Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 099.djvu/94

82 any means; on the contrary, he loves a bit of racy diction, and has no objection to a sally of slang. Thus, in a lecture on the toilet, he is strict about the article of gloves:

A superlative Mr. Jolly Green is shown up,which polite periphrasis is discarded where Achilles' death is mourned,

The last passage is from a protracted play upon words, in which poor Hood is emulated—though the author owns thatin unskilful hands turned back on one's self "by the current of some stronger wit," so that,

A punster, however, Dr. Holmes will be—and already we have had a taste of his quality in the kid-glove case; so again, the "bunions" annexed to the Achilles catastrophe reminds him to explain, that he refers not to

A gourmand, sublimely contemptuous of feasts of reason, argues that

And the irresistible influence of collegiate convivial associations is thus illustrated:

As a satirist, to shoot Folly as it flies, Dr. Holmes bends a bow of strength. His arrows are polished, neatly pointed, gaily feathered, and whirr through the air with cutting emphasis. And he hath his quiver full of them. But, to his honour be it recorded, he knows how and when to stay his hand, and checks himself if about to use a shaft of undue size and weight, or dipped in gall of bitterness. Then he pauses, and says:

Come, let us breathe; a something not divine

Has mingled, bitter, with the flowing line—