He introduces his new Friends to Mr. Jolter, with whom the Doctor entersinto a Dispute upon Government, which had well nigh terminated in openWar.
Meanwhile, he not only made them acquainted with everything worth seeingin town but attended them in their excursions to all the king's houseswithin a day's journey of Paris; and in the course of these parties,treated them with an elegant dinner at his own apartments, where adispute arose between the doctor and Mr. Jolter, which had well nighterminated in an irreconcilable animosity. These gentlemen, with anequal share of pride, pedantry, and saturnine disposition, were, by theaccidents of education and company, diametrically opposite inpolitical maxims; the one, as we have already observed, being a bigotedhigh-churchman, and the other a rank republican. It was an article ofthe governor's creed, that the people could not be happy, nor the earthyield its fruits in abundance, under a restricted clergy and limitedgovernment; whereas, in the doctor's opinion, it was an eternal truth,that no constitution was so perfect as the democracy, and that nocountry could flourish but under the administration of the mob.
These considerations being premised, no wonder that they happened todisagree in the freedom of an unreserved conversation, especially astheir entertainer took all opportunities of encouraging and inflamingthe contention. The first source of their difference was an unluckyremark of the painter, who observed that the partridge, of which he wasthen eating, had the finest relish of any he had ever tasted. His friendowned that the birds were the best of the kind he had seen in France;but affirmed that they were neither so plump nor delicious as those thatwere caught in England. The governor, considering this observation asthe effect of prejudice and inexperience, said, with a sarcastic smile,"I believe, sir, you are very well disposed to find everything hereinferior to the productions of your own country."--"True, sir," answeredthe physician, with a certain solemnity of aspect, "and not withoutgood reason, I hope."--"And pray," resumed the tutor, "why may not thepartridges of France be as good as those of England?"--"For a very plainreason," replied the other; "because they are not so well fed. Theiron hand of oppression is extended to all animals within the Frenchdominions, even to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air;kunessin oionoisi te pasi."--"Egad!" cried the painter, "that is a truthnot to be controverted: for my own part, I am none of your tit-bits, onewould think; but yet there is a freshness in the English complexion, aginseekye, I think you call it, so inviting to a hungry Frenchman,that I have caught several in the very act of viewing me with an eye ofextreme appetite, as I passed; and as for their curs, or rather theirwolves, whenever I set eyes on one of 'em, Ah! your humble servant, Mr.son of a b--, I am upon my guard in an instant. The doctor can testifythat their very horses, or more properly their live carrion, that drewour chaise, used to reach back their long necks and smell at us, as acouple of delicious morsels."
This sally of Mr. Pallet, which was received with a general laugh ofapprobation, would in all probability, have stifled the dispute inembryo, had not Mr. Jolter, with a self-applauding simper, ironicallycomplimented the strangers on their talking like true Englishmen. Thedoctor, affronted at the insinuation, told him with some warmth that hewas mistaken in his conjecture, his affections and ideas being confinedto no particular country; for he considered himself as a citizen ofthe world. He owned himself more attached to England than to any otherkingdom, but this preference was the effect of reflection, and not ofprejudice; the British constitution approached nearer than any other tothat perfection of government, the democracy of Athens, he hoped oneday to see revived; he mentioned the death of Charles the First, and theexpulsion of his son, with raptures of applause; inveighed with greatacrimony against the kingly name; and, in order to strengthen hisopinion, repeated forty or fifty lines from one of the Philippics ofDemosthenes.
Jolter, hearing him speak so disrespectfully of the higher powers,glowed with indignation: he said his doctrines were detestable, anddestructive of all right, order, and society; that monarchy was ofdivine institution, therefore indefeasible by any human power; andof consequence those events in the English history, which he had soliberally commended, were no other than flagrant instances of sacrilege,perfidy, and sedition; that the democracy of Athens was a most absurdconstitution, productive of anarchy and mischief, which must alwayshappen when the government of a nation depends upon the caprice of theignorant, hair-brained vulgar; that it was in the power of the mostprofligate member of the commonwealth, provided he was endowed witheloquence, to ruin the most deserving, by a desperate exertion of histalents upon the populace, who had been often persuaded to act in themost ungrateful and imprudent manner against the greatest patriots thattheir country had produced; and, finally, he averred, that the liberalarts and sciences had never flourished so much in a republic as underthe encouragement and protection of absolute power: witness the Augustanage, and the reign of Louis the Fourteenth: nor was it to be supposedthat genius and merit could ever be so amply recompensed by theindividuals or distracted councils of a commonwealth, as by thegenerosity and magnificence of one who had the whole treasury at his owncommand.
