Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/76

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68
HEADLONG HALL.
No sorrow round his tomb should dwell:
More pleased his gay old ghost would be,
For funeral song, and passing bell,
To hear no sound but three times three.

(Hammering of knuckles and glasses, and shouts of Bravo!)

Mr. Panscope.

(Suddenly emerging from a deep reverie.)

I have heard, with the most profound attention, every thing which the gentleman on the other side of the table has thought proper to advance on the subject of human deterioration; and I must take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very considerable degree of presumption in any individual, to set himself up against the authority of so many great men, as may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the opposite banners of the controversy; such as Aristotle, Plato, the scho-