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    tions longer , they will be unable to distinguish junked rope from salt beef- —oakum from a salad . They will form a new variety in the human species , —the people of four senses . But to return to Cruttenden . He talked so richly of Ryp Van Winckle and

    his deeds , that the very table seemed in an ecstasy . The weather was hot , and I retired to sleep a siesta , my mind full of Irving lore . Scarcely had I dozed , when the low roll of distant thunder half awakened me . I slept again , and again awaked . Then again I dreamed that I saw Hendrick Hudson and his mates playing at skittles . It was two hours ere I awaked , and the veritable rumble still continued . I pinched my flesh in the spirit of— * If I be I , as I suppose I be ;'

    but the rumble was not dissipated . I arose and sought the tearoom , where appeared the broad face of Cruttenden himself . The sun was shining and the atmosphere was cloudless , yet still the low growling thunder rolled . ' Has Hendrick Hudson come up to Albany ? ' I asked ; and my merry host burst into a shout of f

    laughter . When it subsided , he called to one of hishelps' \ q send in the thunder . Sure enough the < bold thunder' appeared in the person of a fine chubby boy , bearing in his arms a large cannon-shot , with which he had been imitating skittle-playing along an old wooden gallery . This same Cruttenden never quarrelled with a human being in his life . I asked his method ;

    on which he pulled out an old pocket-book , saying , ' We will see what Robinson Crusoe" says on the subject . ' This I afterwards found was his invariable mode when any one asked his advice on disagreeable subjects . He put on the gravity of a lawyer hunting for a case , and then in the tone of a pleader replied , ' (< Robinson Crusoe" says , so long as you can make a man laugh , he will neither ny nor quarrel . ' It was an admirable satire on the mode in which lawyers affect to pay deference to absurd precedents and authorities .

    In the same mode in which the jolly host Cruttenden affects to find mines of wisdom iu ' Robinson Crusoe , ' John Bellenden Ker affects to find meanings in nursery rhymes and trite sa yings ; and « o doubt the sly rogue is chuckling in his sleeve at the idea of having so solemnl y gulled the « Times' and all the shrewdest of the critics . How could the ' Times' make such a mistake as to suppose that the archaiologist was the Bellenden Ker who falls into raptures at the Chancellor ' s jokes , and is lost in wonder at his wisdom .

    « is true that the Bellenden Ker would never vent such perilous satire as his brother has put forth . It would spoil his promotion for ever . It is brother John , the eldest hope of the Kers , the ardent wooer of the Roxburghe peerage , who , in a fit of patriotic ! ndignation at his brother ' s doings with the Chancellor , has put forth this book containing much severe satire , under the flimsy Ve » l of a pretended ancient language . The great Goethe , it is

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    Preface to the New Bettendenw . * m

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1834, page 779, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2639/page/33/