284 The Slemn-Bout ; a Paper of my Uncles. [Sept. 



suspected to be born natural. JMiss JMinerva was remarkable for nothing 

 but the family-mouth — the extent of which^ I think, I have akeady 

 mentioned. 



This spacious ground for ridicule was not neglected by the present 

 wits. The highest tone of jocularity, on this occasion, proceeded from 

 a gentleman of much repute in that particular description of eccentric 

 badinage. 



Mr.JMedley possessed, in a fortunate degree, the talent of talking 

 clever nonsense — a quality of conversation both rare and valuable — a 

 happy go-between, where, as it will sometimes happen, the extremes of 

 intellect are so decidedly contrasted, that folly and philosophy, or igno- 

 rance and leai-ning, constitute a party. Then is your good nonsense- 

 talker an inestimable interponent — an approximating isthmus between 

 the isolated bodies ; for, having levity, brilliance, and volubihty, to 

 rouse the risible in the less intellectual portion of his audience, he scat- 

 ters, in the profusion of his coUoquy, a here-and-there remark, by way 

 of illustration, which shews some point and tact in his frivolity : so that, 

 what to the inferior mind is ample and delicious fare, appears to the 

 fastidious understanding a kind of fanciful extravagance, in which wit 

 and fantasy are wantonly contorted, and which, in spite of all censorious 

 judgment, is tacitly applauded as a specious of anomalous accomplish- 

 ment. Women love that style of conversation, because it is the covert 

 of so much significance, which, expressed in common parlance, would 

 be trite and formal. It is the language of contrariety as well, replete 

 with the extravagance and foolery of rich imaginations. Blockheads 

 are charmed with it — they know not why ; and the learned and philo- 

 sophic affect to sneer at its unworthiness, that, under the plea of dignity, 

 they may avoid the perils of an encounter for which they are too un- 

 wieldy, and wherein they fear as much the disgraceful ridicule of a 

 defeat, as a huge bully, when he risks a lively castigation from a " little 

 one imknown." 



" Great patience !" cried certain of the Biddlecombe elite, as they 

 beheld the Gobbletons, " how those extraordinary children stuff them- 

 selves ! They surely wiU be ill \" 



The little darlings, when their maxillary organs were exhausted with 

 in'olonged mastication, indulged in the innocent but languid amusement 

 of picking from the cavities of the bread, Avith the tips of their pretty 

 fore-fingers, the butter which had been pressed into them by the process 

 of its spreading ; and when the task, at length, grew irksome, and they 

 coitld not — on the common laws of space and extension — hold an atom 

 more — they severally held out their planks — for you could hardly call 

 them by so diminutive a rame as sliceS' — in a mood of petulant repletion ; 

 saying, " IMother ! mother ! I can't eat no more ! — Father ! I can't eat 

 no more — now ! !" — " Well," said the father, " lay it down then, till you 

 can." So down they laid their several hunches on the bench ; and as 

 ]\Irs. Gobbleton was, at the moment, moving from the other side, a 

 heavy lurch precipitated her to the spot where all " her little loves" had 

 placed their victorious stores, which, vuider her maternal pressure, were 

 expanded into a respectable superficies, circularly co-extensive with the 

 superimposed onus. INIrs. Gobbleton, though alive to the merits of her 

 robe, could readily forgive an accident arising fi'om the heedless error of 

 her blood and bone ; and a simple exclamation, mingled with a slight 

 reproof, was all that marked — besides the bread and butter — the damage 



