a book that should be wholly new. I therefore drest up three paradoxes with some ingenuity. They were false, indeed, but they were new. The jewels of truth have been so often imported by others, that nothing was left for me to import but some splendid things that at a distance looked every bit as well. Witness you powers what fancied importance sate perched upon my quill while I was writing. The whole learned world, I made no doubt, would rise to oppose my systems; but then I was prepared to oppose the whole learned world. Like the porcupine I sate self collected, with a quill pointed against every opposer."
"Well said, my boy," cried I, "and what subject did you treat upon? I hope you did not pass over the importance of Hierardical monogamy. But I interrupt, go on; you published your paradoxes; well, and what did the learned world say to your paradoxes?"
"Sir,"
