tives; he had
occasions for flicking the fellow sharply: and to speak of the Lord as
our friend present with us, palpable to Reason, perceptible to natural
piety solely through the reason, which justifies punishment; that would
have stopped his mouth upon the theme of God-forsaken creatures. Our
satirist is an executioner by profession, a moralist in excuse, or
at the tail of it; though he thinks the position reversed, when he
moralizes angrily to have his angry use of the scourge condoned.
Nevertheless, he fills a serviceable place; and certainly he is not
happy in his business. Colney suffered as heavily as he struck. If he
had been no more than a mime in the motley of satire, he would have
sucked compensation from the acid of his phrases, for the failure to
prick and goad, and work amendment.

He dramatized to Nataly some of the scene going on at the Wells:
Victor's petition; his fugue in urgency of it; the brief reply of Miss
Dorothea and her muted echo Miss Virginia. He was rather their apologist
for refusing. But, as when, after himself listening to their 'views,' he
had deferentially withdrawn from the ladies of Moorsedge, and had then
beheld their strangely-hatted lieutenants and the regiments of the
toneless respectable on the pantiles and the mounts, the curse upon
the satirist impelled him to generalize. The quiet good ladies were
multiplied: they were 'the thousands of their sisters, petticoated
or long-coated or buck-skinned; comfortable annuitants under clerical
shepherding, close upon outnumbering the labourers they paralyze at home
and stultify abroad.' Colney thumped away. The country's annuitants had
for type 'the figure with the helmet of the Owl-Goddess and the trident
of the Earth-shaker, seated on a wheel, at the back of penny-pieces; in
whom you see neither the beauty of nakedness nor the charm of drapery;
not the helmet's dignity or the trident's power; but she has patently
that which stops the wheel; and poseing for representative of an
imperial nation, she helps to pass a penny.' So he passed his
epigram, heedless of the understanding or attention of his hearer; who
temporarily misjudged him for a man impelled by the vanity of literary
point and finish, when indeed it was hot satiric spite, justified of its
aim, which crushed a class to extract a drop of scathing acid, in the
interests of the country, mankind as well. Nataly wanted a picture
painted, colours and details, that she might get a vi