ously, I wonder you don't blush to paint so much beyond the Life, and yet suppose the Picture to be like any one; you affect to imitate our great Painters, if we sit to them, they make us all handsome; but they do it to shew themselves, not us, and they don't care so much whether it be like or no, so it be but a fine Picture; and in this our own Vanity too often indulges them.
But pray, added she, let us lay aside all these Fooleries; and be so good as to be serious with me for an Hour or two: I have a great Mind to be let a little into the Knowledge of these Instruments, the Globes; and to know something of the first Principles and Rudiments of Astronony; or else I find I shall lose half the Beauties of that very entertaining Book Mr. Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds, which you formerly obliged me with, as well as perhaps be led into some Errors by it: And don't despise and neglect me because I am a Woman. I have heard you sometimes say, you thought that there was no difference of Sexes in Souls; nay, that our Parts and Natural Capacities were often equal, at leasi, if not superior, to those of Men. But perhaps there were some particular Reasons for your saying so then, which now altering orceasing,
