CHAPTER XVIII. P. I.

ALL'S WELL THAN ENDS WELL.

Τὰ δ᾿ἄν ἐπιμνησϑῶ,--ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου ἐξαναγκαζὀμενος ἐπιμνησϑῄσομαι.

HERODOTUS.             

If William Dove had been installed in office with cap and bells and bauble, he would have been a Professor of Pantagruelism, and might have figured in Flógel's History of such Professors with Tyll Eulenspiegel, Piovano Arlotto, and Peter the Lion; and in Douce's Illustrations of Shakespear with Muckle John, Rees Pengelding and Robin Rush. The humour lay latent till the boy his nephew hit the spring by reading to him some of those chapters in Rabelais which in their literal grotesqueness were level to the capacity of both. These readings led to a piece of practical Pantagruelism, for which William would have been whipt if he had worn a Fool's coat.

One unlucky day, Dan was reading to him that chapter wherein young Gargantua relates the course of experiments which he had made with a velvet mask, a leaf of vervain, his mother's glove, a lappet worked with gold thread, a bunch of nettles, and other things more or less unfit for the purpose to which they were applied. To those who are acquainted with the history of Grandgousier's royal family, I need not explain what that purpose was; nor must I to those who are not, (for reasons that require no explanation) farther than to say, it was the same purpose for which that wild enigma (the semi-composition of the Sphinx's Ghost) was designed,—that enigma of all enigmas the wildest,

“On which was written Ρῆγμάρωλ.”

William had frequently interrupted him with bursts of laughter; but when they came to that crowning experiment in which Gargantua thought he had found the beau ideal of what he was seeking, William clapt his hands, and with an expression of glee in his countenance worthy of Eulenspiegel himself exclaimed, “thou shalt try the Goose, Dan! thou shalt try the Goose!”

So with William's assistance the Goose was tried. They began with due prudence, according to rule, by catching a Goose. In this matter a couple of Ducks Lord Lauderdale knows would not have answered as well. The boy then having gone through the ceremony which the devotees of Baal are said to have performed at the foot of his Image, as the highest act of devotion, (an act of super-reverence it was;) and for which the Jews are said to have called him in mockery Baalzebul, instead of Baalzebub;—cried out that he was ready. He was at that moment in the third of those eight attitudes which form a Rik'ath. My Readers who are versed in the fashionable Poets of the day (this day I mean—their fashion not being insured for tomorrow)—such Readers, I say, know that a rose is called a ghul, and a nightingale a bulbul, and that this is one way of dressing up English Poetry in Turkish Costume. But if they desire to learn a little more of what Mahometan customs are, they may consult D'Ohsson's Tableau of the Ottoman Empire, and there they may not only find the eight attitudes described, but see them represented. Of the third attitude or Rukeou as it is denominated, I shall only say that the Ancients represented one of their Deities in it, and that it is the very attitude in which As in præsenti committed that notorious act for which he is celebrated in scholastic and immortal rhyme, and for which poor Syntax bore the blame. Verbum sit sat sapienti. During the reign of Liberty and Equality, a Frenchman was guillotined for exemplifying it under Marat's Monument in the Place du Carousal.

The bird was brought, but young Daniel had not the strength of young Gargantua; the goose, being prevented by William from drawing back, prest forward; they were by the side of the brook and the boy by this violent and unexpected movement was, as the French would say in the politest and most delicate of all languages, culbuté, or in sailors' English capsized into the water. The misfortune did not end there; for falling with his forehead against a stone, he received a cut upon the brow which left a scar as long as he lived.

It was not necessary to prohibit a repetition of what William called the speriment. Both had been sufficiently frightened; and William never felt more pain of mind than on this occasion, when the Father with a shake of the head, a look of displeasure and a low voice told him he ought to have known better than to have put the lad upon such pranks!

The mishap however was not without its use. For in after life when Daniel felt an inclination to do any thing which might better be left undone, the recollection that he had tried the goose served as a salutary memento, and saved him perhaps sometimes from worse consequences.