he did, are very like blasphemies, declares that the infant is


'A son of Mirth,
Of Peace and Friendship; 'tis a quiet birth.'


Nor, again, if spirits in the other world have knowledge of human
affairs, can Mr. Cartwright be now altogether satisfied with his
rogue's augury as to the capacities of the New England Puritans, when
he intends to pick pockets in the New World, having made the Old too
hot to hold him -


'They are good silly people; souls that will
Be cheated without trouble: one eye is
Put out with zeal, th' other with ignorance,
And yet they think they're eagles.'


Whatsoever were the faults of the Pilgrim Fathers (and they were
many), silliness was certainly not among them. But such was the
court fashion. Any insult, however shallow, ribald, and doggrel (and
all these terms are just of the mock-Puritan ballad which Sir
Christopher sings in 'The Ordinary,' just after an epithalamium so
graceful and melodious, though a little warm in tone, as to be really
out of place in such a fellow's mouth), passes current against men
who were abroad the founders of the United States, and the
forefathers of the acutest and most enterprising nation on earth; and
who at home proved themselves, by terrible fact, not only the