immediately made answer: 'Tis true, Madam, we see there may be as much
variety of good fancies as of faces, yet there may be many of both kinds
borrowed and adulterate if inquired into; and as you were pleased to
observe, the invention may be Foreign to the Person who puts it in
practice; and as good an Opinion as I have of an agreeable Dress, I
should be loth to answer for the wit of all about us. I believe you
(says the Lady) and hope you are convinced of your error, since you must
allow it impossible to tell who of all this Assembly did or did not make
choice of their own Apparel. Not all (said Aurelian) there is an
ungainness in some which betrays them. 'Look ye there (says he) pointing
to a Lady who stood playing with the Tassels of her Girdle, I dare answer
for that Lady, though she be very well dress'd, 'tis more than she knows.
His fair unknown could not forbear laughing at his particular
distinction, and freely told him, he had indeed light upon one who knew
as little as any body in the Room, her self excepted. Ah! Madam,
(reply'd Aurelian) you know every thing in the World but your own
Perfections, and you only know not those because 'tis the top of
Perfection not to know them. How? (reply'd the Lady) I thought it had
been the extremity of knowledge to know ones self. Aurelian had a little
over-strain'd himself in that Complement, and I am of Opinion would have
been puzzl'd to have brought himself off readily: but by good fortune the
Musick came into the Room and gave him an opportunity to seem to decline
an answer, because the company prepared to dance: he only told her he was
too mean a Conquest for her wit who was already a Slave to the Charms of
her Person. She thanked him for his Complement, and briskly told him she
ought to have made him a return in praise of his wit, but she hoped he
was a Man more happy than to be dissatisfy'd with any of his own
Endowments; and if it were so, that he had not a just Opinion of himself,
she knew her self incapable of saying any thing to beget one. Aurelian
did not know well what to make of this last reply; for he always abhor'd