^7^ EXAMINA-tlON of an HISTORIC J L HIPOTHESIS 



pretacion of the Abbe dc Sade, the reply is equally abfurd and 

 impertinent to the obfervation that precedes it. 



With regard to the critical decifion pronounced by the 

 Abbe on the meaning of the word creber, viz. that it im- 

 ports a repetition of a6is, and that it cannot with propriety be 

 applied to paJTions ; it had certainly been proper that he had 

 fupported this j udgment either by fome authorities of profeffed 

 grammarians, or examples from claflical writers. He has done 

 neither ; and that for the befl of reafons : he liad none to pro- 

 duce. Creber^ as we find from the befl authorities, is ufed pre- 

 cifely in the fenfe oifrequeiis or ajfiduus j and is therefore, with 

 perfedt propriety, applied as well to paffions as to a6ls. He ob- 

 ferves, that had pertuibatiouibiis been the proper reading, the 

 author would have coupled it with mull is, a.nd not with crebris ; 

 a remark betraying ignorance of grammatical precifion : for 

 who is there that needs to be told that multus, applying to num- 

 ber, can with no propriety be employed to denote frequency of 

 -repetition? 



But the author of the Memoir es alks, What paffions we can 

 fuppofe to have exhaufted the conftitution of the moft prudent 

 ■and modejl of women, who led a life fo fimple and fo uniform ? 

 To this I anfwer by another queftion : How can we, ignorant 

 as we are of the private and domefliic hiflory of this lady, pre- 

 tend to fay what caufes flie might, or might not have had, of 

 anguifli and difquiet ? How many women of prudence and 

 of modefty are, from iinavoidable circumflances of fituation, 

 the vidtims of mental inquietude ; and experience, even in a 

 life of the utmoll privacy and retirement, the keened anguifli, 

 from the turbulent paffions, the malice or the caprice, of thofe 

 •with whom they are connedled. 



I HAVE now, as I truft, impartially canvafTed the whole of 

 thofe arguments drawn by the author of the Memoires from the 



works 



