_S._ And yet these two contributed something to ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers;’ that is, to the amusement and delight of a whole nation for the last century and a half. But that goes for nothing in the system of Utility, which is satisfied with nothing short of the good of the whole. Such benefactors of the species, as Shakespear, Racine, and Moliere, who sympathised with human character and feeling in their finest and liveliest moods, can expect little favour from ‘those few and recent writers,’ who scorn the Muse, and whose philosophy is a dull antithesis to human nature. Unhappy they who lived before their time! Oh! age of Louis XIV. and of Charles II., ignorant of the _Je ne sçais quoi_ and of the _sçavoir vivre_! Oh! Paris built (till now) of mud! Athens, Rome, Susa, Babylon, Palmyra—barbarous structures of a barbarous period—hide your diminished heads! Ye fens and dykes of Holland, ye mines of Mexico, what are ye worth! Oh! bridges raised, palaces adorned, cities built, fields cultivated without skill or science, how came ye to exist till now! Oh! pictures, statues, temples, altars, hearths, the poet’s verse, and solemn-breathing airs, are ye not an insult on the great principles of ‘a few and recent writers’? How came ye to exist without their leave? Oh! Arkwright, unacquainted with spinning-jennies! Oh, Sir Robert Peel, unversed in calico-printing! Oh! generation of upstarts, what good could have happened before your time? What ill can happen after it? _R._ But at least you must allow the importance of first principles? _S._ Much as I respect a dealer in marine stores, in old rags and iron: both the goods and the principles are generally stolen. I see advertised in the papers—‘Elements of Political Economy, by James Mill,’ and ‘Principles of Political Economy, by John Macculloch.’ Will you tell me in this case, whose are the First Principles? which is the true Simon Pure? ‘Strange! that such difference there should be ‘Twixt _Tweedle-dum_ and _Tweedle-dee_!’ _R._ You know we make it a rule to discountenance every attempt at wit, as much as the world in general abhor a punster. _S._ By your using the phrase, ‘attempts at wit,’ it would seem that you admit there is a true and a false wit; then why do you confound the distinction? Is this logical, or even politic? _R._ The difference is not worth attending to. _S._ Still, I suppose, you have a great deal of this quality, if you chose to exert it? _R._ I fancy not much.