Peregrine, who was pleased to find the contest grow warm, observed thatthere seemed to be a good deal of truth in what Mr. Jolter advanced;and the painter whose opinion began to waver, looked with a faceof expectation at his friend, who, modelling his features into anexpression of exulting disdain, asked of his antagonist, if he did notthink that very power of rewarding merit enabled an absolute princeto indulge himself in the most arbitrary license over the lives andfortunes of his people? Before the governor had time to answer thisquestion, Pallet broke forth into an exclamation of "By the Lord! thatis certainly fact, egad! that was a home-thrust, doctor." When Mr.Jolter, chastising this shallow intruder with a contemptuous look,affirmed that, though supreme power furnished a good prince with themeans of exerting his virtues, it would not support a tyrant in theexercise of cruelty and oppression; because in all nations the geniusof the people must be consulted by their governors, and the burthenproportioned to the shoulders on which it is laid. "Else, what follows?"said the physician. "The consequence is plain," replied the governor,"insurrection, revolt, and his own destruction; for it is not tobe supposed that the subjects of any nation would be so abject andpusillanimous as to neglect the means which heaven hath put in theirpower for their own preservation."--"Gadzooks, you're in the right, sir!"cried Pallet; "that, I grant you, must be confessed: doctor, I'm afraidwe have got into the wrong box." This son of Paean, however, far frombeing of his friend's opinion, observed, with an air of triumph, thathe would not only demonstrate the sophistry of the gentleman's lastallegation by argument and facts, but even confute him with his ownwords. Jolter's eyes kindling at this presumptuous declaration, he toldhis antagonist, while his lip quivered with resentment, that if hisarguments were no better than his breeding, he was sure he would makevery few converts to his opinion; and the doctor, with all the insolenceof triumph, advised him to beware of disputes for the future, until heshould have made himself more master of his subject.
Peregrine both wished and hoped to see the disputants proceed toarguments of more weight and conviction; and the painter, dreading thesame issue, interposed with the usual exclamation of "For God's sake,gentlemen;" when the governor rose from table in great dudgeon, and leftthe room, muttering some ejaculation, of which the word coxcomb onlycould be distinctly heard. The physician, being thus left master of thefield of battle, was complimented on his victory by Peregrine, and soelevated by his success, that he declaimed a full hour on theabsurdity of Jolter's proposition, and the beauty of the democraticadministration; canvassed the whole scheme of Plato's republic, withmany quotations from that ideal author, touching the to kalon: fromthence he made a transition to the moral sense of Shaftesbury, andconcluded his harangue with the greatest part of that frothy writer'srhapsody, which he repeated with all the violence of enthusiasticagitation, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his entertainer, andthe unutterable admiration of Pallet, who looked upon h
im as somethingsupernatural and divine.
So intoxicated was this vain young man with the ironical praises ofPickle, that he forthwith shook off all reserve; and having professeda friendship for our hero, whose taste and learning he did not fail toextol, intimated in plain terms, that he was the only person, in theselatter ages, who possessed that genius, that portion of the divinity,or Ti Theion, which immortalized the Grecian poets: that as Pythagorasaffirmed the spirit of Euphorbus had transmigrated into his body, he,the doctor, strangely possessed with the opinion that he himself wasinspired by the soul of Pindar; because, making allowance for thedifference of languages in which they wrote, there was a surprisingaffinity between his own works and those of that celebrated Theban; andas a confirmation of this truth, he immediately produced a sample ofeach, which, though in spirit and versification as different as the Odesof Horace and our present poet-laureat, Peregrine did not scruple topronounce altogether congenial, notwithstanding the violence he bythis sentence offered to his own conscience, and a certain alarm tohis pride, that was weak enough to be disturbed by the physician'sridiculous vanity and presumption, which, not contented with displayinghis importance in the world of taste and polite literature, manifesteditself in arrogating certain material discoveries in the province ofphysic, which could not fail to advance him to the highest pinnacle ofthat profession, considering the recommendation of his other talents,together with a liberal fortune which he inherited from his father.
CHAPTER XLIV.