any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to
live on a globe, and to revolve in twenty-four hours.

(_October, 1866._) A follower appears, in a work dedicated to the preceding
author: it is _Theoretical Astronomy examined and exposed by Common Sense_.
The author has 128 well-stuffed octavo pages. I hope he will not be the
last. He prints the newspaper accounts of his work: the _Church Times_
says--not seeing how the satire might be retorted--"We never began to
despair of Scripture until we discovered that 'Common Sense' had taken up
the cudgels in its defence." This paper considers our author as the type of
a _Protestant_. The author himself, who gives a summary of his arguments in
verse, has one couplet which is worth quoting:

"How is't that sailors, bound to sea, with _a 'globe'_ would never start,
But in its place will always take _Mercator's_[188] LEVEL _chart_!"

To which I answer:

Why, really Mr. Common Sense, you've never got so far
As to think Mercator's planisphere shows countries as they are;
It won't do to measure distances; it points out how to steer,
But this distortion's not for you; another is, I fear.
The earth must be a cylinder, if seaman's charts be true,
Or else the boundaries, right and left, are one as well as two;
They contradict the notion that we dwell upon a plain,
For straight away, without a turn, will bring you home again.
There are various plane projections; and each one has its use:
I wish a milder word would rhyme--but really you're a goose!

The great wish of persons who expose themselves as above, is to be argued
with, and to be treated as reputable {93} and refutable opponents. "Common
Sense" reminds us that no amount of "blatant ridicule" will turn right into
wrong. He is perfectly correct: but then no amount of bad argument will
turn wrong into right. These two things balance; and we are just where we
were: but you should answer our arguments, for whom, I ask? Would reason
convince this kind of reasoner? The issue is a short and a clear one. If
these parties be what I contend they are, then ridicule is made for them:
if not, for what or for whom? If they be right, they are only passing
through the appointed trial of all good things. Appeal is made to the
future: and my Budget is intended to show samples of the long line of
heroes who have fallen without victory, each of whom had his day of
confidence and his prophecy of success. Let the f