spirit. Next to him, on this side, sits the dilettante composer,
Mr. Trillo; they say his name was O'Trill, and he has taken the O
from the beginning, and put it at the end. I do not know how this
may be. He plays well on the violoncello, and better on the piano;
sings agreeably; has a talent at versemaking, and improvises a song
with some felicity. He is very agreeable company in the evening,
with his instruments and music-books. He maintains that the sole
end of all enlightened society is to get up a good opera, and
laments that wealth, genius, and energy are squandered upon other
pursuits, to the neglect of this one great matter.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. That is a very pleasant fancy at any rate.

LADY CLARINDA. I assure you he has a great deal to say for it.
Well, next to him, again, is Dr. Morbific, who has been all over
the world to prove that there is no such thing as contagion; and
has inoculated himself with plague, yellow fever, and every variety
of pestilence, and is still alive to tell the story. I am very shy
of him, too; for I look on him as a walking phial of wrath, corked
full of all infections, and not to be touched without extreme
hazard.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME. This is the strangest fellow of all.

LADY CLARINDA. Next to him sits Mr. Philpot, the geographer, who
thinks of nothing but the heads and tails of rivers, and lays down
the streams of Terra Incognita as accurately as if he had been
there. He is a person of pleasant fancy, and makes a sort of fairy
land of every country he touches, from the Frozen Ocean to the
Deserts of Sahara.