+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

which will not already have occurred to his
fine intellect. Like myself, he is the victim
of brute force, and must bear it until the
present state of things is changedas it
possibly may be in the good time which I
understand is coming, if I wait a little
longer."

There! How do you like that? That's
the Horse! You shall have another animal's
sentiments, soon. I have communicated
with plenty 'of em, and they are all down
upon you. It's not I alone who have found
you out. You are generally detected, I am
happy to say, and shall be covered with
confusion.

Talking about the horse, are you going to set
up any more horses? Eh? Think a bit. Come!
You haven't got horses enough yet, surely?
Couldn't you put somebody else on horseback,
and stick him up, at the cost of a few
thousands? You have already statues to most of
the "benefactors of mankind," (SEE
ADVERTISEMENT) in your principal cities. You
walk through groves of great inventors,
instructors, discoverers, assuagers of pain,
preventers of disease, suggesters of purifying
thoughts, doers of noble deeds. Finish the
list. Come!

Whom will you hoist into the saddle ?
Let's have a cardinal virtue! Shall it be
Faith? Hope? Charity? Aye, Charity's the
virtue to ride on horseback! Let's have
Charity!

How shall we represent it? Eh? What do
you think? Royal? Certainly. Duke? Of
course. Charity always was typified in that
way, from the time of a certain widow,
downwards. And there's nothing less left to put
up; all the commoners who were "benefactors
of mankind" having had their statues in the
public places, long ago.

How shall we dress it ? Rags? Low.
Drapery ? Common-place. Field-Marshal's
uniform? The very thing! Charity in a Field-
Marshal's uniform (none the worse for wear)
with thirty thousand pounds a-year, public
money, in its pocket, and fifteen thousand
more, public money, up behind, will be a
piece of plain uncompromising truth in the
highways, and an honor to the country and
the time.

Ha, ha, ha! You can't leave the memory
of an unassuming, honest, good-natured,
amiable old Duke alone, without bespattering
it with your flunkeyism, can't you ? That's
rightand like you! Here are three brass
buttons in my crop. I'll subscribe 'em all.
One, to the statue of Charity; one, to a statue
of Hope; one, to a statue of Faith. For Faith,
we'll have the Nepaulese Ambassador on
horsebackbeing a prince. And for Hope,
we'll put the Hippopotamus on horseback,
and so make a group.

Let's have a meeting about it!

A SHILLING'S WORTH OF SCIENCE.

DR. PARIS has already shown, in a charming
little book treating scientifically of children's
toys, how easy even "philosophy in sport can
be made science in earnest." An earlier genius
cut out the whole alphabet into the figures of
uncouth animals, and enclosed them in a toy-
box representing Noah's Ark, for the purpose
of teaching children their letters. Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America have been
decimated; "yea, the great globe itself," has
been parcelled into little wooden sections, that
their readjustment into a continuous map
might teach the infant conqueror of the world
the relative positions of distant countries.
Archimedes might have discovered the
principle of the lever and the fundamental principles
of gravity upon a rocking-horse. In like
manner he might have ascertained the laws
of hydrostatics, by observing the impetus of
many natural and artificial fountains, which
must occasionally have come beneath his eye.
So also the principles of acoustics might even
now be taught by the aid of a penny whistle,
and there is no knowing how much children's
nursery games may yet be rendered subservient
to the advancement of science. The
famous Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus had excellent
notions on these subjects. He determined
that his son Martinus should be the most
learned and universally well-informed man of
his age, and had recourse to all sorts of
devices in order to inspire him even
unthinkingly with knowledge. He determined
that everything should contribute to the
improvement of his mind,—even his very dress.
He therefore, his biographer informs us,
invented for him a geographical suit of clothes,
which might give him some hints of that
science, and also of the commerce of different
nations. His son's disposition to
mathematicsfor he was a remarkable child
was discovered very early by his drawing
parallel lines on his bread and butter, and
intersecting them at equal angles, so as to
form the whole superficies into squares. His
father also wisely resolved that he should
acquire the learned languages, especially
Greek,—and remarking, curiously enough,
that young Martinus Scriblerus was remarkably
fond of gingerbread, the happy idea
came into his parental head that his pieces
of gingerbread should be stamped with the
letters of the Greek alphabet; and such was
the child's avidity for knowledge, that the very
first day he eat down to iota.

When Sir Isaac Newton changed his
residence and went to live in Leicester Place, his
next door neighbour was a widow lady, who
was much puzzled by the little she observed
of the habits of the philosopher. One of the
Fellows of the Royal Society, called upon her
one day, when among other domestic news,
she mentioned that some one had come to
reside in the adjoining house, who she felt
certain was a poor mad gentleman. "And