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troublesome insects of petty despotism , and you the venomous rattlesnakes of democracy . We quietly crack one of our crawlers now and then ;
but yon have always your eyes about you , and your pest hisses by in defiance , and glides into its wilderness unscotched . " Well ; master was sitting in Doni ' s coffee-house here , and
keeping me standing just opposite him for state , while two elderly gentlemen , one an Englishman , the other a foreigner , were conversing together in French , at the next table .
One said , according as master and I turned it into English : — " Our country has produced two extraordinary and admirable men within our times , beside and above our Nelson and
Collingwood , and greater Wellington ; these are Watt and Bentham . Yet noisy demagogues push before them into notice by the dozen , fellows who could do nothing but play tricks upon cards and words .
The vulgar scratch their heads at these miracles , then seize one another by the throat , each in favour of his champion ; meanwhile their pockets are picked by the accomplices of the actors . Such scenes are as
continual with us as those of Policinello and Giuditta at Naples . " After I had written down 1 these words in the coach for imaster , he said to
me—Stivers ! you plainly see by tthis testimony how frivolous are tUie' French ; how easily they oare led by the nose ; gulled , f Stivers ! downright gulled
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« Sir , " answered I , " one of the gentlemen , he with the green spectacles before him , is Endish . "
" No such thing ! " replied he , scoffingly , " no such thing . " " With deference , Sir ! " continued I , " the Watt and Bentham would prove it , throwing overboard the Nelson and Collingwood , and greater Wellington . Do Frenchmen ever call
those great men ? Do not they clearly show , that they ought to have been beaten if they knew what they were about ?" ei There is something in that , I must acknowledge , " said he , " but , " after a pause ,
" they may have been emigrants ; they look like gentlemen . In regard to the other names , Watt and Bentham , the French and these Italians may have their Watts and Benthams
no doubt . I am in Tuscany , so are you ; yet we carry our names with us . Beside , the context proves the fact beyond controversy ; the playing tricks upon cards and words . 1 think , by degrees , I could find out those at cards ; but Frenchmen really shuffle and cut their words so
marvellously that I am always quite at a loss . Stivers , do you know anything of these great men , Watt and Bentham ? " « No , not I , Sir . " " Why , I can assure you then the gentleman is safe in regard to Watt . The house of Bouldon
and Watt is another Gibraltar . I would not underwrite with equal fluency any farther . But Boulton and Watt , the world over ! I never ate such potatoes as out of their boiler ; our
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180 High and how Life in Italy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1837, page 180, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1835/page/36/
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