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to express the particular business on which they were to discourse;" and the Historian adds, "that he had often beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the weight of their packs, who, when they met in the streets, would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements, help each other to resume their burdens, and take their leave.
"A fourth appeared with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, tagged and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt and skin were all of the same colour. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into vials, hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He said he did not doubt but that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the Governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate."
These Theorists were very patient, industrious and laborious in their pursuits—had a high reputation for their singular proficiency, and were regarded as prodigies in science. The common laborers and mechanics were esteemed a different race of beings, and were despised for their stupid and old-fashioned manner of acquiring property and character. If the enquiry had been made whether any of these projects had succeeded, it would have been readily answered that they had not; but that they were reasonable—their principles just—and of course, that they must ultimately produce the objects in view. Hitherto no piece of marble had been made into a pin-cushion, and few, very few sun-beams had been extracted from Cucumbers, but what then? Are not all great and noble, and valuable things, accomplished with immense exertion, and with an expense of much time? If a farther enquiry had been made what would be the great excellence of a mar-
