive pieces; and fashionable beauties, a compilation of advertised perfumery, essence of pearl, milk of roses, and Olympian dew.----Lord, I should now and then though turn over an acquaintance with a sort of fear and trembling. _Cliff._ How so? _Lady E._ Lest one should pop unaware upon something one should not, like a naughty speech in an old comedy; but it is only skipping what would make one blush. _Sir C._ Or if you did not skip, when a woman reads by herself, and to herself, there are wicked philosophers, who doubt whether her blushes are very troublesome. _Lady E._ [_To SIR CLEMENT._] Do you know now that for that speech of yours--and for that saucy smile of yours, [_To CLIFFORD._] I am strongly tempted to read you both aloud! _Sir C._ Come try----I'll be the first to open the book. _Lady E._ A treatise of the Houyhnhnms, after the manner of Swift, tending to make us odious to ourselves, and to extract morose mirth from our imperfections.--[_Turning to CLIFFORD._] Contrasted with an exposition of ancient morality addressed to the moderns: a chimerical attempt upon an obsolete subject. _Sir C._ Clifford! we must double down that page. And now we'll have a specimen of her Ladyship. _Lady E._ I'll give it you myself, and with justice; Which is more than either of you would. _Sir C._ And without skipping. _Lady E._ Thus then; a light, airy, fantastic sketch of genteel manners as they are; with a little endeavour at what they ought to be--rather entertaining than instructive, not without art, but sparing in the use of it---- _Sir C._ But the passions, Emily. Do not forget what should stand in the foreground of a female treatise. _Lady E._ They abound: but mixed and blended cleverly enough to prevent any from predominating; like the colours of a shot lutestring, that change as you look at it sideways or full: they are sometimes brightened by vivacity, and now and then subject to a shade of caprice--but meaning no ill--not afraid of a Critical Review: and thus, gentlemen, I present myself to you fresh from the press, and I hope not inelegantly bound.