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Article TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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To The Editor Of The Freemasons' Magazine.
But the comforts of this and all other club conversation were in a tittle time destroyed by a stranger whom one of the members introduced into our society ; he Was a speculative physician , who had made his fortune by marrying a wealthy widoW , _ now happily in her n-rave . The essence of all the disputants , gossips , and attor . nies ' of three centuries seemed to enter into the composition of this son of
jEsculapius ; his tongue rode at full gallop like a country manmidwife ; his voice was loud , flat , ancl monotonous , like the clack of a mill , or rather like the sound produced by a couple of flails on a . barn floor ; our ears were threshed most unmercifully ; we supposed he was an adept in all the arts depending upon medicine , and apoliffcian of course bthe courtesy of England ; but all subjects were alike
y to this universalist , from the most sublime metaphysics to the mystery of pin-making : he disputed with every one of us on our several professions , and silenced us all in our turns ; not that he was master of every theme on which he pretended to expatiate ; on the contrary , we soon discovered him to be superficial and misinformed in divers articles , and attempted to refute what he had advanced by breaking
out into divers expressions of dissent , such as 'But , pray , sir '— , 'f . beg your pardon , sir '— ' Give me leave , sir '—^ I will venture to say you are misinformed in that particular ; ' and other civil checks of the same nature ; but they had no effect upon this hard-mouthed courser , except that of stimulating him to proceed with redoubled velocity : He seemed both , deaf and blind to the remonstrances and chagrin
of the company ; but dashed through thick and thin as if he had undertaken to harangue , by- inch of candle . We were so overborne by the-tide of his loquacity , that we sat for three successive evenings half petrified with astonishment and vexation . Sometimes we were cheered with a g limpse of hope that this torrent would soon exhaust itself ; but , alas ! we found him a perennial source of noise and disputation . 1 could not help repeating with Horace ,
" Itusticus cxpectat dum defiuat amnis : at life . ; " Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis iEvum . " ::..: ' . - . " The most provoking circumstance of this nuisance was , that lie did not speak either for the entertainment or information of the company ; he had no other view but that of displaying his own superiority in point of understanding ; his aim was to puzzle , to perplex ,
aiid to triumph ; and , by way of manifesting his wit , he extracted a wretched quibble from every hint , motion , or gesticulation of the societ } ' . Overhearing one of the members summing up the reckoning , he denied that five and three made ei ght , and undertook to prove the contrary by mathematical demonstration . When I calledfor a bowl of punch he affirmed there was no such thing in nature
^ that bowls were made of porcelain , earthen-ware , wood or rnetals ;' but they could , not be made of punch , which was a liquid , ergo , I had confounded the mnjits with the minus ; for , omne majus in se corir ibid minus . An honest gentleman who sat by the fire having '• Voi . ' T ; ' ¦ ' ¦ F ' - ¦ '¦¦¦ - " *
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
To The Editor Of The Freemasons' Magazine.
But the comforts of this and all other club conversation were in a tittle time destroyed by a stranger whom one of the members introduced into our society ; he Was a speculative physician , who had made his fortune by marrying a wealthy widoW , _ now happily in her n-rave . The essence of all the disputants , gossips , and attor . nies ' of three centuries seemed to enter into the composition of this son of
jEsculapius ; his tongue rode at full gallop like a country manmidwife ; his voice was loud , flat , ancl monotonous , like the clack of a mill , or rather like the sound produced by a couple of flails on a . barn floor ; our ears were threshed most unmercifully ; we supposed he was an adept in all the arts depending upon medicine , and apoliffcian of course bthe courtesy of England ; but all subjects were alike
y to this universalist , from the most sublime metaphysics to the mystery of pin-making : he disputed with every one of us on our several professions , and silenced us all in our turns ; not that he was master of every theme on which he pretended to expatiate ; on the contrary , we soon discovered him to be superficial and misinformed in divers articles , and attempted to refute what he had advanced by breaking
out into divers expressions of dissent , such as 'But , pray , sir '— , 'f . beg your pardon , sir '— ' Give me leave , sir '—^ I will venture to say you are misinformed in that particular ; ' and other civil checks of the same nature ; but they had no effect upon this hard-mouthed courser , except that of stimulating him to proceed with redoubled velocity : He seemed both , deaf and blind to the remonstrances and chagrin
of the company ; but dashed through thick and thin as if he had undertaken to harangue , by- inch of candle . We were so overborne by the-tide of his loquacity , that we sat for three successive evenings half petrified with astonishment and vexation . Sometimes we were cheered with a g limpse of hope that this torrent would soon exhaust itself ; but , alas ! we found him a perennial source of noise and disputation . 1 could not help repeating with Horace ,
" Itusticus cxpectat dum defiuat amnis : at life . ; " Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis iEvum . " ::..: ' . - . " The most provoking circumstance of this nuisance was , that lie did not speak either for the entertainment or information of the company ; he had no other view but that of displaying his own superiority in point of understanding ; his aim was to puzzle , to perplex ,
aiid to triumph ; and , by way of manifesting his wit , he extracted a wretched quibble from every hint , motion , or gesticulation of the societ } ' . Overhearing one of the members summing up the reckoning , he denied that five and three made ei ght , and undertook to prove the contrary by mathematical demonstration . When I calledfor a bowl of punch he affirmed there was no such thing in nature
^ that bowls were made of porcelain , earthen-ware , wood or rnetals ;' but they could , not be made of punch , which was a liquid , ergo , I had confounded the mnjits with the minus ; for , omne majus in se corir ibid minus . An honest gentleman who sat by the fire having '• Voi . ' T ; ' ¦ ' ¦ F ' - ¦ '¦¦¦ - " *