The doctor hummed a while, and at length answered: "I think you had
just laid it down as a position, that a thousand a-year is an
indispensable ingredient in the passion of love, and that no man, who
is not so far gifted by _nature_, can reasonably presume to feel that
passion himself, or be correctly the object of it with a well-educated
female."

"That, sir," said Miss Philomela, highly incensed, "is the fundamental
principle which I lay down in the first chapter, and which the whole
four volumes, of which I detailed to you the outline, are intended to
set in a strong practical light."

"Bless me!" said the doctor, "what a nap I must have had!"

Miss Philomela flung away to the side of her dear friends Gall and
Treacle, under whose fostering patronage she had been puffed into an
extensive reputation, much to the advantage of the young ladies of the
age, whom she taught to consider themselves as a sort of commodity, to
be put up at public auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder.
Mr Nightshade and Mr Mac Laurel joined the trio; and it was secretly
resolved, that Miss Philomela should furnish them with a portion of
her manuscripts, and that Messieurs Gall & Co. should devote the
following morning to cutting and drying a critique on a work
calculated to prove so extensively beneficial, that Mr Gall protested
he really _envied_ the writer.

While this amiable and enlightened quintetto were busily employed in
flattering one another, Mr Cranium retired to complete the
preparations he had begun in the morning for a lecture, with which he
intended, on some future evening, to favour the company: Sir Patrick