as Virgil has it:--But let it pass, let it pass, Mr. Seymour; my profession has taught me to bear with humility and patience the contempt and revilings of my brethren; I forgive Tom Plank for his presumption, as in that case I alone am the sufferer; but I say to you, that envy, trouble, discontent, strife, and poverty, will be the fruits of the seeds you would scatter. I verily believe, that unless this ‘march of intellect,’ as it has been termed, is speedily checked, Overton, in less than twelve months, will become a deserted village; for there is scarcely a tradesman who is not already distracted by some visionary scheme of scientific improvement, that leads to the neglect of their occupations, and the dissipation of the honest earnings which their more prudent fathers had accumulated; ‘Meliora pii docuere parentes,’ as the poet has it. What think you of Sam Corkington, who proposes to erect an apparatus in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, in order to supply every city on the continent with heat and light; or of Billy Spooner, who is about to establish a dairy at Spitzbergen, that he may furnish all Europe with ice-cream from the milk of whales! ‘O, viveret Democritus!’”
The vicar was about to proceed with his lamentations, but the thread of his discourse was suddenly snapped asunder, and his ideas thrown into the wildest confusion, by the explosion of a most audacious pun, which in mercy to Mr. Seymour, as well as to our readers, we will not repeat.
“Mr. Seymour,” exclaimed the incensed vicar, “we will, if you please, terminate our discourse; I perceive that you are determined to meet my remonstrances with ridicule; when I had hoped to bring an argument incapable of refutation, Tum variæ illudunt pestes, as Virgil has it.”
“Pray, allow me to ask,” said Mr. Seymour, “whether my puns, or your quotations, best merit the title of pestes?”
“That you should compare the vile practice of punning with the elegant and refined habit of conveying our ideas by classic symbols, does indeed surprise and disturb me. Pope has said that words are the counters by which men represent their thoughts; the plebeian,” continued the vicar, “selects base metal for their construction, while the scholar forms them of gold and gems, dug from the richest mines of antiquity. But to what vile purpose does the punster prostitute such counters? Not for the interchange of ideas, but, like the juggler, to deceive and astonish by acts of legerdemain.”
“How fortunate is it that you had not lived in the reign of King James,” remarked Mr. Seymour; “for that singular monarch, as you may, perhaps, remember, made very few bishops who had not thus signalised themselves.”
“To poison our ears by quibbles and quirks did well become him who sought to deceive our senses and blind our reason--the patron of puns and the believer in witchcraft were suitably united,” replied the vicar.
“Well,” said Mr. Seymour, “as this is a subject upon which it is not likely that we should agree, I will pass to another, where I hope to be more successful; I trust I shall induce you to view with more complacency my project of teaching philosophy by the aid of toys and sports.”
“Mr. Seymour, the proposal of instructing children in the principles of natural philosophy, is really too visionary to require calm discussion; and can be equalled only in absurdity by the method you propose for carrying it into effect.”
“Come, come, my dear vicar, pray chain up your prejudices, and let your kind spirit loose for half an hour: let me beg that you will so far indulge me,” said Mr. Seymour, “as to listen patiently to the plan by which it is my intention to turn sport into science, or, in other words, toys into instruments of philosophical instruction.”