THEORIES.
But when they came to shape the model,
Not one could fit the other’s noddle.—BUTLER.
MEANWHILE, the last course, and the dessert, passed by. When the ladies
had withdrawn, young Crotchet addressed the company.
_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._ There is one point in which philosophers of all
classes seem to be agreed: that they only want money to regenerate the
world.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—No doubt of it. Nothing is so easy as to lay down the
outlines of perfect society. There wants nothing but money to set it
going. I will explain myself clearly and fully by reading a paper.
(Producing a large scroll.) “In the infancy of society—”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Pray, Mr. Mac Quedy, how is it that all
gentlemen of your nation begin everything they write with the “infancy of
society?”
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Eh, sir, it is the simplest way to begin at the
beginning. “In the infancy of society, when government was invented to
save a percentage; say two and a half per cent.—”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I will not say any such thing.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Well, say any percentage you please.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I will not say any percentage at all.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—“On the principle of the division of labour—”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Government was invented to spend a percentage.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—To save a percentage.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—No, sir, to spend a percentage; and a good deal
more than two and a half percent. Two hundred and fifty per cent.: that
is intelligible.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—“In the infancy of society—”
_Mr. Toogood_.—Never mind the infancy of society. The question is of
society in its maturity. Here is what it should be. (Producing a
paper.) I have laid it down in a diagram.
_Mr. Skionar_.—Before we proceed to the question of government, we must
nicely discriminate the boundaries of sense, understanding, and reason.
Sense is a receptivity—
_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._—We are proceeding too fast. Money being all that
is wanted to regenerate society, I will put into the hands of this
company a large sum for the purpose. Now let us see how to dispose of
it.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—We will begin by taking a committee-room in London,
where we will dine together once a week, to deliberate.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—If the money is to go in deliberative dinners,
you may set me down for a committee man and honorary caterer.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Next, you must all learn political economy, which I will
teach you, very compendiously, in lectures over the bottle.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I hate lectures over the bottle. But pray, sir,
what is political economy?
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Political economy is to the state what domestic economy
is to the family.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—No such thing, sir. In the family there is a
_paterfamilias_, who regulates the distribution, and takes care that
there shall be no such thing in the household as one dying of hunger,
while another dies of surfeit. In the state it is all hunger at one end,
and all surfeit at the other. Matchless claret, Mr. Crotchet.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Vintage of fifteen, Doctor.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—The family consumes, and so does the state.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Consumes, air! Yes: but the mode, the
proportions: there is the essential difference between the state and the
family. Sir, I hate false analogies.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Well, sir, the analogy is not essential. Distribution
will come under its proper head.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Come where it will, the distribution of the
state is in no respect analogous to the distribution of the family. The
_paterfamilias_, sir: the _paterfamilias_.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Well, sir, let that pass. The family consumes, and in
order to consume, it must have supply.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Well, sir, Adam and Eve knew that, when they
delved and span.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Very true, sir (reproducing his scroll). “In the
infancy of society—”
_Mr. Toogood_.—The reverend gentleman has hit the nail on the head. It
is the distribution that must be looked to; it is the _paterfamilias_
that is wanting in the State. Now here I have provided him.
(Reproducing his diagram.)
_Mr. Trillo_.—Apply the money, sir, to building and endowing an opera
house, where the ancient altar of Bacchus may flourish, and justice may
be done to sublime compositions. (Producing a part of a manuscript
opera.)
_Mr. Skionar_.—No, sir, build _sacella_ for transcendental oracles to
teach the world how to see through a glass darkly. (Producing a scroll.)
_Mr. Trillo_.—See through an opera-glass brightly.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—See through a wine-glass 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!
_The 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.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Yes, sir; there are two great classes 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: ὅστις γε πίνειν οἶδε καὶ βίνειν μόνον. 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—
_The 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.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—And I hold it demolished.
_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._ Pray, gentlemen, pocket your manuscripts, fill
your glasses, 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 institution 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.
_The 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?
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Let the frogs have all the advantage of it.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Consider, Doctor, the fish might participate. Think of
the salmon.
_The 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?
_The 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.
_The 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 animâ vili_.
_Mr. Eavesdrop_.—Sir, you are very facetious at my expense.
_The 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 appetite 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.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—My bamboo shall protect me, sir.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Doctor, Doctor, you are growing too polemical.
_The 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.
_The 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.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Well, of all these schemes, I am for Mr.
Trillo’s. Regenerate the Athenian theatre. My classical 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.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Pray, sir, will political economy uphold the
Athenian theatre?
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Surely not. It would be a very unproductive investment.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Then the Captain votes against you. What, sir,
did not the Athenians, the wisest of nations, appropriate to their
theatre their most sacred and intangible fund? Did not they give to
melopoeia, choregraphy, and the sundry forms of didascalics, the
precedence of all other matters, civil and military? Was it not their
law, that even the proposal to divert this fund to any other purpose
should be punished with death? But, sir, I further propose that the
Athenian theatre being resuscitated, the admission shall be free to all
who can expound the Greek choruses, constructively, mythologically, and
metrically, and to none others. So shall all the world learn Greek:
Greek, the Alpha and Omega of all knowledge. At him who sits not in the
theatre shall be pointed the finger of scorn: he shall be called in the
highway of the city, “a fellow without Greek.”
_Mr. Trillo_.—But the ladies, sir, the ladies.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Every man may take in a lady: and she who can
construe and metricise a chorus, shall, if she so please, pass in by
herself.
_Mr. Trillo_.—But, sir, you will shut me out of my own theatre. Let
there at least be a double passport, Greek and Italian.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—No, sir; I am inexorable. No Greek, no theatre.
_Mr. Trillo_.—Sir, I cannot consent to be shut out from my own theatre.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—You see how it is, Squire Crotchet the younger;
you can scarcely find two to agree on a scheme, and no two of those can
agree on the details. Keep your money in your pocket. And so ends the
fund for regenerating the world.
_Mr. Mac Quedy_.—Nay, by no means. We are all agreed on deliberative
dinners.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Very true; we will dine and discuss. We will
sing with Robin Hood, “If I drink water while this doth last;” and while
it lasts we will have no adjournment, if not to the Athenian theatre.
_Mr. Trillo_.—Well, gentlemen, I hope this chorus at least will please
you:—
If I drink water while this doth last,
May I never again drink wine:
For how can a man, in his life of a span,
Do anything better than dine?
We'll dine and drink, and say if we think
That anything better can be,
And when we have dined, wish all mankind
May dine as well as we.
And though a good wish will fill no dish
And brim no cup with sack,
Yet thoughts will spring as the glasses ring,
To illume our studious track.
On the brilliant dreams of our hopeful schemes
The light of the flask shall shine;
And we’ll sit till day, but we’ll find the way
To drench the world with wine.
The schemes for the world’s regeneration evaporated in a tumult of
voices.