garded with
illiberal jealousy by the female servants of any establishment, if he
chose to lecture amongst the family linen. 'What shall de wise
beneficent old Monsieur do amongst our washing-tubs?' We are perfectly
confounded by the excessive blindness of Coleridge and nearly all other
critics on this matter. 'Need the rank,' says Coleridge, 'have been at
all particularized, when nothing follows which the knowledge of that
rank is to explain or illustrate?' Nothing to explain or illustrate!
Why, good heavens! it is only by the most distinct and positive
information lodged with the constable as to who and what the vagrant
was, that the leading philosopher in the 'Excursion' could possibly have
saved himself over and over again from passing the night in the village
'lock-up,' and generally speaking in handcuffs, as one having too
probably a design upon the village hen-roosts. In the sixth and seventh
books, where the scene lies in the churchyard amongst the mountains, it
is evident that the philosopher would have been arrested as a
resurrection-man, had he not been known to substantial farmers as a
pedlar 'with some money.' To be clothed therefore with an intelligible
character and a local calling was as indispensable to the free movements
of the Wanderer when out upon a philosophical spree, as a passport is to
each and every traveller in France. Dr. Franklin, who was a very
indifferent philosopher, but very great as a pedlar, and as cunning as
Niccolo Machiavelli (which means as cunning as old Nick), was quite
aware of this necessity as a tax upon travellers; and at every stage, on
halting, he used to stand upright in his stirrups, crying aloud,
'Gentlemen and Ladies, here I am at your service; Benjamin Franklin by
name; once (but _that_ was in boyhood) a devil; viz., in the service of
a printer; next a compositor and reader to the press; at present a
master-printer. My object in this journey is--to arrest a knave who will
else be off to Europe with L200 of my money in his breeches-pocket: that
is my final object: my immediate one is--dinner; which, if there is no
just reason against it, I beg that you will no longer interrupt.' Yet
still, though it is essential to the free circulation of a philosopher
that he should be known for what he is, the reader thinks that at least
the philosopher might be known advantageously as regards his social
standing. No, he could not. And we speak seriously. How _could_
Coleridge and so m