網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

given false characters, both for good and for evil: sticking at no art of misrepresentation, to clear out of the field of literature all who stood in the way of the interests of their own click. They have never allowed their own profound ignorance of any thing, (Greek, for instance,) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oracular decision on the matter. They set an example of profligate contempt for truth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when their prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out against their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or were entitled to a monopoly of it. The latter, I rather think, was what they wanted.

MR. CROTCHET.

Hermitage, doctor?

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

Nothing better, sir. The father who first

chose the solitude of that vineyard, knew well how to cultivate his spirit in retirement. Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, Achilles was distinguished above all the Greeks for his inflexible love of truth: could education have made Achilles one of your reviewers?

[ocr errors]

MR. MAC QUEDY.

No doubt of it, even if your character of them were true to the letter.

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

And I say, sir-chicken and asparagusTitan had made him of better clay.* I hold with Pindar: "All that is most excellent is so by nature." Τὸ δὲ φυᾷ κράτιστον ἅπαν. Education can give purposes, but not powers; and whatever purposes had been given him, he would have gone strait forward to them; strait forward, Mr. Mac Quedy.

*Juv. XIV. 35.

† Ol. IX. 152.

MR. MAC QUEDY.

No, sir, education makes the man, powers, purposes, and all.

THE REV. DR. FOLLIOTT.

There is the point, sir, on which we join issue.

Several others of the company now chimed in with their opinions, which gave the divine an opportunity to degustate one or two side dishes, and to take a glass of wine with each of the young ladies.

CHAP. V.

CHARACTERS.

Ay imputé a honte plus que médiocre être vu spectateur ocieux de tant vaillans, disertz, et chevalereux per

sonnaiges.

RABELAIS.

LADY CLARINDA (to the Captain.)

I DECLARE the creature has been listening to all this rigmarole, instead of attending to me. Do you ever expect forgiveness? But now that they are all talking together, and you cannot make out a word they say, nor they hear a word that we say, I will describe the company to you. First, there is the old gentleman on my left hand, at the head of the table, who is now leaning the

other way to talk to my brother. He is a

good tempered, half-informed person, very unreasonably fond of reasoning, and of reasoning people; people that talk nonsense logically: he is fond of disputation himself, when there are only one or two, but seldom does more than listen in a large company of illuminés. He made a great fortune in the city, and has the comfort of a good conscience. He is very hospitable, and is generous in dinners; though nothing would induce him to give sixpence to the poor, because he holds that all misfortune is from imprudence, that none but the rich ought to marry, and that all ought to thrive by honest industry, as he did. He is ambitious of founding a family, and of allying himself with nobility; and is thus as willing as other grown children, to throw away thousands for a gew-gaw, though he would not part with a penny for charity. Next to him is my brother, whom you know

« 上一頁繼續 »