The "Pedant" and the "Country Squire" are both blockheads, and thus unfitted for rational society. "For my part, I think the Learned and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 't is all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense." These characters are especially effective. Not Pope himself has a more trenchant and sharply antithetic picture of the "Vertuoso." Contemporary public opinion as to the uselessness of the students of grasses, flies, bugs, shells, coins, etc., received concise and picturesque statement in the _Defence_. What improvements of _Physick_, or any useful Arts, what noble Remedies, what serviceable Instruments have these Mushrome, and Cockel-shell Hunters oblig'd the World with? For I am ready to recant if they can shew so good a Med'cine as Stew'd _Prunes_, or so necessary an Instrument as a _Flye Flop_ of their own Invention and Discovery.... I wou'd not have any Body mistake me so far, as to think I wou'd in the least reflect upon any sincere, and intelligent Enquirers into Nature, of which I as heartily wish a better knowledge, as any _Vertuoso_ of 'em all. You can be my Witness, Madam, that I us'd to say, I thought Mr. _Boyle_ more honourable for his learned Labours, than for his Noble Birth; and that the _Royal Society_, by their great and celebrated Performances, were an Illustrious Argument of the Wisdom of the August Prince, their Founder of Happy _Memory_; and that they highly merited the _Esteem_, _Respect_ and _Honour_ paid 'em by the Lovers of Learning all _Europe_ over. But though I have a very great Veneration for the _Society_ in general, I can't but put a vast difference between the particular Members that compose it. The character of a "Beau" is keen and minute in observation. No coquette was more admirably dissected. The later _Tatler_ pictures are inferior in brightness and pointed detail. The whole account is readable, laughable. Impertinence is defined as the quality of busying one's self with the trivial, and forcing these petty affairs on the attention of the uninterested. The author responds in lively fashion to those who count this a peculiarly feminine trait: