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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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Untitled Article
' Ages are the legal offspring of the maternal Sum * called addition , as employed in collecting the evidence of seconds , mi * nutes ,. hours , days , &c . Let usibe concise , and speak of hours . Hours were measured in the early periods of the world by drops of water , doing duty in funny-shaped vessels of glass , teruied clepsydrae . They were found—all in due course ; nothing great
can be done in a hurry—to be imperfect , by reason of the sympathy of water with weather ; so that , in the dog-days whole nations were snapped off , according to the announcement of the clepsydrce , with too short an allowance of time , owing to a stealthy evaporation . Then came the science of counting by sand , whicn was placed , strange to say , in modern fashionable
stay-and-corsetshaped vessels , ( bulgeous above and below , with a mere pipe in the middle for the vital connexions and locomotions of time , ) and termed clepsammia . Thus through the slow generations of immortal nature do our minds discover , fill , digest , understand , fructify , invent , and communicate ; the heart , however , has continued pretty much the same ab initio "
The Marquis of Tipsycake could hold out no longer . ' After that excellent sentiment / cried he , ' suppose we have a little music ? Mr . Pivot , would you oblige us with a tune upon the (triangle ? Sir , ' said Pivot calmly , ' your request is quite out of order .
The triangle hath but one note . However , I will do my best to accord with your symphonious desire , which seems to be set in K flat . ' And drawing a key from the wide pocket of his snuffcoloured coat , Mr . Pivot began to beat upon the outside of tha triangle .
Immediately , a dreadful discord rushed in abrupt staggering masses of sound from the centre of the lofty arch of the hall , and rumbled about in all directions , while the pavement , with its
assembled throng , heaved and lurched like the deck of a ship in a storm . The Marquis of Tipsycake was discovered spinning upon his head with his clothes whisking about , and the red sugar-plums kept pouring in torrents from his pockets , so that one vast crowd of company was separated from the other , as though placed in an Israelitish position , with reference to the host of Pharaoh . Oh , heavens ! how the head professor , S . Beane ,
eyed the sugar-plums ! Mr . Pivot ceased . The discord above ceased also , and merged into a grand and solemn strain , that wheeled in stately harmony across the lofty vault , and died away in Alpine quires and spiritual reverberations from distant realms of air . The Marquis of Tipsycake was found standing again upon his legs , neither more nor less a fool than he was before . Mr . Pivot returned the key to his coat pocket , and calmly thus resumed : —
* Learned men , knowing but little of the matter , have written voluminously on ttua g oienee of dlqak * , or horofogtiapky . The
Untitled Article
Thaumatorgie F «* tUm *< 'N M > mtitkd * teracker . 3
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1835, page 335, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2645/page/43/
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