CONSCIENCE.
{Singular Case of.)

Agnes, says La Mothe le Vayer, widow to Henry III, asked, through a bishop, this pretty question of Peter Damianus, one of the most understanding churchmen of his age, “ Utrum liceret homini inter ipsum debiti naturalis egerium aliquid ruminare psalmorum?—Whether it was lawful for a man, during the performance of matrimonial duty, to repeat to himself any part of the psalms. It was decided in the affirmative, as Baronius informs us, upon the authority of the text of St Paul, in the first epistle to Timothy, which says, that God may be prayed to every where.” Is it possible that there has been an empress so weak as to propose such questions? and if the curiosity of a woman extended so far, ought any grave casuits to have examined them? One of the most celebrated of Aristotle’s commentators would have answered the empress’s question quite otherwise than Peter Damianus did. He maintained, that the public welfare requires that, in this action, as much as in any other, “ hoc age,” and nothing else, should be remembered; for he pretends, that the reason why the children of ingenious and learned men are commonly dull and stupid, is, because their fathers let their thoughts wander when they should be thinking on what they are doing. Such is also the sorrowfully declared opinion of the renowned Tristram Shandy.—Ed. ⁹¹