Crotchet Castle. Thomas Love Peacock
century, whose studies were interrupted in the dead of night by the Devil, when a couple of epigrams passed between them, and the Devil, of course, proved the smaller wit of the two.
This reverend gentleman, being both learned and jolly, became by degrees an indispensable ornament to the new squire’s table. Mr. Crotchet himself was eminently jolly, though by no means eminently learned. In the latter respect he took after the great majority of the sons of his father’s land; had a smattering of many things, and a knowledge of none; but possessed the true northern art of making the most of his intellectual harlequin’s jacket, by keeping the best patches always bright and prominent.
CHAPTER II
THE MARCH OF MIND
Quoth Ralpho: nothing but the abuse
Of human learning you produce.—Butler.
“God bless my soul, sir!” exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, bursting, one fine May morning, into the breakfast-room at Crotchet Castle, “I am out of all patience with this march of mind. Here has my house been nearly burned down by my cook taking it into her head to study hydrostatics in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society, and written by a learned friend who is for doing all the world’s business as well as his own, and is equally well qualified to handle every branch of human knowledge. I have a great abomination of this learned friend; as author, lawyer, and politician, he is triformis, like Hecate; and in every one of his three forms he is bifrons, like Janus; the true Mr. Facing-both-ways of Vanity Fair. My cook must read his rubbish in bed; and, as might naturally be expected, she dropped suddenly fast asleep, overturned the candle, and set the curtains in a blaze. Luckily, the footman went into the room at the moment, in time to tear down the curtains and throw them into the chimney, and a pitcher of water on her nightcap extinguished her wick; she is a greasy subject, and would have burned like a short mould.”
The reverend gentleman exhaled his grievance without looking to the right or to the left; at length, turning on his pivot, he perceived that the room was full of company, consisting of young Crotchet, and some visitors whom he had brought from London. The Reverend Doctor Folliott was introduced to Mr. Mac Quedy, the economist; Mr. Skionar, the transcendental poet; Mr. Firedamp, the meteorologist; and Lord Bossnowl, son of the Earl of Foolincourt, and member for the borough of Rogueingrain.
The divine took his seat at the breakfast-table, and began to compose his spirits by the gentle sedative of a large cup of tea, the demulcent of a well-buttered muffin, and the tonic of a small lobster.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—You are a man of taste, Mr. Crotchet. A man of taste is seen at once in the array of his breakfast-table. It is the foot of Hercules, the far-shining face of the great work, according to Pindar’s doctrine: ἀρχομένου ἔργου πρόςωπον χρὴ θέμεν πηλαυγές. The breakfast is the πρόςωπον of the great work of the day. Chocolate, coffee, tea, cream, eggs, ham, tongue, cold fowl, all these are good, and bespeak good knowledge in him who sets them forth: but the touchstone is fish: anchovy is the first step, prawns and shrimps the second; and I laud him who reaches even to these: potted char and lampreys are the third, and a fine stretch of progression; but lobster is, indeed, matter for a May morning, and demands a rare combination of knowledge and virtue in him who sets it forth.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, and what say you to a fine fresh trout, hot and dry, in a napkin? or a herring out of the water into the frying-pan, on the shore of Loch Fyne?
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, I say every nation has some eximious virtue; and your country is pre-eminent in the glory of fish for breakfast. We have much to learn from you in that line at any rate.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—And in many others, sir, I believe. Morals and metaphysics, politics and political economy, the way to make the most of all the modifications of smoke; steam, gas, and paper currency; you have all these to learn from us; in short, all the arts and sciences. We are the modern Athenians.
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.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—No, sir! let Ude and the learned friend singe fowls together; let both avaunt from my kitchen. Θύρας δ’ ἐπίθεσθε βεβήλοις. Ude says an elegant supper may be given with sandwiches. Horresco referens. An elegant supper. Dî meliora piis. No Ude for me. Conviviality went out with punch and suppers. I cherish their memory. I sup when I can, but not upon sandwiches. To offer me a sandwich, when I am looking for a supper, is to add insult to injury. Let the learned friend, and the modern Athenians, sup upon sandwiches.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Nay, sir; the modern Athenians know better than that. A literary supper in sweet Edinbro’ would cure you of the prejudice you seem to cherish against us.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Well, sir, well; there is cogency in a good supper; a good supper in these degenerate days bespeaks a good man; but much more is wanted to make up an Athenian. Athenians, indeed! where is your theatre? who among you has written a comedy? where is your Attic salt? which of you can tell who was Jupiter’s great-grandfather? or what metres will successively remain, if you take off the three first syllables, one by one, from a pure antispastic acatalectic tetrameter? Now, sir, there are three questions for you: theatrical, mythological, and metrical; to every one of which an Athenian would give an answer that would lay me prostrate in my own nothingness.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, as to your metre and your mythology, they may e’en wait a wee. For your comedy there is the “Gentle Shepherd” of the divine Allan Ramsay.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—The “Gentle Shepherd”! It is just as much a comedy as the Book of Job.
Mr. Mac Quedy.—Well, sir, if none of us have written a comedy, I cannot see that it is any such great matter, any more than I can conjecture what business a man can have at this time of day with Jupiter’s great-grandfather.
The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—The