Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/180

 164 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES characters are continually taking snuff, but this does not appear to have been supplied by the tobacconist. The pipes are simply pastoral, and none of the weeds is The Weed. Let the antis ^ exult and triumph over us : neither in Shakespeare nor in the Bible is there sanction for such burning of incense as ours. It may be pleaded that Shakespeare places all his dramas in times anterior to his own ; that he scarcely ever touches on contemporary matters, save to flatter, courtier-like, his queen and king, or kick at a puppet- show stealing away his audiences (as if people had not a perfect right to go to see marionettes rather than Hamlet^ if so their tastes led them !) : we accept these apologies in palliation, we cannot in full vindi- cation. Let us frankly admit that the greatest and most universal writers have their faults— of com- mission, and yet more of omission. Has not Swift pointed out, among other defects ("Tale of a Tub," sect, v.), that Homer himself "seems to have read but very superficially either Sendivogius, Behmen, or Anthroposophia Theomagica?" And the weeping critic continues : " Having read his writings with the utmost application usual among modern wits, I could never yet discover the least direction about the struc- ture of that useful instrument, a save-all; for want of which, if the moderns had not lent their assistance, we might yet have wandered in the dark." And then, saddest of all : " But I have still behind a fault far more notorious to tax this author with ; I mean his gross ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine as well as discipline of the Church of England." And these heavy charges equally apply
 * i.e., anti-tobacco fanatics.