MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS. 189 



Regent- street, (in which the microscopes were all of the 

 megaloscopic species, and also of the most cumbersome 

 and unscientific construction,) and those of the peripatetic 

 genus of microscopists, who, knowing right weU how to 

 cater for the taste of the multitude, also patronize the 

 megaloscope, — engiscopes of low powers, though by far 

 the most amusing and in many cases the most useful 

 instruments, also seem to have been quite neglected, 

 while the high powers have been brought to the greatest 

 perfection of which perhaps they are capable. It is 

 necessary, however, that both extremes should be equally 

 improved, and the finishing stroke wiU not have been 

 given to the radical reform of microscopes tUl this is 

 effected. It is the sentiment of many that we have been 

 dosed with improvements on the microscope ad nauseam 

 usque: the scrapings of the bowl, however, must and 

 shall be swallowed, though Messrs. Rococo and Micronous 

 of the Spectacle-makers' Company insist upon it that 

 everybody who makes an improvement on the microscope 

 ought to be comphmented with thirty good whacks with 

 a bamboo on the most fleshy part of his person, just as 

 in the celestial and unchangeable empire of China, every 

 one who makes or pretends to make an improvement or 

 adopts any novelty in ship -building is* ; and aU who 

 have seen Chinese junks of war must admit that the best 

 of our ships cannot be compared with or talked of in the 

 same day with them — which is no doubt the excellent 



* Captain Basil Hall is my authority for this. 



