That the Ministry foresaw this great change, is plain from the
Callico-Act; whereby it is now become the occupation of women all
over England, to convert their useless female habits into beds,
window-curtains, chairs, and joint-stools; undressing themselves
(as it were) before their transformation.
The philosophy of this transformation will not seem surprizing to
people who search into the bottom of things. Madam Bourignon, a
devout French lady, has shewn us, how man was at first created
male and female in one individual, having the faculty of
propagation within himself: A circumstance necessary to the state
of innocence, wherein a man's happiness was not to depend upon
the caprice of another. It was not till after he had made a faux
pas, that he had his female mate. Many such transformations of
individuals have been well attested; particularly one by
Montaigne, and another by the late Bishop of Salisbury. From all
which it appears, that this system of male and female has already
undergone and may hereafter suffer, several alterations. Every
smatterer in anatomy knows, that a woman is but an introverted
man; a new fusion and flatus will turn the hollow bottom of a
bottle into a convexity; but I forbear, (for the sake of my
modest men-readers, who are in a few days to be virgins.)
In some subjects, the smallest alterations will do: some men are
sufficiently spread about the hips, and contriv'd with female
softness, that they want only the negative quantity to make them
buxom wenches; and there are women who are, as it were, already
the ebauche of a good sturdy man.
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