| Citation |
BEP(F.744.036
31 Dec 1744:12,21 (491)
A Review of the Political Papers. From the Craftsman.
A correspondent in this paper says, he has lately invented
a new machine, which he calls the Universal Balance, for
taking the weight of a man's talents, his merit, his
virtues, and his vices: This machine, he says, will be of
admirable use in political philosophy, and gives us a course
of experiments, which could not have been made by the help
of any other machine whatsoever. . . [21: 27th line] --Then
I put into one of my scales five and twenty pretty fellows,
collected from the stage and boxes in Drury-lane Play-house,
nine of them had been great travellers, and had slept in a
post-chaise over most part of Europe; the other sixteen had
been bred up under their mothers; but the experiment had
like to have proved fatal to them all, for I having just
taken a pinch of rapee snuff, unluckily sneez'd into the
opposite scale, which gave them such an unexpected toss,
that they all came tumbling from the ceiling to the floor;
but having the proverb o' their side they fell as light as
feathers. . .
|