[14]

In our good friend, Sir Joseph’s name.

This was immensely proper, as I propose colonizing these hitherto Terræ Incognitæ, and know of no person in existence, except myself (who am now decrepit with age, and, alas, sadly poverty stricken) whose scientific qualifications, knowledge of the coast, and well known ardent zeal in the science of Tadpolism, so well entitle him to command such important expedition.

[15]

With leg or wing, he kick or jerk it.

Could we command the years of a Nestor, “the indelible ink” of a Lettersom, and the diligence of a Dutch commentator, we should still readily acknowledge that our powers were totally inadequate to the task of eulogising, in proportion to their merits, the philosophical and literary performances of that profound sage, Dr James Anderson, LL. D., F. R. S., Scotland, &c. &c. whose mysterious hints afford a clue by which we have been enabled to add lustre to the present age, by many of our own sublime discoveries and inventions.

In his deep work called “Recreations in Agriculture and Natural History,” the Doctor says, among other things not less marvelous, “The mathematician can demonstrate with the most decisive certainty, that no fly can alight on this globe which we inhabit, without communicating motion to it; and he can ascertain, with the most accurate precision, if so he choose to do” (by the by, this sine qua non part of the sentence is very beautiful, and not at all redundant) “what must be the exact amount of the motion thus produced.” Vol. ii. p. 350.

[16]

Is doctoring off one generation.

“Perhaps no important revolution was ever bloodless. It may be useful in this place to recollect in what the mischief of shedding blood consists. The abuses, which at present exist in all political societies are so enormous, the oppressions which are exercised are so intolerable, the ignorance and vice which they entail so dreadful, that possibly a dispassionate inquirer might decide that, if their annihilation could be purchased by an instant sweeping off of every human being now arrived at maturity, from the face of the earth, the purchase would not be too dear,” &c. &c.—Godwin’s Political Justice.