lectric and a torpedo!'

Alas, how can a man with this devilishness of temper make way for
himself in Life; where the first problem, as Teufelsdroeckh too admits,
is 'to unite yourself with some one and with somewhat (_sich
anzuschliessen_)'? Division, not union, is written on most part of his
procedure. Let us add too that, in no great length of time, the only
important connexion he had ever succeeded in forming, his connexion
with the Zaehdarm Family, seems to have been paralysed, for all
practical uses, by the death of the 'not uncholeric' old Count. This
fact stands recorded, quite incidentally, in a certain _Discourse on
Epitaphs_, huddled into the present Bag, among so much else; of which
Essay the learning and curious penetration are more to be approved of
than the spirit. His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of
what sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical. 'By request
of that worthy Nobleman's survivors,' says he, 'I undertook to compose
his Epitaph; and not unmindful of my own rules, produced the following;
which however, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet
fully visible to myself, still remains unengraven';--wherein, we may
predict, there is more than the Latinity that will surprise an English
reader:

HIC JACET

PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE MAGNUS,

ZAEHDARMI COMES,
EX IMPERII CONCILIO,
VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI
EQUES.

QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT,

QUINQUIES MILLE PERDICES

PLUMBO CONFECIT:

VARII CIBI

CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA,
PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE
HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS,

IN STERCUS

PALAM CONVERTIT.

NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM
OPERA SEQUUNTUR.

SI MONUMENTUM QUAERIS,
FIMETUM ADSPICE.

PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [_sub dato_]; POSTREMUM [_sub dato_].

CHAPTER V

ROMANCE

'For long years,' writes Teufelsdroeckh, 'had the poor Hebrew, in this
Egypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking bricks without
stubble, before ever the question on