W. P. V.{9} F. (st) (ow)
Distinction with a loud and powerful fan,
W.P. F. (st) (ow) L.

Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
W. P. F. L.
And what hath mass and matter by itself
W. F. L. M. A.
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.' {10}
V. L. M.


From these delicate and choice writers I turned with some curiosity
to a player of the big drum--Macaulay. I had in hand the two-
volume edition, and I opened at the beginning of the second volume.
Here was what I read:

'The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the
degree of the maladministration which has produced them. It is
therefore not strange that the government of Scotland, having been
during many years greatly more corrupt than the government of
England, should have fallen with a far heavier ruin. The movement
against the last king of the house of Stuart was in England
conservative, in Scotland destructive. The English complained not
of the law, but of the violation of the law.'

This was plain-sailing enough; it was our old friend PVF, floated
by the liquids in a body; but as I read on, and turned the page,
and still found PVF with his attendant liquids, I confess my mind
misgave me utterly. This could be no trick of Macaulay's; it must