our Emotions, and however we were touched before, we then chase it from the Memory with Contempt as a Trifle, or with Indignation as an Imposture. Prove, therefore, that the Books which I have hitherto read as

Copies of Life, and Models of Conduct, are empty Fictions, and from this Hour I deliver them to Moths and Mould; and from this Time consider their Authors as Wretches who cheated me of those Hours I ought to have dedicated to Application and Improvement, and betrayed me to a Waste of those Years in which I might have laid up Knowledge for my future Life.
Shakespear, said the Doctor, calls just Resentment the Child of Integrity, and therefore I do not wonder, that what Vehemence the Gentleness of your Ladyship's Temper allows, should be exerted upon this Occasion. Yet though I cannot forgive these Authors for having destroyed so much valuable Time, yet I cannot think them intentionally culpable, because I cannot believe they expected to be credited. Truth is not always injured by Fiction. An admirable* Writer of our own Time, has found the Way to convey the most solid Instructions, the noblest Sentiments, and the most exalted Piety, in the pleasing Dress of a  Novel, and, to use the Words of the greatestà Genius in the present Age,
Has taught the Passions to move at the Command of Virtue.
The Fables of Aesop, though never I suppose believed, yet have been long considered as Lectures of moral and domestic Wisdom, so well adapted to the Faculties of Man, that they have been received by all civilized Nations; and the Arabs themselves have honoured his Translator with the Appellation of Looman the Wise.


The Fables of Aesop, said Arabella, are among those of which the Absurdity discovers itself, and the Truth is comprised in the Application; but what can be said of those Tales which are told with the solemn Air of historical Truth, and if false convey no Instruction?
That they cannot be defended Madam, said the Doctor, it is my Purpose to prove, and if to evince their Falshood be sufficient to procure their Banishment from your Ladyship's Closet, their Day of Grace is near an end. How is any oral, or written Testimony, confuted or confirmed?
By comparing it, says the Lady, with the Testimony of others, or with the natural Effects and standing Evidence of the Facts related, and sometimes by comparing it with itself.
If then your Ladyship will abide by this last, returned he, and compare these Books with antient Histories, you will not only find innumerable Names, of which no Mention