man who is perpetually writing what he
calls his meteorological observations to
the Times newspaper; and, the contempt
of that person for the wondrous and
intangible, is something revolting. As if the
mean temperature was not a sufficiently
harassing subject, he has actually an adopted
mean temperature of his own. The barometer
—an instrument that is never quite
disconnected in some minds from the ther-
mometer; so far, at least, as to determine
accurately which—is which is with him a
barometer (reduced). He has tamed, then,
through hunger most likely—this terrible
master of the elements—and I dare say has
the state of the weather under his thumb.

I don't like asking questions of scientific
people, because they are so unwittingly
insulting. If I desire to know the reason,
from my friend Jack Savant, of the difference
between neap and spring tides, for instance,
Savant replies: " Why, we all know how the
operation of the tides is influenced by the
changes of the moon "—Now, that is just
what we don't know—just what, as I sit
here, I have no more notion of than I have of
what the ecliptic is, or who painted the signs
of the zodiac; but that " we all know " of
the initiated, makes the " we haven't the
least idea " of the rest of us. If a book in a
sealed cover, and which could be forwarded
to us secretly, should be published, containing
explanations of all the unintelligible
though familiar terms in the language, it
would be bought up by me—by us—like
wild-fire.

Vaccination and Inoculation, the Binomial
Theorem and the Differential Calculus, and
the Deccan and the Delta, never appear to me
except in company, like the Siamese Twins,
and I cannot say that I quite know one from
the other. I should like to move for a return
of the billions of people who use, or hear
used, the words Chiar' Oscuro without knowing
what they're talking about, or
understanding what is said to them. I should
like to be informed privately, whether the
bas of bas-relief should be pronounced like
the bleat of a sheep (in the French style), or
in the same manner as we name a clef in
music, or bitter beer; because I hear all three
ways adopted. I should like to have a
written definition of the word Consols from
all the women of England, and nineteen-
twentieths of the country gentlemen. I
would give a sovereign to know, even by
sight, the Public Creditor. It would be a
great boon to all of us, if Mr. Macaulay would
explain, in a footnote of the next edition of
his collected works, whom or what he means
by the Carnatic; most of the gentlemen
(with university educations) whom I have
consulted upon this point, incline to the
opinion, that it is some sort of pestilence or
disease, but they are not certain, they say.
It is all very well to make jokes on this
matter, and take liberties with that; but
I very much doubt, whether the whole first
class in any one year at Oxford could give
me an accurate account of the origin and
continuance of Leap Year; the whole list of
Cambridge Wranglers, on the other hand,
would be posed, I believe, if they were asked,
upon their honours, if they knew who was
the Stagirite? I am not iu a position myself
to swear positively as to its being a plant, a
stone, or a man; but I believe it to be
something that sticks to the side of sea-caves, and
is eaten (by naturalists) with a pin.

I assert most solemnly, on the part of several
thousands of my fellow-countrymen in easy
circumstances, that I believed (until I saw it
stated otherwise in the daily papers) that The
O'Connor Don, was a peculiar species of
Cossack: I conceived The Chisolm was an animal
in the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens,
that had been the rage at some byegone
time; perhaps before the hippopotamus and
the ant-eater. Are you greatly interested
in the famous question of the Digamma? So
am I, wrapped up in it, indeed, to the exclusion
of all other subjects: and, seriously, I
would give what I have, as the young waterman
so touchingly replied to Dr. Johnson's
question about the Argonauts, to know
anything of that famous hero, of whom I have
heard so much and understand so little.

Again, if there is one person who seems to me
to link the past with the present more than
another, and whose identity is especially
Caviare to the multitude—and, is that final
e to be pronounced or not; and what is
Caviare itself, when that is settled?—that
person is Malthus. Now his is certainly a fine
old Roman name, and I seem to connect it
dimly with the Horatii and Curiatii, the forum,
fasces, the augurs, and so on: yet I cannot
altogether dispossess myself of a fancy of once
having heard or read of him as The Reverend
Mr. Malthus. The wisest person, to my mind,
who ever flourished—the man who had all
knowledge at his fingers' ends, from Runic to
the last flash expletive—was, without doubt, the
late Mr. Maunder; but, then, like my friend,
Savant, and other great men, he would never
stoop quite low enough: he defines well, but
I want another man to explain his definitions.
He reminds me of an old acquaintance of
mine at the Swindon station, a stoker, of whom
I endeavoured once to get some private
information; it was about the birth, parentage,
and education of his steam-engine (of the five
hundred people who entrusted themselves to
which daily, I don't believe five could give a
reason for the faith that was in them), and
be began his elucidation, thus:—

"Why, fust, sir, we must, of coorse, create
a wacuum."

"Well, thank you, my good friend," I said,
' I think that will do for to-day; " and, of
course, I never asked the fellow for anything
more.

I hope it will not be imagined from these
confessious, that I know nothing at all. I