"THE BLAZING IDIOT."
The blazing idiot is all over self and wonderment. He has done—what has he not done? He can do—what can he not do? One of this character was one day entertaining old Quin with the account of an encounter with a furious bull, in which the blazer had proved too much for the horner, and held him, in spite of his neck, till he roared for a truce.
"Oh," said Quin, looking around him knowingly on the company, "that is nothing at all to what I once experienced myself."
The original blazer looked amazement.
"Yes," says Quin, "I—even I, have managed the bull exercise in a higher style than you, sir. You only held the bull's head down by the horns, but I twisted his head from his neck, and threw it after his departing hind-quarters!"
This produced a roar at the idiot's expense, and he shrunk out, to announce his achievements somewhere else.
Is he a traveller?—Why, then, Munchausen is a fool to him. He has undergone, achieved, seen, heard, tasted, more wonders than a thousand Gullivers.
"The bats of Madagascar are large, assuredly, and almost exclude the sunlight by the breadth of their hairy wings. But the bats are nothing, sir, to the bees."
"What kind of bees have they?"
"Why, sir, the bees are, 'pon honour, sir, they are as large as your sheep in this country."
"Why, then, one would require to keep a pretty sharp look-out ahead, in case of a near encounter with such a winged monster."
"Not at all, sir. They make such a roaring noise, sir, with their wings, that you can hear them, like the bulls of Bashan, a full mile distant."
"Terrible! But are they numerous?"
"Oh, exceedingly!"
"And what kind of flowers have they to feed on?"
"Why, just ordinary flowers. They cover them all over, and insert their proboscis into a thousand, without stirring from their position."
"Yes! And what kind of skeps have they?"
"Oh, just ordinary skeps, like ours in this country."
"Yes! And how do these bees get into the skeps?"
"Oh, just let them see to that!"
But these may be termed the magnificent blazers. There is an animal of this species of very reduced dimensions; and yet, from its numbers and activity, it is not less provoking and annoying than the giant race. You cannot mention a long walk which you have taken, but it out-walks you by at least ten miles. You cannot drink your three bottles at a sitting, but it empties five. You made, whilst a boy, some hairbreadth escapes, but they are nothing to what it has escaped. You have had a very bad fever, and lay a whole week insensible; this creature roared a whole month. You have broken your tendon Achilles; this unfortunate has cut all the arteries and tendons of the leg. Go where you will, the land has been travelled before you. Do what you may, the thing has been done, and much better done, already. In fact, you are only the copy of the original before you; a shaping out of a web; a degenerate branch of a vine in full growth; an Italian alphabet in the presence of a Roman. "I thought my master a wise man; but this man makes my master a fool," says the housemaid in Dean Swift; and it is thus that the emmet Blazer befools you, turn where you may. Whom have we next in this our show-box of rarities? Step in, sir. Don't stumble on the doorway, like Protesilaus in setting out for Troy. Oh, I ask your pardon—