Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/430

250 is complaining Sorrow, and that Sister of his is Despair. To this Company the Rakes above-mention'd are sent, where they are maul’d and mortified sufficiently, and after they have gone through their Exercise in this Bridewell, they are committed to Goal, where Unhappiness is their Keeper: And here they are fast for their Life-time, unless they happen to light upon Repentance: If Fortune sends this Lady to any one of them, she disengages him from his Confinement, and gives him a new set of Notions, and Desires, which puts him in the Road to True Knowledge; However, the Direction is not so Infallible, but that ’tis possible for him to miss the way, and make a Visit to pretended Learning. And what follows? Why, says he, if he Travels right, and comes to the Seat of True Knowledge, she does his Business effectually: she purges his Head, and cures his Spleen, and makes him Easy, and Prosperous as long as he lives: But if he mistakes the Road, pretended Learning picks him up, and leads him a new Dance. O strange! said I, here’s another great Risque to be run: But I beg of you what sort of Mortal is this pretended Learning, Don't you see, replies my Instructer, that farther Court? Yes very plainly. And don't you perceive a Woman in the Porch genteelly dress’d and with Rh