I could forgive Mr. J. S. anything, properly headed. I would allow him to prove—for himself—that the Quadrature of the Circle is the child of a private marriage between the Bull Unigenitus and the Pragmatic Sanction, claiming tithe of onions for repeal of the Mortmain Act, before the Bishops in Committee under the kitchen table: his mode of imitating reason would do this with ease. But when he puts his imitation into my mouth, to make me what he calls a "real mathematician," my soul rises in epigram against him. I say with the doll's dressmaker—such a job makes me feel like a puppet's tailor myself—"He ought to have a little pepper? just a few grains? I think the young man's tricks and manners make a claim upon his friends for a little pepper?" De Fauré[[380]] and Joseph Scaliger[[381]] come into my head: my reader may look back for them.
"Three circlesquarers to the manner born,
Switzerland, France, and England did adorn,
De Fauré in equations did surpass,
Joseph at contradictions was an ass.
Groaned Folly, I'm used up! What shall I do
To make James Smith? Grinned Momus, Join the two!"
As to my locus pœnitentiæ,[[382]] the reader who is fit to enjoy the letter I have already alluded to will see that I have a soft and easy position; that the thing is really a pillowry; and that I am, like Perrette's pot of milk,
"Bien posé sur un coussinet."[[383]]