In one part of the dialogue there occurred
the familiar line from Goldsmith, "and
fools who came to scoff, remained to pray."
To the surprise of the actors, and of some
part at least of the spectators, it was
received with a storm of disapprobation.
Subsequently, it transpired that "the
groundlings" imagined that the offending
passage was quoted from the Bible. Then,
too, there is Lindley Murray, patron–saint
of the grammarians. How glibly and
familiarly it is the custom to speak of
him! With many of us it is the way to
talk of him as "old Lindley Murray," in
a half–tender, half compassionate, tone of
voice: as though he were a departed friend
of the family; genial and amusing enough,
but withal somewhat odd and pedantic.
We venture to say, that not one person in
a hundred knows anything of the career
and labours of the illustrious worthy whose
"sponsorial and patronymic appellations,"
he thus recklessly takes in vain. Of "rare
Cocker," moreover, to borrow the title
conferred upon him by one of his enthusiastic
admirers, it may be said that the name
survives and is familiar to every one, while
his life and character are all but unknown.
Let ours be the glory to exhibit the renowned
arithmetician as he appears under
"the fierce light" of adulation thrown
upon him by certain of his admiring
contemporaries, and by himself!

"That most ingenious and industrious
philomath, penman, and engraver, Mr.
Edward Cocker," was born in London, in
1631, and resided in St. Paul's Churchyard,
where he practised the art of engraving,
and taught writing and arithmetic.
To his excellence as an engraver,
Pepys bears testimony in his Diary. He
speaks of having employed Cocker to
engrave his "new sliding–rule with silver
plates, it being so small, that Brown that
made it, could not get one to do it."
Cocker, however, succeeded in the difficult
and delicate task, and, in spite of the rule
being so small, he made use of no magnifying–
glass. Pepys also speaks of finding
Cocker " by his discourse very ingenious;
and among other things, a great admirer
of, and well read in, the English poets, and
undertakes to judge them all, and that not
impertinently." His published works consist
of his celebrated arithmetic, and of a
variety of copy and other exercise books,
Of these, one of the best is "The Pen's
Triumph, a copy–book containing examples
of all hands, adorned with incomparable
knots and nourishes, being all distilled
from the limbec of the author's own brain,
and an invention as useful as rare; with
such directions as will conduct an ingenious
practitioner to an unimagined
height. Also a choice receipt for Inke."
The frontispiece exhibits a portrait of the
author, at twenty–six, and represents him
in the falling collar of that day, and wearing
a small moustache. His face bears
something of a grave or settled look, as
becoming "a practitioner in sublime and
incomparable arts." The next page is occupied
by a quadruple acrostic (in these
degenerate days, double acrostics are
deemed to be a sufficient tax upon the
witty), "dedicated to my renowned friend,
Mr. Edward Cocker, by H. P."

A modern writer maintains that, "there
is one kind of religion in which the more
devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes
he makes—the worship of himself." If
this be the rule, as it doubtless is, Cocker
must be the exception which is said to
prove it. The illustrious and ingenious
penman was, as will be shown presently,
an egotist, "a devout" egotist, "religious
in it." He set up a shrine, in which he
was deity, priest, and thurifer, all in one.
Yet he was not without a "following" of
the most devoted and servile worshippers.
In another of his copy–books, we have the
following "Apostrophe to Cocker,"

O, who can thus miraculously command
His pen, unlesse an angel guide his hand?
No pestilential blasts from putrid lungs
Shall blast thy fame. No, thy remorse shall dwell
On high, when envy plunges into Hell.

Another address "to this admired book,
and its more admired author," succeeds
in taking the one step which leads from
the sublime to the ridiculous:

Thus comes my Muse like Sheba's Queen, to be
The blest admirer of thy works and thee.
Thy heav'n–resembling books, for which even all
The world's vast empire were a gift too small.

Next comes a statement to the effect that
France, Italy, Holland, and England held
a contest for the palm of calligraphy.
The result of it is stated in the following
chaste and beautiful couplets:

The Dutchman had it, if fame tell no lie,
But being butter–fingered, let her flie ;
Now glorious England, she is mine, and mine
Rare Cocker, in whose works her beauties shine.

Finally, the Muse is called upon to raise a
triumphant arch, "not a vast heap of
stones, but stars." The sun, too, is to
stand still and no longer "run about this
mole–hill,"

But to stand centinel on this glorious frame,
And in celestial flame speak forth great Cocker's name.