“Every heire is either a male, a female, or an hermaphrodite, that is both male and female” Sir Edward Coke, Institutes.

As I related in my last essay, it had been vouched safe to me that a Mob had assembled in Whitehall demanding that My Lady Rowling be burned as a witch because she was heard to mutter in her sleep that God had created Men and Women. I must now relate what followed.

After making my way from Temple Bar to Whitehall along the Strand, I found the Mob had assembled outside the House of Mr William Van Huls wherein my Lady had taken refuge. There was much commotion and one ill=visaged jackanapes had made a pyre on which others were hurling books which had been written by my Lady. As each book was consumed by the flames the crowd hurra’d. I could only suppose that my Lady was most discomfited by such a clamour and that Mr Van Huls, being an elderly gentleman of my acquaintance, no less so.

Before I could remonstrate with the crowd, I found Mr Tonson by my side and he restrained me with a hand upon my elbow. I asked him what brought him there. He explained that he and her Ladyship were well acquainted and indeed the books being burn’d had been published by himself. He gave me a wink and said that each book bought and burn’d brought him another six pence and the noise made by the Mob was better for his trade than all the bills which he could post or leave in taverns. He informed me that her ladyship was protected by two of his men and said that he would be most gratified if I would join him for a glass of brandy at the Coffee House in St James’s. If I did not know Mr Tonson to be an honest man I would have thought that he had stirred up the Mob himself with a view to increasing the number of copies of her Ladyship’s book he must needs sell – but the anticipation of brandy dispelled such ungenerous thoughts from my mind.

At St James’s we fell in with Mr John Willes, who last year was appointed one of His Majestie’s Counsel. I have known him since we were at Oxford together and he is well-versed, indeed expert, on all matter pertaining to the Sexes¹It is apparent that the Somnambulist was at Trinity College, Oxford with John Willes, a notorious rake and eventually Chief Justice of England. Given the Somnambulist’s intellectual deficiencies it is highly unlikely that he attended All Soul’s College of which John Willes was subsequently a Fellow. I related to Mr Willes the circumstance in which Lady Rowling found herself and the cause thereof. Mr Willes said that as far as he could see Women were indeed Women and Men were indeed Men but the Law was not of the same disposition.  He explained that it was established in law that not every person was either a man or a woman but that a person could be both man and woman at the same time.²The Somnambulist is probably garbling what Willes Said. Willes was most certainly quoting Coke who stated the law as being: “Every heire is either male, a female or an hermaphrodite, that is both male and female. And and hermaphrodite (which is also called Androgynus) shall be heire, either as male or female, according to that kind of sexe which doth prevail” Institutes Pt I 8a.

As a God-fearing communicant of the Church of England I exclaimed that the Law had gone too far but that the proponents of the Theory of Sleeplessness had gone still further: in their excessive Protestantism they were asserting that it was for the conscience of a person to determine whether God had made him either man or woman regardless of all physical evidence to the contrary of the Almighty’s intention.

Having deliver’d my opinion on the matter I noticed that Mr Willes’s attention had wandered to the Maid and Mr Tonson was engaged in conversation with Lord Granville. Thus deserted, I betook myself back to my Chambers.

I have determined that after a pipe I shall commence my Treatise wherein I shall, inter alia, expound upon the differences between Men and Women and the misguided views of the proponents of Sleeplessness in that regard.

I remain your humble and obedient servant,

The Somnambulist.