“Oh you, who stayed the hand with which you were tracing the progress of the human mind, to carry the mortal mixture to your lips—it was by other thoughts and other sentiments that your judgment was at length determined in that last deliberated act. You restored your republican spirit to an eternal freedom, by that poison which we had shared together, like a morsel of bread between two brothers.”
[240]. Isosceles—An equi-crural triangle—It is represented as a Giant, because Mr. Higgins says he has observed that procerity is much promoted by the equal length of the legs, more especially when they are long legs.
[241]. Mathesis—The doctrine of mathematics—Pope calls her mad Mathesis.—Vide Johnson’s Dictionary.
[242]. Hallucinating—The disorder with which Mathesis is affected is a disease of increased volition, called erotomania, or sentimental love. It is the fourth species of the second genus of the first order and third class; in consequence of which, Mr. Hackman shot Miss Reay in the lobby of the playhouse.—Vide Zoonomia, vol. ii., pp. 363, 365.
[243]. Galvanic fires—Dr. Galvani is a celebrated philosopher at Turin. He has proved that the electric fluid is the proximate cause of nervous sensibility; and Mr. Higgins is of opinion that by means of this discovery, the sphere of our disagreeable sensations may be, in future, considerably enlarged. “Since dead frogs (says he) are awakened by this fluid to such a degree of posthumous sensibility as to jump out of the glass in which they are placed, why not men, who are sometimes so much more sensible when alive? And if so, why not employ this new stimulus to deter mankind from dying (which they so pertinaciously continue to do) of various old-fashioned diseases, notwithstanding all the brilliant discoveries of modern philosophy, and the example of Count Cagliostro?”
[244]. Internal Angles, &c.—This is an exact versification of Euclid’s fifth theorem.—Vide Euclid in loco.
[245]. Asses-Bridge—Pons Asinorum—The name usually given to the before-mentioned theorem—though, as Mr. Higgins thinks, absurdly. He says, that having frequently watched companies of asses during their passage of a bridge, he never discovered in them any symptoms of geometrical instinct upon the occasion. But he thinks that with Spanish asses, which are much larger (vide Townsend’s Travels through Spain), the case may possibly be different.
[246]. Fare—A person, or a number of persons, conveyed in a hired vehicle by land or water.
[247]. Badged boatman—Boatmen sometimes wear a badge, to distinguish them, especially those who belong to the Watermen’s Company.
[248]. Alp, or Alps—A ridge of mountains which separate the North of Italy from the South of Germany. They are evidently primeval and volcanic, consisting of granite, toadstone, and basalt, and several other substances, containing animal and vegetable recrements, and affording numberless undoubted proofs of the infinite antiquity of the earth, and of the consequent falsehood of the Mosaic chronology.