The Doctor made use of this burden when any thing was told him which excited his wonder, or his incredulity; and the degree in which either was called forth might be accurately determined by his manner of using it. He expressed mirthful surprize, or contemptuous disbelief by the first line, and the tune proceeded in proportion as the surprize was greater, or the matter of more moment. But when any thing greatly astonished him, he went thro' the whole, and gave it in a base voice when his meaning was to be most emphatic.
In imitation, no doubt, of my venerable friend in this his practice, though perhaps at first half unconscious of the imitation, I have been accustomed to use the great decasyllabon, with which this present Chapter commences, and with which it is to end. In my use of it however, I observe this caution,—that I do not suffer myself to be carried away by an undue partiality, so as to employ it in disregard of ejaculatory propriety or to the exclusion of exclamations which the occasion may render more fitting. Thus if I were to meet with Hercules, Mehercule would doubtless be the interjection which I should prefer; and when I saw the Siamese Twins, I could not but exclaim O Gemini!
Further, good Reader, if thou wouldest profit by these benevolent disclosures of Danielism and Dovery, take notice I say, and not only take notice, but take good notice,—N. B.—there was this difference between the Doctor's use of his burden, and mine of the decasyllabon, that the one was sung, and the other said, and that they are not “appointed to be said or sung,” but that the one being designed for singing must be sung, and the other not having been adapted to music must be said. And if any great Composer should attempt to set the Decasyllabon, let him bear in mind that it should be set in the hypodorian key, the proslambanomenos of which mode is, in the judgement of the Antients, the most grave sound that the human voice can utter, and that the hearing can distinctly form a judgement of.
Some such device may be recommended to those who have contracted the evil habit of using oaths as interjectional safety-valves or convenient expletives of speech. The manner may be exemplified in reference to certain recent events of public notoriety.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion.3
3 SHAKESPEARE.
Upon hearing one morning that in the Debate of the preceding night Mr. Brougham had said no change of administration could possibly affect him, I only exclaimed A! A short-hand writer would have mistaken it for the common interjection, and have written it accordingly Ah! But it was the first syllable of my inscrutable word, and signified mere notation without wonder or belief.
When in the course of the same day there came authentic intelligence that Mr. Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor of the New Administration, so little surprize was excited by the news, that I only added another syllable and exclaimed Abal!
Reading in the morning papers that Sir James Graham was to be first Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Althorpe to lead the House of Commons, the exclamation proceeded one step farther and became Aballi!
This was uttered in a tone that implied disbelief; for verily I gave the Cabinet Makers credit for a grain of sense more than they possessed, (a grain mark you, because they had nothing to do with scruples;) I supposed there was a mistake as to the persons,—that Sir James Graham whose chief knowledge was supposed to lie in finance and his best qualification in his tongue, was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that Lord Althorpe who had no other claim to consideration whatever than as being Earl Spencer's eldest son, (except that as Hodge said of Diccon the Bedlam, he is ‘even as good a fellow as ever kissed a cow,’) was intended for the Admiralty where Spencer is a popular name. But when it proved that there was no mistake in the Newspapers, and that each of these ministers had been deliberately appointed to the office for which the other was fit, then I said Aballiboo!