For otherwise
we might possibly complain of their ingratitude and deafness, with the
same reason as Pasiphae doth of her bull, whom she endeavoured to
engage by all the coquetry practised with good success in the
drawing room on the much more sensible as well as tender hearts of the
fine gentlemen there.
The contrary happens in that love which operates between persons
of the same species, but of different sexes. Here we are no sooner
in love than it becomes our principal care to engage the affection
of the object beloved. For what other purpose indeed are our youth
instructed in all the arts of rendering themselves agreeable? If it
was not with a view to this love, I question whether any of those
trades which deal in setting off and adorning the human person would
procure a livelihood. Nay, those great polishers of our manners, who
are by some thought to teach what principally distinguishes us from
the brute creation, even dancing-masters themselves, might possibly
find no place in society. In short, all the graces which young
ladies and young gentlemen too learn from others, and the many
improvements which, by the help of a looking-glass, they add of
their own, are in reality those very spicula et faces amoris so of
mentioned by Ovid; or, as they are sometimes called in our own
language, the whole artillery of love.
Now Mrs. Waters and our heroe had no sooner sat down together than
the former began to play this artillery upon the latter.
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