Boswell inquired the
Doctor's opinion on illicit distillation, and how the great moralist
would act in an affray between the smugglers and the excise. "If I went
by the _letter_ of the law, I should assist the customs; but according
to the _spirit_, I should stand by the contrabandists." The Doctor was
always very satirical on the want of timber in the North. "Sir," said he
to the young Lord of Icombally, who was going to join his regiment, "may
Providence preserve you in battle, and especially your nether limbs! You
may grow a walking-stick here, but you must import a wooden leg." At
Dunsinnane the old prejudice broke out. "Sir," said he to Boswell,
"Macbeth was an idiot; he ought to have known that every wood in
Scotland might be carried in a man's hand. The Scotch, Sir, are like the
frogs in the fable: if they had a log, they would make a king of it." We
will quote here a stanza which contains quite a serious application of
the pun; and for Hood's purpose no other word could so happily or so
pungently express his meaning. The poem is an "Address to Mrs. Fry"; and
the doctrine of it is, that it is better and wiser to teach the young
and uncorrupted that are yet outside the prison than the vicious and the
hardened who have got inside it. Thus he goes on:--
"I like your chocolate, good Mistress Fry!
I like your cookery in every way;
I like your Shrove-tide service and supply;
I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play;
I like the pity in your full-brimmed eye;
I like your carriage and your silken gray,
Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching;
But I don't like your _Newgatory_ teaching.
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