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The doctor, on this occasion, observed, that a man who is not proof against the solicitations of a woman, can never expect to make a great figure in life; that painters and poets ought to cultivate no wives but the Muses; or, if they are by the accidents of fortune encumbered with families, they should carefully guard against that pernicious weakness, falsely honoured with the appellation of natural affection, and pay no manner of regard to the impertinent customs of the world. “Granting that you had been for a short time deemed a lunatic,” said he, “you might have acquitted yourself honourably of that imputation, by some performance that would have raised your character above all censure. Sophocles himself, that celebrated tragic poet, who, for the sweetness of his versification, was styled Melitta, or “the Bee,” in his old age, suffered the same accusation from his own children, who, seeing him neglect his family affairs, and devote himself entirely to poetry, carried him before the magistrate, as a man whose intellects were so much impaired by the infirmities of age, that he was no longer fit to manage his domestic concerns; upon which the reverend bard produced his tragedy of Oidipus epi Kolono, as a work he had just finished; which being perused, instead of being declared unsound of understanding, he was dismissed with admiration and applause. I wish your beard and whiskers had been sanctioned by the like authority; though I am afraid you would have been in the predicament of those disciples of a certain philosopher, who drank decoctions of cummin seeds, that their faces might adopt the paleness of their master's complexion, hoping that, in being as wan, they would be as learned as their teacher.” The painter, stung by this sarcasm, replied, “or like those virtuosi, who, by repeating Greek, eating sillikicaby, and pretending to see visions, think they equal the ancients in taste and genius.” The physician retorted, Pallet rejoined, and the altercation continued until they entered the gates of Antwerp, when the admirer of Rubens broke forth into a rapturous exclamation, which put an end to the dispute and attracted the notice of the inhabitants, many of whom by shrugging up their shoulders and pointing to their foreheads, gave shrewd indications that they believed him a poor gentleman disordered in his brain.

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