224 
all other professions and callings will be 
found perfectly developed in well- 
stored pigeon-holes. Merchants and 
gentlemen of the Stock Exchange will 
Jearn with pleasure, that the utmost 
pains have been taken in the philosophy 
of credit and accommodation-bills, loans, 
jobbing, betting, and joint-stock shares. 
The learned in physic will experience 
equal delight, from the extensive as- 
sortment of valuable prescriptions, war- 
ranted never prepared; also, from the 
new philosophical discovery of an uni- 
versal prescription, equally efficacious 
in every disorder; and from the Philo- 
sophical Dictionary of Soft Compli- 
ments, with an appendix on external 
wisdom and gravity, prepared, with 
much labour, for their exclusive use.— 
Divines, also, of every sect, will be 
astonished at the labours of the Philo- 
sophical Company in their behalf. Not 
only are the nature and properties of 
brimstone clearly unfolded,—the whole 
duty of the clerical justice and clerical 
soldier happily illustrated,—and the art 
of preaching, at one and the same time, 
in any number of churches, however 
distant, greatly simplified ; but, as labour 
should meet its just reward, we an- 
nounce a highly original system of 
gathering tithes, exacting voluntary 
contributions, and making collections, 
to a heretofore unprecedented amount. 
As it is, at the same time, evident that 
the reverend mind cannot always be 
thus on the stretch, the Company have 
subjoined, for their relaxation, Elements 
of the Philosophy of Fox-hunting, with 
a critique on the life and character of 
Six-bottle Jack. One thing, only, re- 
mains; and this alone will be sufficient 
to carry down the name of the Company 
to the latest posterity. And here, 
reader, pause and consider from what 
trifling accidents the greatest philoso- 
phical discoveries have arisen: Sir Isaac 
Newton’s most important discovery ori- 
ginated in the fall’of an apple; and our 
own, from a cursory glance on that 
child’s toy called the Myriorama, which 
consists of small pieces of pasteboard, 
each having a house, a tree, or small 
‘portion of landscape, painted on it, and 
of which, according to their arrange- 
ment, an endless number of landscapes 
may be formed. Our discovery consists 
of a certain number of pieces of paper, 
each containing a portion of orthodox 
matter; and these pieces are capable, if 
put together in any arrangement, of 
forming a consistent, orthodox and elo- 
quent sermon: the number of combina- 
Joint-Stock Philosophical Company. 
[April 1, . 
tions, or of different sermons, the same 
pieces of paper will admit by this means, 
is upwards of two millions !!—Two 
millions of splendid sermons!! —a 
union of religion and philosophy that 
quite surpasses the conception of man. 
And what a vast saving of reverend 
time and labour :—incredible! By the 
simple admission ofa few slips, contain- 
ing brimstony matter, the sermon may 
be raised to any degree of heat; or, by 
their total exclusion, will become soft 
as the streams of milk and honey. The 
text also—for we scorn to do things by 
halves,—the text, upon the same princi- 
ple, is capable of 493 different biblical 
combinations —a number, it is conceived, 
quite adequate to everydemand. . | 
A large department of our concern 
will be appropriated to the law. Of 
the numerous philosophical discoveries 
we have made in this science, I shall 
only mention one or two that are de- 
void of technicality, viz. the art of set- 
ting a whole neighbourhood by the ears 
in three months, three weeks, or three 
days; the philosophy of consistency, 
or the art of holding three contrary 
opinions, on the same subject, at the 
same time; the principles of doubting, 
carefully compiled from the practice of 
a first-rate legal character; the art of 
expressing one’s-self unintelligibly in the 
greatest number of words: in this last 
art an experiment has been made on 
a law student, who, in the course of 
two days, was enabled to speak, two 
hours together, in such a manner, that 
no person, who had not been twenty 
years at the bar, could comprehend a 
sentence of what he said — he also 
learnt, at the same time, to expand a 
single idea over sixteen close folios. 
Our collection, under the head of 
Political Philosophy, is stupendous : the 
mere titles of the sub-divisions, or 
pigeon-holes, would fili'a volume; still 
we are puzzled how to select specimens 
that shall be intelligible to the unini- 
tiated. A new system, that first strikes 
our attention, proves decidedly that 
cows and cabbages increase in arith- 
metical progression, and little boys 
and girls in’ geometrical progression, 
and that, of course, in a short time, 
we shall be pinched for room ; 
fools say the theory is erroneous 
because such has never been the 
case; but philosophy asserts it, and if 
it is not so, it ought to be. Passing 
over the philosophy of hole-digging, 
the solution of a problem, that a gui- 
nea, value 27s., is only worth a pound 
~ note 
