is scarce less ridiculous than Shakspeare’s
Bravely broach’d his bloody boiling breast.
I believe wherever it is perceived, it disgusts. There is something very ridiculous in the pains of an author when he is searching for a set of words beginning with the same letter: this surely argues a “lack of matter.” A man who has things in his head, is never curious about words, unless it be those which express his meaning quickest and clearest. I would have given something to have seen the paper upon which Smollet first sketched the titles of some of his novels. I dare say it cost him as much time to fix upon the name Roderick Random, as to write some of the best parts in that sprightly and entertaining performance.——Robert and Richard were common, Roger and Ralph were vulgar—there was a necessity for a sounding uncommon name, and beginning with an R: at last, by a lucky chance Roderick occurred—and Roderick it is.—Do you think me fanciful? I call upon Peregrine Pickle, and Ferdinand Fathom to prove the contrary.
If we laugh at the hard-sought-for Alliteration of the poet and historian, may we not laugh a little louder at that of the comic dramatist? Can any language be less that of nature or common conversation, than strings of words beginning with an M or N? And yet this has been done by one who paints the “Manners living as they rise.” It is surprizing that so sprightly a genius as Foote could submit to the drudgery of consulting his spelling-book for words proper to be paired—my three ppp’s put me in mind of a letter in the Student, in which p is predominant—it is highly humourous and well worth your perusing.
Will you give me leave to make an abrupt transition from Alliteration to Literation, and pardon me also for coining?
The Germans in pronouncing English, and writing it too, if they have not studied the language, almost constantly change b into p, d into t, g (hard) into k, v into f, and the reverse. This peculiarity of theirs, I find, upon recollection, is not confined to English. In the Burletta of La buona Figliola, the author makes his German character to say trompetti and tampurri—nay they serve their own language the same, as I have observed from their pronunciation of proper names of cities, &c. it seems difficult to account for this——but perhaps not more so than for the trick of the French in giving an aspirate to those English words where there is none, and omitting it where it should be used.——I once saw a French-man much surprized, (not disconcerted) at a general laugh when he was comparing our country women with his—an unlucky misplaced aspirate was all the cause—“The English ladies,” says he, “are so plain, but the French ladies are so ῞airy!”
LETTER XXVIII.
THOUGH superstition is pretty well laughed away, yet there are some points in which we can never get the better of it. The wedding ring in coffee grounds—the coffin in the candle—the stranger in the fire, are marked by none but vulgar and foolish eyes. You see salt spilt, hear death-watches—owls hoot—dogs howl, and despise the omen—you are above it. But yet let me ask you, an enlightened philosopher—Whether you are above choice of seats at whist? Whether you have not really believed that your chance for winning was much bettered by your taking the fortunate chairs, and of course obliging your adversaries to sit, not in those of the scornful, but of the losers? When you quit the game on a run of ill luck, what is it but declaring your belief that the games already played have an influence upon those which are to come?
Each ticket in a lottery has an equal chance——do you think so? Number 1000 got the great prize in the last lottery—now, confess honestly that you feel something within that tells you the same number can never win the great prize again—you would prefer every other number to it—and yet reason says, that all the tickets have an equal probability of success. In these instances and many others, superstition, even in cultivated minds, will be always more than a match for truth.