vivial associate, the two-legged Confumer of Oats*. "The * It is faid, foreign gentlemen are at present much addicted to the study of our language. A thing I am heartily forry should take place, till the taste of the publick, at least 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 alfo be led to conceive the ftrangest notions of our laws, customs 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 Advertiser. "The Confumers of oats, within the cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, and who fubfcribed towards the expences of obtaining the last act of parliament for empowering the juttices 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 fense of the expreilion, other than English borfes or mares, and Scotch men or women 'Tis certain, a foreigner who studies our language grammatically, and who must naturally look upon this work of our renowned Lexicographer, as the standard of our tongue, and have recourse to it, in order 1 "The fentimental Hibernian, and myself, 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 say, that such a person, in such a cafe, could understand nothing else by it. What then must we think of the above advertisement? will he not naturally conclude, that 'tis an ordinary thing in London, for Horses and Scotch men to meet at a tavern, like friends and acquaintances, over a bottle; to appoint committees, out of their respective bodies, to confult together on their special affairs! and jointly to address such a venerable fociety as their worships, the Justices, about their nearest and most important concern, namely, the price of Oats, their common food? Ambiguities of this kind, which may be productive 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 suggest the expediency of such a meafure, would be high treason against his Lexicographical powers and authority. I must therefore content myself with beseeching the ingenious compilers of the Daily Advertiser, the next time they have occafion to infert such an advertisement, that they would have the goodness to add, to Consumers of Oats, the epithets of Tavo-legged, Risible or Rational. Yet, on second thoughts, even this honourable addition will not altogether do the business. For I 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 itinerant 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 conducti tious palfrey, which, in the course of his vertiginous gambols, had taken an erratick No, they are confumers of the whitest of wheat-flour, adulterated only with lime and allum, and some few other poisonous materials. That, however, is nothing. Therefore in the room of Consumers, I would have them substitute Buyers and Sellers, which will effectually 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 Consumer of Oats, I have constantly added the diftinction of Two-legged or Risible, that he might at no time be mistaken for a Horse, his brother Confumer. But I have not ventured to honour him with the additional 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 sovereign contempt, that it is much to be questioned whether he reckons them an order of beings fuperior to Bears or Baboons. However their property of two-leggedness can never be disputed, and I hope many of them have shewn 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-fchool-boy, as my Lexiphanes. progress progress to fuch a distance, and with fuch velocity, that he could not be re-apprehended. The bard, confcious that the violence of his repercussions, and the impetuosity * of his impaffioned nerve, was the priftine caufe of all my complicated infelicities, and comick calamities †, has procured me the furety of his two booksellers. My council is Pertinax, who being early initiated in a thousand low stratagems, nimble shifts, and fly concealments, contracted an intellectual malady which infected his reason, and from blasting the bloffoms of knowledge, proceeded in time to canker its root. At riper years, he caught the contagion of vanity, and diftinguished himself by fophifms and paradoxes till his ideas were confused, his judgment embaraffed, and his intellects distorted. But growing weary of a perpetual equipoise 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 Criticism. † Ramb. No. 176. † See Pertinax's Letter, No. 95. with which he was wont to darken gaiety, and perplex ratiocination, he now applies his powers with great fedulity to the acquirement of legislative science. The trial makes its approximation with the filent celerity of time, notwithstanding The law's delay, the proud man's contumely, " I had no fooner effused this ejaculation to Hypertatus, than Mifocapelus, Hermeticus, Hymeneus, Captator, Eubulus, and Quisquilius * came up and † conjoined us. It was impoffible for me not to fuccumb ‡ under the conjunct importunities of fo many illustrious affociates, who all fimultaneously obfecrated me to accompany them in an ambulatory project to the wakeful harbinger of day § at Chelsea, and there to recreate and invigorate our powers with buns, convivial ale, and a fober erratick game at skittles. At length I adhibited * Characters or correfpondents of our Author in the Rambler. + Elements of Criticifm. † Robertson. § In English the sign of the Cock. my |