MR. SKIONAR. No, sir, build sacella for transcendental oracles to teach the world how to see through a gla.s.s darkly. (Producing a scroll.)

MR. TRILLO. See through an opera-gla.s.s brightly.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. See through a wine-gla.s.s full of claret; then you see both darkly and brightly. But, gentlemen, if you are all in the humour for reading papers, I will read you the first half of my next Sunday's sermon. (Producing a paper.)

OMNES. No sermon! No sermon!

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Then I move that our respective papers be committed to our respective pockets.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Political economy is divided into two great branches, production and consumption.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Yes, sir; there are two great cla.s.ses of men: those who produce much and consume little; and those who consume much and produce nothing. The fruges consumere nati have the best of it. Eh, Captain! You remember the characteristics of a great man according to Aristophanes: [Greek text]. Ha! ha! ha! Well, Captain, even in these tight-laced days, the obscurity of a learned language allows a little pleasantry.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. Very true, sir; the pleasantry and the obscurity go together; they are all one, as it were--to me at any rate (aside).

MR. MAC QUEDY. Now, sir -

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Pray, sir, let your science alone, or you will put me under the painful necessity of demolishing it bit by bit, as I have done your exordium. I will undertake it any morning; but it is too hard exercise after dinner.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Well, sir, in the meantime I hold my science established.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. And I hold it demolished.

MR. CROTCHET, JUN. Pray, gentlemen, pocket your ma.n.u.scripts, fill your gla.s.ses, and consider what we shall do with our money.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Build lecture-rooms, and schools for all.

MR. TRILLO. Revive the Athenian theatre; regenerate the lyrical drama.

MR. TOOGOOD. Build a grand co-operative parallelogram, with a steam-engine in the middle for a maid of all work.

MR. FIREDAMP. Drain the country, and get rid of malaria, by abolishing duck-ponds.

DR. MORBIFIC. Found a philanthropic college of anticontagionists, where all the members shall be inoculated with the virus of all known diseases. Try the experiment on a grand scale.

MR. CHAINMAIL. Build a great dining-hall; endow it with beef and ale, and hang the hall round with arms to defend the provisions.

MR. HENBANE. Found a toxicological inst.i.tution for trying all poisons and antidotes. I myself have killed a frog twelve times, and brought him to life eleven; but the twelfth time he died. I have a phial of the drug, which killed him, in my pocket, and shall not rest till I have discovered its antidote.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I move that the last speaker be dispossessed of his phial, and that it be forthwith thrown into the Thames.

MR. HENBANE. How, sir? my invaluable, and, in the present state of human knowledge, infallible poison?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Let the frogs have all the advantage of it.

MR. CROTCHET. Consider, Doctor, the fish might partic.i.p.ate. Think of the salmon.

REV DR. FOLLIOTT. Then let the owner's right-hand neighbour swallow it.

MR. EAVESDROP. Me, sir! What have I done, sir, that I am to be poisoned, sir?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, you have published a character of your facetious friend, the Reverend Doctor F., wherein you have sketched off me; me, sir, even to my nose and wig. What business have the public with my nose and wig?

MR. EAVESDROP. Sir, it is all good-humoured; all in bonhomie: all friendly and complimentary.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, the bottle, la Dive Bouteille, is a recondite oracle, which makes an Eleusinian temple of the circle in which it moves. He who reveals its mysteries must die. Therefore, let the dose be administered. Fiat experimentum in anima vili.

MR. EAVESDROP. Sir, you are very facetious at my expense.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, you have been very unfacetious, very inficete at mine. You have dished me up, like a savoury omelette, to gratify the appet.i.te of the reading rabble for gossip. The next time, sir, I will respond with the argumentum baculinum. Print that, sir: put it on record as a promise of the Reverend Doctor F., which shall be most faithfully kept, with an exemplary bamboo.

MR. EAVESDROP. Your cloth protects you, sir.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. My bamboo shall protect me, sir.

MR. CROTCHET. Doctor, Doctor, you are growing too polemical.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Sir, my blood boils. What business have the public with my nose and wig?

MR. CROTCHET. Doctor! Doctor!

MR. CROTCHET, JUN. Pray, gentlemen, return to the point. How shall we employ our fund?

MR. PHILPOT. Surely in no way so beneficially as in exploring rivers. Send a fleet of steamboats down the Niger, and another up the Nile. So shall you civilise Africa, and establish stocking factories in Abyssinia and Bambo.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. With all submission, breeches and petticoats must precede stockings. Send out a crew of tailors. Try if the King of Bambo will invest in inexpressibles.

MR. CROTCHET, JUN. Gentlemen, it is not for partial, but for general benefit, that this fund is proposed: a grand and universally applicable scheme for the amelioration of the condition of man.

SEVERAL VOICES. That is my scheme. I have not heard a scheme but my own that has a grain of common sense.

MR. TRILLO. Gentlemen, you inspire me. Your last exclamation runs itself into a chorus, and sets itself to music. Allow me to lead, and to hope for your voices in harmony.

After careful meditation, And profound deliberation, On the various pretty projects which have just been shown, Not a scheme in agitation, For the world's amelioration, Has a grain of common sense in it, except my own.

SEVERAL VOICES. We are not disposed to join in any such chorus.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Well, of all these schemes, I am for Mr.

Trillo's. Regenerate the Athenian theatre. My cla.s.sical friend here, the Captain, will vote with, me.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. I, sir? oh! of course, sir.

MR. MAC QUEDY. Surely, Captain, I rely on you to uphold political economy.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. Me, sir! oh, to be sure, sir.