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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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in tKeir 6 wn way , on the ignis-fatnus Mpellitur igni principle , presenting themselves without any of the fictitious coverings whereby they now stand up , aping luminous realities . Apply this to the House of Commons , and what a characteristic
Collection would it present ! How should we be ashamed , humiliated , and provoked , to find the great majority of our Representatives—the chosen sponsors of ourselves—the concentrated images of our moral , religious , and political existence , — no better than the fool who seeth not at all , or the knave whose
eye is always on his own or his neighbour ' s pocket . Let us suppose , for instance , as a mere illustrative sketch of our meaning , that the conventional curtain of Our Representatives was withdrawn , and a tableau presented of some hundred figures , fixed by enchantment , having the resemblance of harlequins , clowns , and court-card knaves , as the case
might be . That by the application of a talismanic glass to the eye , we should find the chequers of their motley forms were of coloured glass , each reflecting a map of the mind , motives , and family arms of their affinities , patron saints , and presiding deities in an upper Sphere , near the moon . That the touch of a wand should set them all in motion , till they jostled and rubbed and
mixed with each other , the friction increasing With the velocity , till they gradually became a huge paste , or heajTof honey , and the few survivors were then joined by the above-mentioned deities , who helped them to devour it , cooked in various ways over bonfires made of the dry bodies of bees and the flowers of the country . Or , to suggest another : That the tableau
should present a gravely-seated concourse of parrots , jayd , mackaws , buzzards , magpies , and harpies . On a sudden they all began to talk in an equally wise , generous , and self-sufficiettt manner , when presently it was seen that they were nearly all of them stuffed birds , having each a pipe running up through its back-bone into the beak , which was thus supplied with
sound-arguments from a great bellows at a little distance behind the scene , whereon sat perched a huge vulture with an owl under one wing and a raven under the other , standing on a roll of parchment , and with a Lie ; in shape of a gold coini ,
stuck on its forehead just between the eyes . A few natural birds of a different species were discovered among them , but when they endeavoured to use their proper lungs , they were either pecked to pieces , or what they said was screamed do # fi , and then blown abroad with a mixture of false echoes . Tb
offer a third tableau , as the suggestion of a first scene or chap r ter of such a kind of work as we have mentioned , let us supf pose an enchanted Island made of a vast looking-glass , in the centre of which Was reflected from above , an Olympian hand of music . That on this harmonious Flat Island , we should
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Our Representatives . \ 3
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/3/
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