inconveniences. As, for instance, if a learned lady should meet with
an unlearned husband, might she not be apt to despise him?"

"I think not," cries Mrs. Atkinson--"and, if I may be allowed the
instance, I think I have shewn, myself, that women who have learning
themselves can be contented without that qualification in a man."

"To be sure," cries the doctor, "there may be other qualifications
which may have their weight in the balance. But let us take the other
side of the question, and suppose the learned of both sexes to meet in
the matrimonial union, may it not afford one excellent subject of
disputation, which is the most learned?"

"Not at all," cries Mrs. Atkinson; "for, if they had both learning and
good sense, they would soon see on which side the superiority lay."

"But if the learned man," said the doctor, "should be a little
unreasonable in his opinion, are you sure that the learned woman would
preserve her duty to her husband, and submit?"

"But why," cries Mrs. Atkinson, "must we necessarily suppose that a
learned man would be unreasonable?"

"Nay, madam," said the doctor, "I am not your husband; and you shall
not hinder me from supposing what I please. Surely it is not such a
paradox to conceive that a man of learning should be unreasonable. Are
there no unreasonable opinions in very learned authors, even among the
critics themselves? For instance, what can be a more strange, and
indeed unreasonable opinion, than to prefer the Metamorphoses of Ovid
to the AEneid of Virgil?"