THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 213 



on circular frames/ ' revolving spades/ and all the 

 train of piebald monstrosities and biform incongruities 

 that mark those periods of false gestation and mis- 

 carriage in the annals of invention, when would-be- 

 discoverers, dashing blindfold at unconsidered com- 

 binations, are each profoundly busy putting ' new wine 

 into old bottles / never devoting one serious hour of 

 study to the simple elements of the problem they 

 undertake, the mechanical act to be accomplished, 

 and the mechanical means necessary to accomplish it ; 

 but, (like the scribe DICKENS tells of, who ventured 

 a treatise on Chinese Metaphysics, by looking out 

 'China' and 'Metaphysics' in the Cyclopaedia!) 

 taking a plough and a steam-engine or a spade and 

 a steam-engine as the inevitable sire and dam of the 

 fore-determined ' cross/ plunged headlong into the 

 labyrinth of complex and solitary contrivance how to 

 join tilings which Nature had put asunder/ 



" velut tegri Somnia, vansc 



Fingentur species ; ut nee pes, nee caput uni 

 Rcddatur formse. * * * * 

 Infelix opens SumraA, quia ponere totum 

 Hfesciat ! " 



Such, we may anticipate, will be the storm of keen 

 reflection showered over our graves by some writer 



