be sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. Hood? Do you know on what rock
it will strike, sir? You don't, I am certain; for nobody does know
as yet but myself. I will tell you.

The constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in the
degeneration of the human species in England, and its reduction into
a mingled race of savages and pigmies.

That is my proposition. That is my prediction. That is the event
of which I give you warning. I am now going to prove it, sir.

You are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, some
things worth reading. I say I am told, because I never read what is
written in these days. You'll excuse me; but my principle is, that
no man ought to know anything about his own time, except that it is
the worst time that ever was, or is ever likely to be. That is the
only way, sir, to be truly wise and happy.

In your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are frequently at
the Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen. God bless her! You
have reason to know that the three great keys to the royal palace
(after rank and politics) are Science, Literature, Art. I don't
approve of this myself. I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and
quite un-English; the custom having been a foreign one, ever since
the reigns of the uncivilised sultans in the Arabian Nights, who
always called the wise men of their time about them. But so it is.
And when you don't dine at the royal table, there is always a knife
and fork for you at the equerries' table: where, I understand, all
gifted men are made particularly welcome.