P. V. (9) F. (st) (ow)
Distinction with a loud and powerful fan,
W.P. F. (st) (ow) L.
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
W. P. F. L.
And what hath mass and matter by itself
W. F. L. M. A.
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.' (10)
V. L. M.
From these delicate and choice writers I turned with some
curiosity to a player of the big drum - Macaulay. I had in
hand the two-volume edition, and I opened at the beginning of
the second volume. Here was what I read:
'The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the
degree of the maladministration which has produced them. It
is therefore not strange that the government of Scotland,
having been during many years greatly more corrupt than the
government of England, should have fallen with a far heavier
ruin. The movement against the last king of the house of
Stuart was in England conservative, in Scotland destructive.
The English complained not of the law, but of the violation
of the law.'
This was plain-sailing enough; it was our old friend PVF,
floated by the liquids in a body; but as I read on, and
turned the page, and still found PVF with his attendant
liquids, I confess my mind misgave me utterly. This could be
no trick of Macaulay's; it must be the nature of the English
tongue. In a kind of despair, I turned half-way through the
volume; and coming upon his lordship dealing with General
Cannon, and fresh from Claverhouse and Killiecrankie, here,
with elucidative spelling, was my reward:
'Meanwhile the disorders of Kannon's Kamp went on inKreasing.
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