-j 72 EXAMINATION of an HISTORICAL H IPO THESIS 



pretation of the Abbe de 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 a£ls, and that it cannot with propriety be 

 applied to ptiffio/is ; it had certainly been proper that he had 

 fupported this judgment either by fome authorities of profehed 

 grammarians, or examples from claflical writers. He has done 

 neither ; and that for the bed of reafons : he had none to pro- 

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

 cifely in the fenfe offregue/is or affiduus j and is therefore, with 

 perfect propriety, applied as well to paffions as to acts. He ob- 

 serves, that had perturbationibus been the proper reading, the 

 author would have coupled it with multis,wc\& 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 afks, What paffions we can 

 fuppofe to have exhaufted the constitution of the molt prudent 

 .and modejl of women, who led a life fo funple and fo uniform f 

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

 as we are of the private and domeftic hiftory of this lady, pre- 

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

 anguifh and difquiet ? How many women of prudence and 

 of modefty are, from unavoidable circumftances of (ituation, 

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

 life of the utmoft privacy and retirement, the keenefl anguifli, 

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

 •with whom they are connected. 



I have now, as I truft, impartially can vailed the whole of 

 thofe arguments drawn by the author of the Memoir es from the 



works 



