But without looking so far into the future history of Dovery, let me exhort the learned Australian to whom the honour is reserved of imparting this treasure to his countrymen, that he abstain from all attempts at discovering the mysteries of Aballiboozobanganorribo! The unapocalyptical arcana of that stupendous vocable are beyond his reach;—so let him rest assured. Let him not plunge into the fathomless depths of that great word, let him not attempt to soar to its unapproachable heights. Perhaps,—and surely no man of judgement will suppose that I utter any thing lightly,—perhaps if the object were attainable, he might have cause to repent its attainment. If too “little learning be a dangerous thing,” too much is more so; _Il saper troppo qualche volta nuoce._[2] [Footnote 2: MOLZA.] “Curiosity,” says Fuller, “is a kernel of the Forbidden Fruit, which still sticketh in the throat of a natural man, sometimes to the danger of his choaking.” There is a knowledge which is forbidden because it is dangerous. Remember the Apple! Remember the beautiful tale of Cupid and Psyche! Remember Cornelius Agrippa's library; the youth who opened in unhappy hour his magical volume; and the choice moral which Southey, who always writes so morally, hath educed from that profitable story! Remember Bluebeard! But I am looking far into futurity. Bluebeard may be forgotten; Southey may be forgotten; Cornelius Agrippa may be no more remembered; Cupid and Psyche may be mere names which shall have outlived all tales belonging to them;—Adam and Eve—Enough. Eat beans, if thou wilt, in spite of Pythagoras. Eat bacon with them, for the Levitical law hath been abrogated: and indulge in black-puddings, if thou likest such food, though there be Methodists who prohibit them as sinful. But abstain from Aballiboozobanganorribo. CHAPTER XVII. P. I. THE HAPPINESS OF HAVING A CATHOLIC TASTE. There's no want of meat, Sir; Portly and curious viands are prepared To please all kinds of appetites. MASSINGER. A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach. Your true lover of literature is never fastidious. I do not mean the _helluo librorum_, the swinish feeder, who thinks that every name which is to be found in a title-page, or on a tomb-stone, ought to be rescued from oblivion; nor those first cousins of the moth, who labour under a bulimy for black-letter, and believe every thing to be excellent which was written in the reign of Elizabeth. I mean the man of robust and healthy intellect, who gathers the harvest of literature into his barns, threshes the straw, winnows the grain, grinds it at his own mill, bakes it in his own oven, and then eats the true bread of knowledge. If he bake his loaf upon a cabbage leaf, and eat onions with his bread and cheese, let who will find fault with him for his taste,—not I!