Page:A budget of paradoxes (IA cu31924103990507).pdf/504

 Mr. Reddie was certain I had garbled him, evidently on purpose to make falsehood appear truth; yet all three profess respect for me as to everything but power to see truth, or candour to admit it. And on the other hand, though these were the modes of opening communication with me, and though I have no doubt that all three are proper persons of whom to inquire whether I should go up-stairs or down-stairs, &c., yet I am satisfied they are thoroughly respectable men, as to everything but reasoning. And I dare say our several professions are far more true in extent than in many which are made under more parliamentary form. We find excuses for each other: they make allowance for my being hoodwinked by Aristotle, by Newton, by the Devil; and I permit them to feel, for I know they cannot get on without it, that their reasons are such as none but a knave or a sinner can resist. But they are content with cutting a slice each out of my character: neither of them is more than an uncle, a Bone-a-part; I now come to a dreadful nephew, Bone-the-whole.

I will not give the name of the poor fellow who has fallen so far below both the honestum and the utile, to say nothing of the decorum or the dulce. He is the fourth who has taken elaborate notice of me; and my advice to him would be, Nec quarta loqua persona laboret. According to him, I scorn humanity, scandalize learning, and disgrace the press; it admits of no manner of doubt that my object is to mislead the public and silence truth, at the expense of the interests of science, the wealth of the nation, and the lives of my fellow men. The only thing left to be settled is, whether this is due to ignorance, natural distaste for truth, personal malice, a wish to curry favour with the Astronomer Royal, or mere toadyism. The only accusation which has truth in it is, that I have made myself a 'public scavenger of science': the assertion, which is the most false of all is, that the results of my broom and spade are 'shot right in between the columns of' the Athenæum. I declare I never in my life inserted a word between the columns of the Athenæum: I feel huffed and miffed at the very supposition. I have made myself a public scavenger; and why not? Is the mud never to be collected into a heap? I look down upon the other scavengers, of whom there have been a few—mere historical drudges; Montucla, Hutton, &c.—as not fit to compete with me. I say of them what one crossing-sweeper said of the rest: 'They are well enough for the common thing; but put them to a bit of fancy-work, such as sweeping round a post, and see what a mess they make of it!' Who can touch me at sweeping round a paradoxer? If I complete my design of