158 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL HTPOTHESIS 



il frequent childbearing; corpus ejus crebrls partubus exhaujlum, 

 " It is true, that the word partubus is thus abbreviated in the 

 " manufcript ptbs J 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 perturbationibus, and to print it fo 

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

 " be read par tubus, for thefe good reafons : firft, That the epithet 

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

 " to acts of childbearing than to paifions. If the author had 

 ct 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 the mod prudent and modeft of 

 u women, who led a life fo ample and fo uniform ? In the next 

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

 " King's Library, who mufl 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 in 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 mall now make fome remarks. I take the author's ar- 

 guments in the order in which they ftand. 



1 mo, The words mulier, fcemina, in Latin, and donna , madonna, 

 in Italian, are equally applicable to married and to unmarried 

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

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

 c. 3. fays: " Dicitur igitur mulier fecundum foemineum fexum, non 

 " Jecundum corrupt ionem integritatis j nam Ev a Jlatim facta de 

 " latere viri, et nondum contacla a viro, Mulier appellata eft, di- 

 " cente Scripturd, Et format earn in mulier ■em." Thus too, in the 

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



terms, 



