MR. MAC QUEDY. Only those that point to the Modern Athens. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Where all native noses point southward. MR. MAC QUEDY. Eh, sir, northward for wisdom, and southward for profit. MR. CROTCHET, JUN. Champagne, doctor? THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Most willingly. But you will permit my drinking it while it sparkles. I hold it a heresy to let it deaden in my hand, while the glass of my compotator is being filled on the opposite side of the table. By the by, Captain, you remember a passage in Athenæus, where he cites Menander on the subject of fish-sauce: fápov ii ixos. (The Captain was aghast for an answer that would satisfy both his neighbours, when he was relieved by the divine continuing.) The science of fish-sauce, Mr. Mac Quedy, is by no means brought to perfection; a fine field of discovery still lies open in that line. MR. MAC QUEDY. Nay, sir, beyond lobster-sauce, I take it, ye cannot go. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. In their line, I grant you, oyster and lobster sauce are the pillars of Hercules. But I speak of the cruet sauces, where the quintessence of the sapid is condensed in a phial. I can taste in my mind's palate a combination, which, if I could give it reality, I would christen with the name of my college, and hand it down to posterity as a seat of learning indeed. MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, sir, I wish you success, but I cannot let slip the question we started just now. I say, cutting off idiots, who have no minds at all, all minds are by nature alike. Education (which begins from their birth) makes them what they are. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Edu No, sir, it makes their tendencies, not their power. Cæsar would have been the first wrestler on the village common. cation might have made him a Nadir Shah; it might also have made him a Washington; it could not have made him a merry-andrew, for our newspapers to extol as a model of eloquence. MR. MAC QUEDY. Now, sir, I think education would have made him just any thing, and fit for any station, from the throne to the stocks; saint or sinner, aristocrat or democrat, judge, counsel, or prisoner at the bar. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I will thank you for a slice of lamb, with lemon and pepper. Before I proceed with this discussion,--Vin de Grave, Mr. Skionar,I must interpose one remark. There is a set of persons in your city, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct every three or four months, a thing, which they call a review: a sort of sugarplum manufacturers to the Whig aristocracy. MR. MAC QUEDY. I cannot tell, sir, exactly, what you mean by that; but I hope you will speak of those gentlemen with respect, seeing that I am one of them. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, I must drown my inadvertence in a glass of Sauterne with you. There is a set of gentlemen in your city MR. MAC QUEDY. Not in our city, exactly; neither are they a set. There is an editor, who forages for articles in all quarters, from John O'Groat's house to the Land's End. It is not a board, or a society: it is a mere intellectual bazaar, where A. B. and C. bring their wares to market.. THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Well, sir, these gentlemen among them, the present company excepted, have practised as much dishonesty as, in any other department than literature, would have brought the practitioner under the cognizance of the police. In politics, they have run with the hare, and hunted with the hound. In criticism, they have, knowingly and unblushingly |