THE INDIAN JUGGLERS.
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clear and unentangled. I have also time on my hands to correct my opinions, and polish my periods: but the one I cannot, and the other I will not do. I am fond of arguing: yet with a good deal of pains and practice it is often as much as I can do to beat my man; though he may be an indifferent hand. A common fencer would disarm his adversary in the twinkling of an eye, unless he were a professor like himself. A stroke of wit will sometimes produce this effect, but there is no such power or superiority in sense or reasoning. There is no complete mastery of execution to be shewn there: and you hardly know the professor from the impudent pretender or the mere clown[1].
I have always had this feeling of the inefficacy
- ↑ The celebrated Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot) first discovered and brought out the talents of the late Mr. Opie the painter. He was a poor Cornish boy, and was out at work in the fields, when the poet went in search of him. “Well, my lad, can you go and bring me your very best picture?” The other flew like lightning, and soon came back with what he considered as his masterpiece. The stranger looked at it, and the young artist, after waiting for some time without his giving any opinion, at length exclaimed eagerly, “Well, what do you think of it?”—“Think of it?” said Wolcot, “why, I think you ought to be ashamed of it—that you who might do so well, do no better!” The same answer would have applied to this artist's latest performances, that had been suggested by one of his earliest efforts.
