MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS. 191 



little or no profit is to be got. These evils caU for a 

 serious remedy. The Chinese one is rather too severe 

 for a free country, and gladiators and venations are out of 

 fashion just now ; but I think all mischievous improvers 

 might have their persons tarred and feathered and their 

 faces chalked : they should then be paraded about astride 

 of a pole (not too finely planed or polished and well pelted 

 with sheeps' eyes and rotten eggs,) though, after all, 

 nothing should be considered a real improvement which 

 is not a good shop article. I cannot refrain from remark- 

 ing that the punishment I have just recommended may 

 in the opinion of some be thought admirably adapted to 

 constitution- and democracy-manufacturers, who would 

 tolerate no absolute government in heaven, or any genuine 

 republic on earth (for a true republic and a mobocracy 

 or canailleocracy are two very different things). 



A truce, however, to these digressions. I suppose it 

 will be admitted that if it is worth while to do a thing at 

 all, it is worth while to do it weU ; and, if well, I presume 

 as well as possible. Now it has always been my aim, 

 in all the constructions of optical instruments I have laid 

 before the public, to contrive everything for the best, as 

 far as my abilities would permit. Neither have I been 

 inattentive to economy ; for I have recommended nothing 

 superfluous ; and where, of two modes ^of doing a thing 

 equally weU, one is easier and consequently cheaper than 

 the other, I have given the preference to the least Expen- 

 sive . This is very different from the practice of a regular 

 trader ; who always endeavours to select a showy con- 



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