202 
THE GOOSE REVENGED. 
creatures of inferior kind, who pass their lives wholly or 
in part, according to the different stages of their existence, 
in air, earth, or water, what creature has produced directly 
the most effect upon mankind ? That which you, reader, 
will deserve to be called if you do not, after a moment's 
consideration, answer the question rightly — The Goose !' 
And then the Doctor goes on to comment on the fact, 
that among the imports in the Leith Commercial List for 
June 1830, is an entry of 1,820,000 goose quills, brought 
by the ship Ann from Riga. This was but one consign- 
ment of many, probably of the same year, all coming from 
foreign ports, and exclusive of our home production. 
Quills were then produced largely in Lincolnshire and 
some other of our counties. Verily here is food for re- 
flection, and the Doctor might well say, * O reader, 
consider, in thy capacious mind, the good and the evil in 
which that million eight hundred and twenty thousand 
goose quills will be concerned.' 
We must not follow the quaint moraliser any farther 
than just to observe, that for all the abuse which the 
shafts of ribald wit have levelled at the Goose (whose 
feathers, we may remember, winged the shafts of the 
stalwart bowmen of old), she has been amply revenged, for 
think of the lawyers, reader ! of the bundles of quills in 
Chancery Lane; and of the government of newspapers 
under which we have for a long time lived ; of the quills 
dipped in gall and vinegar that have lacerated the hearts 
of many despisers of the Goose, and spread dissension, 
and envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness among con- 
sumers of goose-flesh at Michaelmas. 
