affociate, the two-legged Confumer of Oats * "The It is faid, foreign gentlemen are at prefent much addicted to the ftudy of our language. A thing I am heartily forry thould take place, till the tafte of the public, at leaft, with refpect to the authors we admire, be a little amended. They may not only entertain a very contemptible opinion of us as to that article, but also be led to conceive the ftrangeft notions of our laws, cuftoms and manners; and what is yet more unlucky, conclude that the natives of one of our three kingdoms are really no better than irrational, irrifible, four-legged animals, and confidered by their fellow-fubjects, and the legislature in no other capacity. I am led into this train of Reflection, by the following advertisement, which I met with the other Day in the Daily Advertifer. The Confumers of oats, within the cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, and who subscribed towards the expences of obtaining the laft act of parliament for empowering the juftices in London to grant a certificate of the price of oats, four times a year, are defired to meet their Committee, at the Sun-Tavern, in St. Paul's Churchyard, this day, being the 29th of December, inftant, at five o'clock in the afternoon, on special affairs." Now, whoever confiders the definition of oats, given by Lexiphanes in his dictionary, and quoted in page 23d of this dialogue, cannot conceive any thing to be meant by Confumers of Oats, in the general and comprehenfive fenfe of the expreffion, other than English borfes or mares, and Scotch men or women. "Tis certain, a foreigner who ftudies our language grammatically, and who muft naturally look upon this work of our renowned Lexicographer, as the standard of our tongue, and have recourfe to it, in order "The fentimental Hibernian, and myfelf, left them in the height of their amicable compotations and fimultaneously returned order to learn the strength and idiom, and peculiar meaning and energy of our words and phrases; 'tis certain, I fay, that fuch a perfon in fuch a cafe, could understand nothing elfe by it. What then muft we think of the above advertisement ? will he not naturally conclude, that 'tis an ordinary thing in London, for Horfes and Scotch men to meet at a tavern, like friends and acquaintances, over a bottle; to appoint committees, out of their refpective bodies, to confult together on their special affairs ; and jointly to addrefs fuch a venerable fociety as their worthips, the Juftices, about their neareft and most important concern, namely the price of Oats, their common food. Ambiguities of this kind, which may be prouctive of very troublesome mistakes and inconveniencies, are great imperfections in a language, and ought carefully to be guarded againft. It would be labour thrown away to petition the great Lexiphanes, to alter one tittle, or jota of his dictionary, and to accommodate it to our weakness and prejudices; barely to fuggeft the expediency of fuch a meafure, would be high treafon against his Lexicographical powers and authority. I muft therefore content myfelf with befeeching the ingenious compilers of the Daily Advertiser, the next time they have occafion to infert fuch an advertisement, that they would have the goodness to add, to Consumers of Oats, the epithets of Two-legged, Rifible or Rational. Yet, on fecond thoughts, even this honourable addition will not altogether do the bufinefs. For 1 humbly apprehend no Englishman can be faid, in the proper and obvious fenfe, to be a confumer of oats. No turned to Gray's-Inn, in the periodical itenerant vehicle. And there I had not long been, when Megalonymus, the Attorney, inchoated an action against me, at the fuit of the mercenary owner of the conductitious palfrey, which, in the course of his vertiginous gambols, had taken an erratick No, they are confumers of the whiteft of wheat-flour, adulterated only with lime and allum, and some few other poisonous materials. That, however, is nothing. Therefore in the room of Confumers, I would have them fubftitute Buyers and Sellers, which will effuctually answer the purpose. The advice I have given, I have myself followed. For wherever the Caledonian, the hero in the national quarrel occafioned by that true-born Englishman and fignal patriot the Grocer, is mentioned as a Confumer of Oats, I have conftantly added the diftinction of Two-legged or Rifible, that he might at no time be mistaken for a Horfe, his brother Confumer. But I have not ventured to honour him with the addition of rational, as apprehending the whole being put in Lexiphanes's mouth, that might be out of character. For he is known to hold the northern inhabitants of our island in fuch fovereign contempt, that it is much to be queftioned whether he reckons them an order of beings fuperior to Bears or Baboons. However Their property of two-legged nefs can never be difputed, and I hope many of them have fhewn their Powers of Rifibility, by laughing very heartily at Him. For in fact, I know not a more laughable, a more ridiculous object in the universe, than fuch a folemn, felf-conceited, haughty, overbearing, pedantick old-school-boy, as my Lexiphanes. progress progrefs to fuch a diftance, and with fuch velocity, that he could not be re-apprehended. The bard, conscious that the violence of his repercuffions, and the impetuofity* of his impaffioned nerve, was the pristine cause of all my complicated infelicities, and comick calamitiest, has procured me the furety of his two book fellers. My council is Pertinax, who being early initiated in a thousand low ftratagems, nimble shifts, and fly concealments, contracted an intellectual malady which infected his reafon, and from blafting the bloffoms of knowledge, proceeded in time to canker its root. At riper years, he caught the contagion of vanity, and distinguished himself by fophifms and paradoxes till his ideas were confufed, his judgment embaraffed, and his intellects diftorted. But growing weary of a perpetual equipoife of the mind, he prescribed a new regimen to his understanding, and being at length recovered from his argumental delirium, *This word is mightily commended for found, &c. in the Elem. of Criticifin. + Ramb. No. 176. See Pertinax's Letter, No. 95. with which he was wont to darken gaiety, and perplex raticionation, he now applies his powers with great fedulity to the acquirement of legiflative fcience. The trial makes its approximation with the filent celerity of time, notwithstanding The laws delay, the proud man's contumely, .. I had no fooner effufed this ejaculation to Hypertatus, than Mifocapelus, Hermeticus, Hymeneus, Captator, Eubulus, and Quifquilius came up and † conjoined us. It was impoffible for me not to fuccumb under the conjunct importunities of fo many illuftrious affociates, who all fimultaneously obfecrated me to accompany them in an ambulatory project to the wakeful harbinger of day § at Chelfea, and there to recreate and invigorate our powers with buns, convivial ale, and a fober erratick game at fkittles. At length I adhibited * Characters or correfpondents of our Author in the Rambler. + Elements of Criticism. § In English the fign of the Cock. Robertfon. my |