158 EXAMINATION of an HISTORIC JL HTPOTHESIS 



** frequent childbearing; corpus ejus crehrls partnbus exhaujlum. 

 '* It is true, that the word partnbus is thus abbreviated in the 

 " manufcript ptbs ; and, as it was formerly the current opinion 

 " that Laura was unmarried, thofe who had the charge of 

 " printing the Latin works of the poet, have thought proper to 

 " interpret the abbreviation pertttrbationibus, and to print it fo 

 " in all the editions of thofe works ; But it ought certainly to 

 " be read pai lubus, for thefe good reafons : firji. That the epithet 

 " crebris means a repetition of adts, and therefore applies better 

 " to adls of childbearing than to paffions. If the author had 

 " meant the latter, he would have coupled the noun with multis, 

 " inftead of crebris. But what paflions can we fuppofe to have 

 " exhaufted the conftitution of tlie moft prudent and modefl: of 

 " women, who led a life fo fimple and fo uniform ? In the next 

 " place, Meffrs Caperonnier, Boudot and Bejot, of the 

 " King's Library, who muft be allowed to be good judges of 

 " the abbreviations that occur in old manufcripts, have de- 

 " cided, that partubus is the proper reading." 



Such is the whole of that evidence, drawn by the Abbe de 

 Sade from the works of the poet himfelf iti fupport of this new 

 hypothefis, that Laura was a married woman. On this evi- 

 dence, which, it will be allowed, is of itfelf extremely inconclu- 

 five, I fliall now make fome remarks. I take the author's ar- 

 guments in the order in which they fland. 



imo, The words mulier,joemlna, in Latin, and donna ^ madonna, 

 in Italian, are equally applicable to married and to unmarried 

 women. Mulier sind faemina mark the fex alone, without refe- 

 rence to the ftate or condition. Isidorus, in his Origines, 1. xi. 

 c. 3. fays : " Dicitur igitur mulier fecundum fceminaim fexnm, non 

 *^ fecundum corrupt (OBe?n integritatis ; nam Yn K Jlatiin faEla de 

 " latere viri, et nondum contadia a mro, Mulier appellata ejl, di- 

 '• cente Scripturd, Et format earn in mulierem^'' Thus too, in the 

 Romaa law, where there is the utmoft precifion in the ufe of 



terms, 



