ically enough too, but the proposition is
as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the
grievance is so great, but there is his enemy--the assault is wonderful
for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his
hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them: one admires not the cause
so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the
case with madmen, certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of
wrath. Marriage is one of these; in a hundred passages in his writings
he rages against it; rages against children; an object of constant
satire, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a
poor curate with a large family. The idea of this luckless paternity
never fails to bring down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick
Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire,
have written anything like the Dean's famous "modest proposal" for eating
children? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood,
fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the
nursery with the tread and gaiety of an ogre. "I have been assured,"
says he in the "Modest Proposal," "by a very knowing American of my
acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a
year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether
stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt it will equally
serve in a ragout." And taking up this pretty joke, as his way is, he
argues it with perfect gravity and logic. He turns and twists this
subject in a score of different ways: he hashes it; and he serves it up
cold; and he garnishes it; and relishes it always. He describes the
little animal as "dropped from its dam," advising that the mother should
let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render it plump and
fat for a good table!

"A child," says his Reverence, "will make two dishes at an entertainment
for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter
will make a reasonable dish," and so on; and, the subject being so
delightful that he can't leave it, he proceeds to recommend, in place of
venison for squires' tables, "the bodies of young lads and maidens not
exceeding fourteen or under twelve." Amiable humourist! laughing
castigator of morals! There was a process well known and practised in
the Dean's gay days: when a lout entered the coffee-house,