29 



SIR PETTRONELL FLASH. 



SCENE — A publisher's ROOM. 



In the centre, a larg^e round table covered with manuscript papers, 

 rich sybilline leaves, the value of which increased in the ratio of 

 their deficiency — Grammars of the Chinese language, in octavo, 

 essays on taste, and lectures against taste, physics, and meta- 

 physics, histories past, present, and future, prosaical poetry, and 

 poetical prose — old sermons distorted into modern addresses — 

 infant schools and systems without end — half a dozen dark, 

 heavy-looking chairs, a large sofa, covered with dingy moreen, 

 a black, James the First looking cabinet, with a bust of some 

 modern Cato, jammed between the top and the ceiling, were the 

 chief articles of furniture ; — the chimney-piece, the household 

 museum and common receptacle of curiosities and cracked china, 

 was strewed with sundry articles, a large shell, a piece of spar, 

 almost opaque with dust, two or three pill-boxes, pens, spills, 

 and a dirty taper, &c. &c. In the centre a handsome marble 

 dial, with fluted pillars, somewhat improved the appearance of 

 the apartment Against the wall, a little above the bright 

 oscillating pendulum, hung a pencil sketch of the genius of this 

 sanctuary, over which was an engraving, from Barry's first division 

 of the Adelphi series, Orpheus harmonising the barbarian Greeks. 

 With what a sweet, satisfied, complacent eye did the little 

 publisher critic glance from Orpheus to himself; if the coun- 

 tenances were unlike, the occupations of each were identical; 

 certainly the " idola specus" of the barbarian and the modern 

 European were somewhat dissimilar, but then the application was 

 the same. Alexander the Great, and Alexander the Copper- 

 smith, have been twin brothers in association, Tant pis for the 

 first Alexander, tant mieux for the last — the balance is struck — 

 " 'tis all one." Orpheus taught the Greeks to fiddle, but the 

 moral Triptolemus of Paternoster is the Titan of the pen — more 

 famed than the spear of Telephus is the fair goose quill — " the 

 mighty instrument of little men." A thick clumsy bell-rope, 

 with a rosette the size of a warming-pan, and a tassel like a 

 pillow, measured the altitude of the room, and hung, dangling 

 over an old-fashioned coal-box. A high-backed easy chair was 

 drawn close to the table, in which reposed the charming person 

 of our little Aristarchus. Mr. P. was attentively perusing some 

 worn-out manuscript on Church Reform, national decay, or 

 changes in the moon. To give a slight sketch of our little 

 bibliopolist. No one would have called Mr. P. a noticeable man 

 neither in person nor address; he was a short, spare, frigid- 



