him to undertake his voyage, and the course that he had pursued in its
completion, sagaciously observed, that "it was impossible for any man, a
degree above an idiot, to have failed of success. The whole process was
so obvious, it must have been seen by a man who was half blind! Nothing
could be so easy!"

"It is not difficult now I have pointed out the way," was the answer of
Columbus: "but easy as it will appear, when you are possessed of my
method, I do not believe that, without such instruction, any person
present could place one of these eggs upright on the table." The cloth,
knives, and forks were thrown aside, and two of the party, placing their
eggs as required, kept them steady with their fingers. One of them swore
there could be no other way. "We will try," said the navigator; and
giving an egg, which he held in his hand, a smart stroke upon the table,
it remained upright. The emotions which this excited in the company are
expressed in their countenances. In the be-ruffed booby at his left hand
it raises astonishment; he is a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with
Sterne's Simple Traveller, and came from Amiens only yesterday. The
fellow behind him, beating his head, curses his own stupidity; and the
whiskered ruffian, with his fore-finger on the egg, is in his heart
cursing Columbus. As to the two veterans on the other side, they have
lived too long to be agitated with trifles: he who wears a cap,
exclaims, "Is this all!" and the other, with a bald head, "By St. Jago,
I did not think of that!" In the face of Columbus there is not that
violent and excessive triumph which is exhibited by little characters on
little occasions; he is too elevated to be overbearing; and, pointing to
the conical solution of his problematical conundrum, displays a calm
superiority, and silent internal contempt.

Two eels, twisted round the eggs upon the dish, are introduced as
specimens of the line of beauty; which is again displayed on the
table-cloth, and hinted at on the knife-blade. In all these curves there
is peculiar propriety; for the etching was given as a receipt-ticket to
the Analysis, where this favourite undulating line forms the basis of
his system.

In the print of Columbus, there is evident reference to the criticisms
on what Hogarth called his own discovery; and in truth the connoisseurs'
remarks on the painter were dictated by a similar spirit to those of the
critics on the navigator: they first asserted there w