“That you should compare the vile practice of punning with the elegant and refined habit of conveying our ideas by classic symbols, does indeed surprise and disturb me. Pope has said that words are the counters by which men represent their thoughts; the plebeian,” continued the vicar, “selects base metal for their construction, while the scholar forms them of gold and gems, dug from the richest mines of antiquity. But to what vile purpose does the punster prostitute such counters? Not for the interchange of ideas, but, like the juggler, to deceive and astonish by acts of legerdemain.” “How fortunate is it that you had not lived in the reign of King James,” remarked Mr. Seymour; “for that singular monarch, as you may, perhaps, remember, made very few bishops who had not thus signalised themselves.” “To poison our ears by quibbles and quirks did well become him who sought to deceive our senses and blind our reason--the patron of puns and the believer in witchcraft were suitably united,” replied the vicar. “Well,” said Mr. Seymour, “as this is a subject upon which it is not likely that we should agree, I will pass to another, where I hope to be more successful; I trust I shall induce you to view with more complacency my project of teaching philosophy by the aid of toys and sports.” “Mr. Seymour, the proposal of instructing children in the principles of natural philosophy, is really too visionary to require calm discussion; and can be equalled only in absurdity by the method you propose for carrying it into effect.” “Come, come, my dear vicar, pray chain up your prejudices, and let your kind spirit loose for half an hour: let me beg that you will so far indulge me,” said Mr. Seymour, “as to listen patiently to the plan by which it is my intention to turn sport into science, or, in other words, toys into instruments of philosophical instruction.” “And is it then possible,” said the vicar, in a tone of supplication, “that you can seriously entertain so wild, and, I might even add, so cruel a scheme? Would you pursue the luckless little urchin from the schoolroom into the very playground, with your unrelenting tyranny? a sanctuary which the most rigid pedagogue has hitherto held inviolable. Is the buoyant spirit so forcibly, though perhaps necessarily, repressed, during the hours of discipline, to have no interval for its free and uncontrolled expansion? Your science, methinks, Mr. Seymour, might have taught you a wiser lesson; for you must well know that the most elastic body will lose that property by being constantly kept in a state of tension.”