554 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
appeared, a baked plum pudding-, in which, the fruit abounded 
in the ratio of 10 to 1, when compared to the pudding, which 
on certain holidays was made for the men, in which the fruit 
appeared to be on such bad terms with each other, that, so far 
from courting each other’s company, they,seemed resolved to 
shew themselves at the utmost possible distance from each 
other; or they might be compared to the visits of the angels 
to this world, very few and far between. 
Even the murkiest night has now and then a star to break 
the obscurity; and there are few minds, however dull and stupid, 
which do not now and then exhibit a scintillation of intellectual 
power. The most grave and saturnine character can at times 
put on a smile, and a flash of wit may at some particular period, 
irradiate even the mind of the dull and posing mathematician. 
From these abstract truths it ceases therefore to be a matter 
of wonder, that a pun or a jest, or a stroke of humour now and 
then shot forth from the grave and gloomy mind of Capt Ross ; 
and at no period was that phenomenon more likely to occur, 
than after he had satisfied the cravings of his appetite, by a 
proportionate admixture of salmon, soup, pie and pudding. It 
is true, that Johnson has declared, that his mental faculties were 
never more obtuse than after a good dinner; but non magna 
componere parva, which means that the man is a simpleton, 
who compares great things with small, or in other words, John¬ 
son with Capt. Ross; and therefore whatever might have been 
the case with Johnson, it certainly was not similarly constituted 
with Capt. Ross. Exempli gratia . Capt. Ross had just extri¬ 
cated from the slice of pudding on his plate, one of the largest 
of the raisins, when turning to Mr. Mc’Diarmid, with an air of 
great self-satisfaction, holding the raisin between his dexter 
finger and his thumb, he inquired, “ Whom do you think that I 
now resemble ?” The question was a poser to the doctor, he knew 
t at there were many things in animate life, whom his worthy 
captain resembled; but he remembered the adage, that “Truth 
was not to be told at all times:” at all events, he. did not follow 
the example of the sycophant in Hamlet, and declare, that he 
was very like a whale, although in one particular the resem-. 
