The possession of extraordinarily Perfect Senses, is by no means so enviable as people ordinarily imagine, -the works which they enable the possessors to produce can only be fully appreciated by faculties equally perfect and equally cultivated.

The purblind

"Undelighted, gaze on all delight."

The Sagacity to comprehend, and estimate the importance of any uncontemplated improvement is confined to the very few, on whom Nature has bestowed a sufficient degree of perfection of the sense which is to measure it; - the candour to make a fair report of it, is still more uncommon -and the kindness to encourage it I cannot often be expected from those, whose most vital interest it is, to prevent the developement of that, by which their own importance- perhaps their only means of existence may be for ever eclipsed; and as POPE says―

How many are

Condemned in Business or in Arts to drudge
Without an Equal — or without a Judge.”

--

Thus, the Inferiority of the Senses of othersprevents their deriving much advantage from the Superiority of their own.

When Ability and Industry have overcome the difficulties always attending the perfect execution of exquisite works, they have still to contend with the obfuscated imaginations of the Ignorant, and the malicious misrepresentations of the Idle, the Interested, and the Envious, and are seldom repaid for their exertions, unless they are content to reckon with POPE, that

-

"One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas.
In parts superior what advantage lies!
Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise?
"Tis but to know who little can be known,
To see all other's faults, and feel our own;
Painful pre-eminence yourself to view
Above life, weakness, and its comforts too."

POPE.

Persons who have Bad Senses, i. e. only just enough Ear and Eye to hear a Dinner Bell, and find a Spoon-often appear to be gifted with Good Sense in a very superior degree, and seem to think deeper than those who have the

EXTERNAL SENSES in greater perfection.When those avenues to the interruption of Intellectual abstraction, the Eyes and Ears,— are half shut, it is reasonable to suppose, that the Thinking Faculty may be more active, and more perfect.

-

Those persons whose External Senses are obtuse and imperfect, are generally, close Reasoners subtle Calculators-rigid Economists, and in all respects Persons of exemplary Prudence.

The Insensibility, of people who have Bad Senses, exempts them from many diverting temptations, which assail those who SeeHear-Feel-Taste—and Smell in perfection.

That Paragon of Good Sense-Dr. S. JOHNSON, was Short-sighted, and could not see distinctly more than 4 or 5 inches from him.—

His Ears were imperfect also, when others expressed the delight they received from Music, he said, "I should be happy to have that sense given to me;" -and when a celebrated Player had finished an elaborate Concerto, which they told him was extremely difficult, he said"Sir, I wish it had been impossible."

-

The slovenliness of his own Dress, I dare

K

-

say arose from the defect in his Sight, preventing him from being sensible of the agreeable impression produced by proper attention to neatness in others.

We have irresistible evidence that his Taste was defective, for his appreciation of a Good Dinner, was according to the Scale which Tasteless people always measure by, the Variety, the Rarity, and the Costliness of it, for he needed not Dainties to excite his Appetite; that, we are told, was sharp enough.

THE

PANCRATIC EYE-TUBE,

INVENTED BY

WILLIAM KITCHINER, M.D.

Is applicable to ACHROMATIC and REFLECTING TELESCOPES of all Lengths, and also to MI

CROSCOPES.

[See an Engraving thereof opposite this Page.] THIS EYE-TUBE is applied to the Telescope

* Those in which the Errors arising from Colorific refraction, are corrected by the figure, position, and refrac tive power of the Lenses which constitute the Object-glass.

See Dr Kitchiners Economy of the Eyes," Part 1, page 130

Published by Mefs Hurst & Robinson London 1891

130

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