The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
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 | The Age Reviewed |  |
122
Still blest with philosophic fools,—a store:
One night, as Gall lay grunting on the bed,
It chanced his nightcap fretted from his head;
With peevish yawn he grop'd his bristling hair,
Loosed his long jaws, and snuff'd the curtain'd air;
Meantime, the restless finger felt some lumps;—
“'Tis very odd,” saith he,—“these boundless bumps
Must be true organs of my inward brain—
I'll have some plaster heads, to shew them plain!”
This said,—he smoothed his nob, and pleas'd resign'd
To cob-web dreams, his phrenologic mind;
Soon spread the mapp'd-out skulls thro' Scotia's towns,
And Glasgow sawnies bump'd their dirty crowns;
Then foggy Spurzheim croaked in bungling tomes,
Till gaping Scotland hugg'd her crack-brain'd momes!—
Last, Combe, the printing jobbernowl for all,
In half a thousand pages grubb'd for Gall;
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With unwash'd hands to fumble and to feel:
Bump-fingering Gall, when plaister'd craniums fail,
Invent philosophy to suit the tale.
Gall and Spurzheim esteem themselves greater philosophers than Locke, Hartley, &c. &c. Who shall set the bounds to human ingenuity? We may, without presumption, shortly expect, that flying will be fashionable. Some mountebank has already commenced a prelude; and when the Mechanics are enlightened, no doubt wings will have their turn. It will be a pleasant day's jaunt to fly over to brother Jonathan, and at once settle about the North West Passage. “But this is preposterous;”—not a bit reader: it is not half so wonderful as Phrenology—the Bump Philosophy. If Gall or Spurzheim would but sacrifice their own brains for dissection, it would be a capital method to ensure immortality. Thus it would be recorded:—“That scientific martyr Mr.”—
| The Age Reviewed | |