The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—I, for one, sir, am content to learn nothing from you but the art and science of fish for breakfast. Be content, sir, to rival the Boeotians, whose redeeming virtue was in fish, touching which point you may consult Aristophanes and his scholiast in the passage of Lysistrata, ἀλλ’ ἄφελε τὰς ἐγχέλεις, and leave the name of Athenians to those who have a sense of the beautiful, and a perception of metrical quantity.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Then, sir, I presume you set no value on the right principles of rent, profit, wages, and currency?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—My principles, sir, in these things are, to take as much as I can get, and pay no more than I can help. These are every man’s principles, whether they be the right principles or no. There, sir, is political economy in a nutshell.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—The principles, sir, which regulate production and consumption are independent of the will of any individual as to giving or taking, and do not lie in a nutshell by any means.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, I will thank you for a leg of that capon.
Lord Bossnowl.—But, sir, by-the-bye, how came your footman to be going into your cook’s room? It was very providential to be sure, but—
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, as good came of it, I shut my eyes, and ask no questions. I suppose he was going to study hydrostatics, and he found himself under the necessity of practising hydraulics.
Mr. Firedamp.—Sir, you seem to make very light of science.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Yes, sir, such science as the learned friend deals in: everything for everybody, science for all, schools for all, rhetoric for all, law for all, physic for all, words for all, and sense for none. I say, sir, law for lawyers, and cookery for cooks: and I wish the learned friend, for all his life, a cook that will pass her time in studying his works; then every dinner he sits down to at home, he will sit on the stool of repentance.
Lord Bossnowl.—Now really that would be too severe: my cook should read nothing but Ude.