all we have of him, is the very
opposite of clear, will pretend to decide that he thought clearly. As his
writing, so probably was his thought; and his books are, if not anything
but clear, at least anything good but clear. Nobody thinks them clear
except a person who always clears difficulties: which I have no doubt was
the reviewer's habit; that is, if he ever took the field {203} at all. The
gentleman who read Euclid, all except the As and Bs and the pictures of
scratches and scrawls, is the type of a numerous class.

The reviewer finds that the word _amosgepotically_, used by A. B., is
utterly mysterious and incomprehensible. He hopes his translation of the
bit of Greek will shield him from imputation of ignorance: and thinks the
word may be referred to the "obscure dialect" out of which sprung
_aneroid_, _kalos geusis sauce_, and _Anaxyridian trousers_. To lump the
first two phrases with the third smacks of ignorance in a Greek critic; for
[Greek: anaxuridia], _breeches_, would have turned up in the lexicon; and
_kalos geusis_, though absurd, is not obscure. And [Greek: amosgepos],
_somehow or other_, is as easily found as [Greek: anaxuridia]. The word
_aneroid_, I admit, has puzzled better scholars than the critic: but never
one who knows the unscholarlike way in which words ending in [Greek: eides]
have been rendered. The _aneroid barometer_ does _not_ use a column of air
in the same way as the old instrument. Now [Greek: aeroeides]--properly
_like_ the atmosphere--is by scientific non-scholarship rendered having to
do with the atmosphere; and [Greek: anaeroeides]--say _anaeroid_--denies
having to do with the atmosphere; a nice thing to say of an instrument
which is to measure the weight of the atmosphere. One more absurdity, and
we have _aneroid_, and there you are. The critic ends with a declaration
that nothing in the book shakes his faith in a _Quarterly_ reviewer who
said that suspension of opinion, until further evidence arrives, is
justifiable: a strange summing up for an article which insists upon utter
rejection being unavoidable.[348] The expressed aim of both A. B. and C. D.
was to excite inquiry, and get further evidence: until this is done,
neither asks for a verdict.

Oh where! and oh where! is old Medicine's learning gone! There _was_ some
in the days of yore, when Popery {204} was on! And it's oh! for some Greek,
just to find a word upon! The reviewer who, lexicon in hand, can neither
make out _an