1831.] Crotchei Castle. 401 



novels, and pays the penalty on his shoulders ; Mr. Henbane, an ama- 

 teur of poisons and antidotes, whose highest ambition is to kill cats for the 

 purpose of bringing them to life again, and -who eventually dispatches 

 himself by a somewhat similar process; Mr. Skionar, a poetic philosopher, 

 a curious compound of the intense and the mystical, who settles every 

 thing by sentiment and intuition ; Mr. Chainmail, an amusing, good- 

 natured young antiquarian, deep in monkish literature, and a strenuous 

 admirer of the fighting, feasting, and praying of the twelfth century ; 

 Mr. Toogood, a co-operationist, indefatigable in his endeavours to parcel 

 out the world into squares like a chess-board; Miss Touchandgo, daugh- 

 ter of the great banker, who evaporated one foggy morning, and was 

 found wanting when his customers, in a body, did him the favour of a 

 call ; Crotchet, junior, son of 'Squire Crotchet of the Castle, a youth 

 ambitious of bubble notoriety, and a partner in the eminent loan-jobbing 

 firm of Catchflat and Company ; and lastly, Lady Clarinda Bossnowl, 

 a virgin of much shrewdness and discretion, and idolized by Captain 

 Fitzchrome, a warrior, with the usual military allowance of brains. At 

 the opening of the tale these various personages are all represented as 

 seated round the breakfast- table of 'Squire Crotchet, when the following 

 characteristic conversation occurs among them : 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. Sir, I say every nation has some eximious virtue'; and 

 your country is pre-eminent in the glory of fish for breakfast. We have much 

 to learn from you in that line at any rate. 



Mr. Mac Quedy. And in many others, Sir, I believe. Morals and meta- 

 physics, politics arid political economy, the way to make the most of all the 

 modifications of smoke ; steam, gas, and paper currency; you have all these 

 to learn from us ; in short, all the arts and sciences. We are the modern 

 Athenians. 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. I, for one, Sir, am content to learn nothing from you 

 but the art and science offish for breakfast. Be content, Sir, to rival the Boeo- 

 tians, whose redeeming virtue was in fish ; touching which point, you may 

 consult Aristophanes and his scholiast in the passage of Lysistrata - 

 xx' c6<i>jXE TO,; ly^fXtij * and leave the name of Athenians to those who have a 

 sense of the beautiful, and a perception of metrical quantity. 



Mr. Mac Quedy. Then, Sir, I presume you set no value on' the right prin- 

 ciples of rent, profit, wages, and currency ? 



The Rev. Dr. Folliott. My principles, Sir, in these things are, to take as 

 much as I can get, and to pay no more than I can help. These are every man's 

 principles, whether they be the right principles or no. There, Sir, is political 

 economy in a nut-shell. 



This, though meant as burlesque, is the truest serious definition we 

 have yet met with of political economy. Mr. Peacock has plucked out 

 the heart of the mystery. He has entered into no polite compromises ; 

 indulged in no ambiguous circumlocution ; but boldly exposed this 

 humbug science in its true colours, and stripped the peacock plumes off 

 the jackdaws who profess it. We say humbug science, for if ever there 

 was a hoax, equal to that of the celebrated bottle-conjuror, political eco- 

 nomy is that one. Though its main object is to explain and illustrate 

 the nature and properties of wealth, no two writers have yet been able 

 to agree in their definition of wealth ; though it professes to be wholly of 

 a practical character, it abounds in more visionary, untenable, inconclu- 



* Calonice wishes destruction to all Boeotians. Lysistrata answers, " Except the 

 eels." Lysistrata, S6. 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XL No. 64. 3 F 



