28. Had _Virgil_ attended the bar, his modest and ingenuous virtue would surely have made but a very indifferent figure: and _Tully_'s declamatory inclination would have been as useless in poetry. Nature, if left to herself, leads us on in the best course, but will do nothing by compulsion and constraint; and if we are not satisfied to go her way, we are always the greatest sufferers by it.
29. Wherever nature designs a production, she always disposes seeds proper for it, which are as absolutely necessary to the formation of any moral or intellectual existence, as they are to the being and growth of plants; and I know not by what fate and folly it is, that men are taught not to reckon him equally absurd that will write verses in spite of nature, with that gardener that should undertake to raise a jonquil or tulip, without the help of their respective seeds.
30. As there is no good or bad quality that does not affect both sexes, so it is not to be imagined but the fair sex must have suffered by an affectation of this nature, at least as much as the other: the ill effect of it is in none so conspicuous as in the two opposite characters of _Cælia_ and _Iras_. _Cælia_ has all the charms of person, together with an abundant sweetness of nature, but wants wit, and has a very ill voice: _Iras_ is ugly and ungenteel, but has wit and good sense.
31. If _Cælia_ would be silent, her beholders would adore her; if _Iras_ would talk, her hearers would admire her; but _Cælia_'s tongue runs incessantly, while _Iras_ gives herself silent airs and soft languors; so that 'tis difficult to persuade one's self that _Cælia_ has beauty, and _Iras_ wit: each neglects her own excellence, and is ambitious of the other's character: _Iras_ would be thought to have as much beauty as _Cælia_, and _Cælia_ as much wit as _Iras_.
32. The great misfortune of this affectation is, that men not only lose a good quality, but also contract a bad one: they not only are unfit for what they were designed, but they assign themselves to what they are not fit for; and instead of making a very good, figure one way, make a very ridiculous one in another.
33. If _Semanthe_ would have been satisfied with her natural complexion, she might still have been celebrated by the name of the olive beauty; but _Semanthe_ has taken up an affectation to white and red, and is now distinguished by the character of the lady that paints so well.