There are knights of various orders, from the knight of
the windmill to the knight of the post. The former is your patron
for exploits, and the latter will assist you in settling your
accounts. No honorary title could be more happily applied! The
ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has discovered more genius
in fitting you therewith, than in generating the most finished
figure for a button, or descanting on the properties of a button
mould.
But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary
is exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument.
America is anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes
to do it in a manner that shall distinguish you from all the
deceased heroes of the last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is
not known to the present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath
outlived the science of deciphering it. Some other method,
therefore, must be thought of to immortalize the new knight of the
windmill and post. Sir William, thanks to his stars, is not
oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no ambition of being
wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and cassia. Less expensive
odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens that the simple
genius of America has discovered the art of preserving bodies, and
embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than the
ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure as
Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all the
mummies of Egypt.
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