Note 49 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Rump-fed hellion.] Lest the Doctor should here again accuse us of borrowing—a thing, by the by, we strongly suspect him of, as we think we can discover that many of his thoughts, and certainly some of his rhymes, are borrowed from the immortal Searson and the inimitable Minshull—we acknowledge that we are indebted for this line to Shakespeare. Whether the term rump-fed applies to the Doctor or not, we cannot exactly tell; but if we were not afraid of swelling our notes, we would, following the example of the Doctor in his Democracy Unveiled, give our readers an account of the famous Rump Parliament—and truly ’twould be as much in point as most of the notes in that celebrated work.
Hellion. “A deputy scullion employed in regions below ‘to cook up the broth.’”—Link. Fid. The Doctor, good man, has employed himself, while on earth, as far as his weakly powers would go, in stewing up many a woful kettle of fish.
“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Shakespeare must certainly have had the Doctor’s weekly mess of bubble and squeak in view, when he wrote the above.