"_Madonella_, who as it was thought had long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution[4] mentioned in yours of June the 23rd, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed in nurseries and boarding-schools. To remedy this evil, she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where, instead of scissors, needles, and samplers; pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene,[5] the writer of 'Memoirs from the Mediterranean,' who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is to be a certain lady, who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels[6], which are said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of Queen Emma's Court, as the 'Memoirs from the New Atalantis' are with those of ours. I shall make it my business to enquire into the progress of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of their 'Philosophical Transactions[7], and Searches after Nature.' "Yours, &c. "TOBIAH GREENHAT." [Footnote 1: This letter was introduced: "From my own Apartment, September 2. "The following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow writers to publish it." [T.S.]] [Footnote 2: The Rev. Paul Lorrain was ordinary of Newgate Prison from 1698 until 1719. He issued the dying speeches and confessions of the condemned criminals in the form of broadsheets. In these confessions, the penitence of the criminals was most strongly emphasized, hence the term "Lorrain's saints." Lorrain died in 1719. [T.S.]] [Footnote 3: Isaac Bickerstaff, commenting on the letter in No. 59, printed above, says: "I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs. They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry II." [T.S.]] [Footnote 4: See No. 32 _ante_. [T.S.]]