To contrast with the non-success of this wily experiment upon a grand scale, we may cite an instance of equal ingenuity, exercised in a much humbler walk, and taking the form of knavery in its mixed character. We distinctly remember it to have happened. The scene may be a seaport, or the banks of the Thames below bridge. A seaman, bearing a huge stone bottle, applies at the Nelson's Head for a gallon of whisky for Captain Rope of the Matilda, lying off shore—to fill up the bottle already half full. The spirit is duly poured in, and the cash demanded. "Oh! the capp'n said nothen about that"—the whisky was to be added to his account, and that was all he knew. But "mine host" did not know the captain well enough, and couldn't let the whisky go. The gallon was therefore poured back again into the landlord's measure, and set aside to be called for. So far there appeared to be no knavery at all; but the spirit so poured back, presently turned out to be, not whisky, but excellent one-water grog; for the two-gallon bottle of the sailor contained exactly one gallon of pure water when it was brought in, and one gallon of pure whisky and water when it was taken out.
The means in this, as in myriads of cases, are curiously disproportioned to the end. How miserably poor is the prize, considered in reference to the risk; to the cleverness in the invention of the stratagem; to the address demanded for the due execution of it, to the time consumed, the trouble taken, the agencies employed! But the truth is, that the very cleverest rascals are rarely more than half-cunning. The ablest of knaves must be at best half a blockhead. When we remember how the great Bardolph, having stolen a lute-case, "carried it twelve miles and sold it for three half-pence," the perilous, profitless, toilsome, half-witted nature of roguery needs no illustration. One would like to have seen him walking back, thirsty and way-wearied, under a broiling sun, and never sure but that the lady who once owned the lute-case might be walking that way too!
That famous exploit of Master Bardolph's ought to be registered in large letters over every judgment-seat, and on the door of every police-office. The record would save much judicial breath, and supersede volumes of admonition.
Shakspeare's illustrations of Vice might possibly have led us into a dissertation at least as long upon Shakspeare's illustrations of Virtue, but that the learned Dr. Bulgardo here honoured our humble vehicle with his presence, and called general attention to a contrast equally striking, under the following title:—
THE SISTER SCIENCES; OR, BOTANY AND HORTICULTURE.
By Dr. BULGARDO, L. S. D.,
Treasurer of several Learned Societies, and Professor of Asparagus at the University of Battersea.