se Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last night; 'a
forked Radish with a head fantastically carved'? And why might he not,
did our stern fate so order it, walk out to St Stephen's, as well as
into bed, in that no-fashion; and there, with other similar Radishes,
hold a Bed of Justice? 'Solace of those afflicted with the like!'
Unhappy Teufelsdroeckh, had man ever such a 'physical or psychical
infirmity' before? And now how many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled
confession (which we, even to the sounder British world, and goaded-on
by Critical and Biographical duty, grudge to re-impart) incurably
infect therewith! Art thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only
the maddest?

'It will remain to be examined,' adds the inexorable Teufelsdroeckh,
'in how far the SCARECROW, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled
to benefit of clergy, and English trial by jury: nay perhaps,
considering his high function (for is not he too a Defender of
Property, and Sovereign armed with the _terrors_ of the Law?), to a
certain royal Immunity and Inviolability; which, however, misers and
the meaner class of persons are not always voluntarily disposed to
grant him.' * * *

* * * 'O my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as "turkeys
driven with a stick and red clout, to the market": or if some drivers,
as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the
rattle thereof terrifies the boldest!'

CHAPTER X

PURE REASON

It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above hinted, is
a speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge; acknowledging,
for most part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilised Life,
which we make so much of, nothing but so many Cloth-rags,
turkey-poles, and 'bladders with dried peas.' To linger among such
speculations, longer than mere Science requires, a discerning public
can have no wish. For our purposes the simple fact that such a _Naked
World_ is possible, nay actually exists (under the Clothed one), will
be sufficient. Much, therefore, we omit about 'Kings wrestling naked
on the green with Carmen,' and the Kings being thrown: 'dissect them
with scalpels,' says Teufelsdroeckh; 'the same viscera, tissues,
livers, lights, and other life-tackle are there: examine their
spiritual mechanism; the same great Need, great Greed, and little
Faculty; nay ten to one but the Carman, who understands
draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, something of the law