ulligan accepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon
his design, told his hearers that he had been led into this thought by
a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the inhibitory and the
prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due to conjugal
vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether the
prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities
acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch
defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable
females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their
flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly
bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might
multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of
their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he
assured them, made his heart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which
he concluded due to a suppression of latent heat), having advised with
certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he had
resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay
island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of
note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to set up
there a national fertilising farm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk
hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful
yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life
soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the
functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he
take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the
opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers
were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man.
For his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a
diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these
latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both
broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum
chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of
asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with
which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by the
rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be
observed by Mr M