“A truce, a truce,” cried Mr. Seymour, interrupting the vicar, “to all such hackneyed objections; and let us _deal plainly_ with your _planer of deals_: you assert that the carpenter cannot speak grammatically, and yet he gains his livelihood by _mending stiles_; you complain of his presumption in argument, would it not be a desertion of his _post_ to decline _railing_? and then, again, with respect to his antiquarian pretensions, compare them with your own; _you_ rescue _saws from the dust_, _he_ obtains _dust_ from his saws.” “What madness has seized my unfortunate friend? Infelix! quæ tanta animum dementia cepit? as Virgil has it:--But let it pass, let it pass, Mr. Seymour; my profession has taught me to bear with humility and patience the contempt and revilings of my brethren; I forgive Tom Plank for his presumption, as in that case I alone am the sufferer; but I say to you, that envy, trouble, discontent, strife, and poverty, will be the fruits of the seeds you would scatter. I verily believe, that unless this ‘march of intellect,’ as it has been termed, is speedily checked, Overton, in less than twelve months, will become a deserted village; for there is scarcely a tradesman who is not already distracted by some visionary scheme of scientific improvement, that leads to the neglect of their occupations, and the dissipation of the honest earnings which their more prudent fathers had accumulated; ‘_Meliora pii docuere parentes_,’ as the poet has it. What think you of Sam Corkington, who proposes to erect an apparatus in the crater of Mount Vesuvius, in order to supply every city on the continent with heat and light; or of Billy Spooner, who is about to establish a dairy at Spitzbergen, that he may furnish all Europe with ice-cream from the milk of whales! ‘_O, viveret Democritus!_’” The vicar was about to proceed with his lamentations, but the thread of his discourse was suddenly snapped asunder, and his ideas thrown into the wildest confusion, by the explosion of a most audacious pun, which in mercy to Mr. Seymour, as well as to our readers, we will not repeat. “Mr. Seymour,” exclaimed the incensed vicar, “we will, if you please, terminate our discourse; I perceive that you are determined to meet my remonstrances with ridicule; when I had hoped to bring an argument incapable of refutation, _Tum variæ illudunt pestes_, as Virgil has it.” “Pray, allow me to ask,” said Mr. Seymour, “whether my puns, or your quotations, best merit the title of _pestes_?”