Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/182

l66 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES "Apology"), instead of trying to maintain them in comfort by working honestly at his stone-cutting business ; and that he richly deserved all that he ever got from Xanthippe (who, as appears by the Fhcedo, was really a good, warm-hearted creature, devotedly attached to this idle and incorrigible old vagabond), whether it were a deluge of reproaches or a deluge of anything else. And finally, as to his much vaunted death, it has been argued that nineteen out of twenty of the men ever hanged at Tyburn or Newgate have died just as "game," without wasting time in talk about matters of which they knew nothing. So urge the dreadful depredators : for me, who am quite ignorant with regard to all these things, I refrain from expressing or even forming any opinion until Prof. Jowett and his college (who are said to be the only men in England who have learnt any Greek) shall have delivered judgment on the whole case ; and, in order to obtain such judgment, I hope the editor will send them a few copies of this formidable indictment. But all this may be considered rather digressive, and I therefore make a sharp turn from Socrates and his somewhat unwholesome hemlock to our Ben and his good tobacco. He has indeed strangely omitted all mention of it from "Sejanus," "Catihne," "The Poetaster " {temp. Augustus), and most of the masques, which are mythological or romantic. Several of his comedies, however, wherein he depicts the fashions and humours of his time, do exceedingly abound in references to that newest and most extraordinary fashion and humour of smoking. All of these I cannot notice, but select the more prominent.