_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, Lais was a Corinthian.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Od’s vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and any other Athenian name of the same sort of person you like—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I do not like the sort of person at all: the sort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who stays at home and looks after her husband’s dinner.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians. They preferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about sitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in Italy did to Canova; one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an English lady, “how she could bear it?” answered, “Very well; there was a good fire in the room.”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, the English lady should have asked how the Italian lady’s husband could bear it. The phials of my wrath would overflow if poor dear Mrs. Folliott —: sir, in return for your story, I will tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott. The devil haunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful damsel; but all he could get from the exemplary Gilbert was an admonition to wear a stomacher and longer petticoats.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, your story makes for my side of the question. It proves that the devil, in the likeness of a fair damsel, with short petticoats and no stomacher, was almost too much for Gilbert Folliott. The force of the spell was in the drapery.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Bless my soul, sir!
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Give me leave, sir. Diderot—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Who was he, sir?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Who was he, sir? the sublime philosopher, the father of the Encyclopædia, of all the encyclopædias that have ever been printed.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Bless me, sir, a terrible progeny: they belong to the tribe of Incubi.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—The great philosopher, Diderot—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, Diderot is not a man after my heart. Keep to the Greeks, if you please; albeit this Sleeping Venus is not an antique.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Well, sir, the Greeks: why do we call the Elgin marbles inestimable? Simply because they are true to nature. And why are they so superior in that point to all modern works, with all our greater knowledge of anatomy? Why, sir, but because the Greeks, having no cant, had better opportunities of studying models?