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In every direction around them, as far as the eye could reach, the snow-covered country was utterly devoid of town, village, or hamlet; not a sign of life was anywhere to be seen. "A sorry prospect for our fine plan," said the pedant, after a searching examination of their surroundings, "and I very much fear that the plentiful store of provisions Herode promised us will not be forthcoming.
If a particular expression does not happen to be current in the critic's own circle, he concludes that nobody uses it, and that the author is a pedant or a vulgarian.
"I say, Herode," exclaimed the pedant, "doesn't all this remind you of something? It seems to me this is not the first time we have heard the jingling of those bells, eh?" "By Saint Alipantin!" cried the tyrant, joyfully, "these are the very mules that carried Zerbine off so mysteriously. Speak of a wolf "
Never did the dull imagination of a third-rate scholar and classic poetaster, never did the grotesque solemnity of a pedant fond of his phrases, never did the irritating hardness of the narrow and stubborn devotee display with greater sentimental bombast and more administrative officiousness than in the decrees of the Legislative Corps, in the acts passed by the Directory and in the instructions issued by the ministers Sotin, Letourneur, Lambrechts, Duval and Francois de Neufchateau.
All the bottles having been scrupulously emptied, the pedant turned the last one of the half dozen upside down, so that every drop might run out; which significant action was noted and understood by Matamore, who lost no time in bringing in a fresh supply from the chariot.
Modern counterparts of the following jest are not far to seek: Quoth a man to a pedant, "The slave I bought of you has died." Rejoined the other, "By the gods, I do assure you that he never once played me such a trick while I had him." The old Greek pedant is transformed into an Irishman, in our collections of facetiæ, who applied to a farmer for work.
Quintus, ambitious of authorship, proposes to himself a catalogued interpretation of misprints in German books and other tasks hardly less laboriously futile. His creator treats him with unfailing good humor and "the consciousness of a kindred folly." Fixlein is the archetypal pedant. The very heart of humor is in the account of the commencement exercises at his school.
When Italians write thus, they degrade the greatest name of their country to a depth of laborious imbecility, to which the trifling of schoolmen and academicians is as nothing. It is to solve the enigma of Dante's works by imagining for him a character in which it is hard to say which predominates, the pedant, mountebank, or infidel.
His reception, about a month later, by Queen Elizabeth is an event on which all English historians are fond of dwelling. The pedant, on being presented to that imperious and accomplished sovereign, deported himself with the same ludicrous arrogance which had characterised him at the Hague.
In his excuse we must plead, that he was not born under a happy star: his pieces were either altogether unsuccessful, or, compared with the astonishing popularity of Shakspeare's, they obtained but a small share of applause; moreover, he was incessantly attacked, both on the stage and elsewhere, by his rivals, as a disgraceful pedant, who pretended to know every thing better than themselves, and with all manner of satires: all this rendered him extremely irritable and uneven of temper.
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