Peregrine both wished and hoped to see the disputants proceed to arguments of more weight and conviction; and the painter, dreading the same issue, interposed with the usual exclamation of “For God's sake, gentlemen;” when the governor rose from table in great dudgeon, and left the room, muttering some ejaculation, of which the word coxcomb only could be distinctly heard. The physician, being thus left master of the field of battle, was complimented on his victory by Peregrine, and so elevated by his success, that he declaimed a full hour on the absurdity of Jolter's proposition, and the beauty of the democratic administration; canvassed the whole scheme of Plato's republic, with many quotations from that ideal author, touching the to kalon: from thence he made a transition to the moral sense of Shaftesbury, and concluded his harangue with the greatest part of that frothy writer's rhapsody, which he repeated with all the violence of enthusiastic agitation, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his entertainer, and the unutterable admiration of Pallet, who looked upon him as something supernatural and divine. So intoxicated was this vain young man with the ironical praises of Pickle, that he forthwith shook off all reserve; and having professed a friendship for our hero, whose taste and learning he did not fail to extol, intimated in plain terms, that he was the only person, in these latter ages, who possessed that genius, that portion of the divinity, or Ti Theion, which immortalized the Grecian poets: that as Pythagoras affirmed the spirit of Euphorbus had transmigrated into his body, he, the doctor, strangely possessed with the opinion that he himself was inspired by the soul of Pindar; because, making allowance for the difference of languages in which they wrote, there was a surprising affinity between his own works and those of that celebrated Theban; and as a confirmation of this truth, he immediately produced a sample of each, which, though in spirit and versification as different as the Odes of Horace and our present poet-laureat, Peregrine did not scruple to pronounce altogether congenial, notwithstanding the violence he by this sentence offered to his own conscience, and a certain alarm to his pride, that was weak enough to be disturbed by the physician's ridiculous vanity and presumption, which, not contented with displaying his importance in the world of taste and polite literature, manifested itself in arrogating certain material discoveries in the province of physic, which could not fail to advance him to the highest pinnacle of that profession, considering the recommendation of his other talents, together with a liberal fortune which he inherited from his father. CHAPTER XLIV. The Doctor prepares an Entertainment in the Manner of the Ancients, which is attended with divers ridiculous Circumstances.