But the millwright, after the
dam was completed, having artfully obtained his permission to use the waste
water, and fraudulently erected there a common water-mill, which soon
obtained all the neighbouring custom, he had sold out that property, and
resorted to the agency of gunpowder, which is quite as philosophical a
process as that of congelation, and much less expensive. In answer to an
inquiry of the Brahmin's, he admitted, that though he had been able, by the
force of congelation, to burst metallic tubes several inches thick, he had
never succeeded in making it put the lightest machinery into a continued
motion.
Having now nearly recovered, and being, I confess, somewhat bewildered by
the variety and complexity of these ingenious projects, I felt disposed to
take my leave; but Vindar insisted on conducting us into an inner
apartment, to see his _poetry box_. This was a large piece of furniture,
profusely decorated with metals of various colours, curiously and
fantastically inlaid. It contained a prodigious number of drawers,
which were labelled after the manner of those in an apothecary's shop,
(from whence he denied, however, that he first took the hint,) and the
labels were arranged in alphabetical order.
"Now," says he, "as the excellence of poetry consists in bringing before
the mind's eye what can be brought before the corporeal eye, I have here
collected every object that is either beautiful or pleasing in nature,
whether by its form, colour, fragrance, sweetness, or other quality, as
well as those that are strikingly disagreeable.
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