156 Potatoes. [Part II. 



portance ; I regard the praises of this root and the pre" 

 ferenee given to it before corn, and even some other 

 roots, to have arisen from a sort of monkey-like imitation. 

 It has become, of late years, the fashion to extol the 

 virtues of potatoes, as it ha.s been to admire the writings of 

 Milton and Sliakespear. God, uimiffhty and all fore-see- 

 ing^ first permitting his chief angel to be disposed to rebel 

 against him ; his permitting him to enlist whole squa- 

 drons of angels under his banners ; his permitting this 

 host to come and dispute with him the throne of heaven ; 

 his permitting the contest to be long, and, at one time, 

 douDtful ; his permitting the devils to bring cannon into 

 this battle in the clouds ; his permitting one devil or 

 angel, I forget which, to be split down the middle, from 

 crown to crotch, as we split a pig ; his permitting the 

 two halves, intestines and all, to go slap, up together 

 again, and become a perfect body ; his then, causing all 

 the devil host to be tumbled head-long down into a place 

 called Hell, of the local situation of which no man can 

 have an idea ; his, causing gates (iron gates too) to be 

 erected to keep the devil in ; his permitting him to get 

 out, nevertheless, and to come and destroy the peace 

 and happiness of his new creation ; his causing his son 

 to take a pair of compasses out of a draicer, to trace the 

 form of the earth: all this, and, indeed, the whole of 

 Milton's poem is such barbarous trash, so outrageously 

 offensive to reason and to common sense, that one is 

 naturally led to wonder how it can have been tolerated 

 by a people, amongst N\ horn astronomy, navigation, and 

 chemistry are understood. But, it is the fashion to tuni 

 up the eyes, when Paradise Lost is mentioned ; and, if 

 you fail herein you Avant taste ; you want judgment 

 even, if you do not admire this absurd and ridiculous 

 stuff, when, if one of your relations were to write a 

 letter in the same strain, you would send him to a mad- 

 house and take his estate. It is the sacrificing of reason 

 to fashion. And as to the other " Divine Bard," the 

 case is still more provoking. After his ghosts, witches, 

 sorcerers, fairies, and monsters ; after his bombast and 

 puns and smut, which appear to have been not much 

 relished by his comparatively rude contemporaries, had 

 had their full swing ; after hinidreds of thousands of 



