THE HIGHEST CLASSES IN GREAT BRITAIN. 597 



After some time spent in preliminaries, during which my curiosity 

 was alive as to the cause which had brought together men of great 

 reputation, a venerable and highly intelligent-looking man seated 

 himself at the table ; and the secretary, with great ceremony, placed 

 before him a piece of broken mouldy stone, scored evidently, at 

 least to my unpractised eye, by the pickaxe of the labourer who dug 

 it from its original bed. It had, however, been found in the middle 

 of a waste common, and was currently reported either to have fallen 

 from the moon, or been part of an altar erected by a savage people, 

 who were supposed to have had a settlement here some centuries 

 before the common era. The objects of the lecturer were, in the 

 first place, to settle the dispute as to its origin ; and in the second, 

 to demonstrate the degree of civilisation indicated by it. After four 

 hours of prosy nonsense, having neither head nor tail, he declared 

 that the stone had fallen from the moon ; that from the specimen 

 before him, it was quite clear the inhabitants of that planet had a 

 written language, and an alphabet of eighty-four letters; and that 

 they had printing-presses of a strange construction, and eat their 

 victuals uncooked. The meeting applauded loudly, and I left it, 

 muttering to myself " Prodigious ! what a singular people ! " 



My next attendance was upon a meeting of the members of a sort 

 of medical society; and as the lecture was announced to be upon a 

 very curious and interesting topic, and to be delivered by a fashion- 

 able doctor, I found a large assemblage, including many ladies of 

 rank and fashion. The discourse was to be in Latin, which gave me, 

 at first, a high notion of the learning of the attenders, both male and 

 female ; but this gave way to surprise, when the lecturer began his 

 oration, as he had very skilfully contrived to coin a language so 

 nearly resembling the vernacular, that there was no difficulty in un- 

 derstanding him. This struck me as a piece of most ingenious refine- 

 ment, as every body seemed pleased with, the idea of comprehending 

 so readily a foreign and classical language. His lecture consisted of 

 a long string of prettinesses of and concerning certain secretions of 

 the human body ; and of other subjects, which, I confess, not a little 

 surprised me. He was, however, listened to with profound atten- 

 tion, and was frequently loudly applauded. Three distinct cheers 

 followed the conclusion ; and I left the place, half-suffocated by the 

 heat and pressure, exclaiming to myself " What a singular people ! 

 how nice in their ideas ! how learned and ingenious in their views !" 



A few days after this lecture, I attended a meeting of a very dis- 

 tinguished society, established, as I was told, for the advancement and 

 encouragement of the arts and sciences in general, and of chemistry 

 in particular. As this was the first meeting of the season, it was got 

 up to give great eclat, and a large theatre was filled with a fashionable 

 collection of both sexes. Many foreigners of eminent reputation 

 were also present. After all these pompous announcements, I heard 

 nothing but a string of tremendously hard words, which I was told 

 was a description of the atmosphere of a new star which had just 

 been discovered. As it was only of the sixth magnitude, great 

 praise was given to the lecturer for his exact observations; and I 



M.M. No. 6. 4 H 



