Medlicott would have
chopped logic, science, and philosophy with her in the way she
thought her due from the only man who could be supposed to approach
her in intellect. He however took to chaff. He would defend every
popular error that she attacked, and with an acumen and ease that
baffled her, even when she knew he was not in earnest, and made her
feel like Thor, when the giant affected to take three blows with
Miolner for three flaps of a rat's tail.
The magazine contained a series of notes on the nursery rhymes, where
the "Song of Sixpence" was proved to be a solar myth. The pocketful
of rye was the yield of the earth, and the twenty-four blackbirds
sang at sunrise while the king counted out the golden drops of the
rain, and the queen ate the produce while the maid's performance in
the garden was, beyond all doubt, symbolic of the clouds suddenly
broken in upon by the lightning!
Moreover the man of Thessaly was beautifully illustrated, blinding
himself by jumping into the prickly bush of science, where each
gooseberry was labelled with some pseudo study. When he saw his eyes
were out, he stood wondrously gazing after them with his sockets
while they returned a ludicrous stare from the points of thorns, like
lobsters. In his final leap deeper into truth, he scratched them in
again, and walked off, in a crown of laurels, triumphant.
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