It therefore was that much alone He studied; and a room is shown In a coffee-house, an upper room, Where none but hungry devils come, Wherein 'tis said, with animation He read “Vestiges of Creation.”
Accordingly, a month about After he'd chalked up steak and stout For the last time, he gave the world A pamphlet, wherein he unfurled A tissue of facts which, soon as blown, Ran like wildfire through the town. And, first of all, he plainly showed A capital error in the mode Of national defences, thus— “The Greek one thousand miles from us,” Said he, (for nine hundred and ninety-nine The citadel stood above the brine In perpendicular height, allowing For slope of glacis, thereby showing An increase of a mile,) “'tis plain The force that shot and shell would gain, By gravitation, with their own, Would fire the ground by friction alone; Which, being once in fusion schooled Ere cool, as Fire-mist had cooled” Would gain a motion, which must soon, Just as the earth detached the moon And gave her locomotive birth, Detach some twenty miles of earth, And send it swinging in the air, The Devil only could tell where! Then came the probability With what increased facility The Greeks, by this projectile power, Might land on Ilion's highest tower, All safe and sound, in battle array, With howitzers prepared to play, And muskets to the muzzles rammed;— Why, the town would be utterly smashed and jammed, And positively, as the phrase is Vernacular, be “sent to blazes”!
In the second place, he then would ask, (And here he took several members to task, And wondered—“he really must presume To wonder” a statesman like—you know whom— Who ever evinced the deepest sense Of a crying sin in any expense, Should so besotted be, and lost To the fact that now, at public cost, Powder was being day by day Wantonly wasted, blown away);— Yes, he would ask, “with what intent But to perch the Greeks on a battlement From which they might o'erlook the town, The easier to batter it down, Which he had proved must be the case (If it hadn't already taken place): He called on his readers to fear and dread it, Whilst he wrote it,—whilst they read it!” “How simple! How beautifully simple,” said he, “And obvious was the remedy! Look back a century or so— And there was the ancient Norman bow, A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh) Efficient, better, cheaper by half: (He knew quite well the age abused it Because, forsooth, the Normans used it) These, planted in the citadel, Would reach the walls say,—very well; There, having spent their utmost force, They'd drop down right, as a matter of course, A thousand miles! Think—a thousand miles! What was the weight for driving piles To this? He calculated it— 'Twould equal, when both Houses sit, The weight of the entire building, Including Members, paint, and gilding; But, if a speech or the address From the throne were given, something less, Because, as certain snores aver, The House is then much heavier.
Now this, though very much a rub like For Ministers, convinced the public; And Priam, who liked to hear its brays To any tune but “the Marseillaise,” Summoned a Privy Council, where 'Twas shortly settled to confer On Helenus a sole command Of Specials.—He headed that daring band!
And sixteen Specials in Priam's keep Got up from their mahogany; They smoked their pipes in silence deep Till there was such a fog—any Attempt to discover the priest in the smother Had bothered old Airy and Adams and t'other And—Every son of an English mother.
June, 1848.
No. II. Swift's Dunces
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against him.”—Swift.
How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool—by the proverb?
At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the mass of readers, have clearer wits than the dunces—then why should I not know what you are as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.—unless a dunce has a good nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.