Note 15 — CANTO I. OURSELF!
Reading edition
With leg or wing, he kick or jerk it.
Could we command the years of a Nestor, “the indelible ink” of a Lettersom, and the diligence of a Dutch commentator, we should still readily acknowledge that our powers were totally inadequate to the task of eulogising, in proportion to their merits, the philosophical and literary performances of that profound sage, Dr James Anderson, LL. D., F. R. S., Scotland, &c. &c. whose mysterious hints afford a clue by which we have been enabled to add lustre to the present age, by many of our own sublime discoveries and inventions.
In his deep work called “Recreations in Agriculture and Natural History,” the Doctor says, among other things not less marvelous, “The mathematician can demonstrate with the most decisive certainty, that no fly can alight on this globe which we inhabit, without communicating motion to it; and he can ascertain, with the most accurate precision, if so he choose to do” (by the by, this sine qua non part of the sentence is very beautiful, and not at all redundant) “what must be the exact amount of the motion thus produced.” Vol. ii. p. 350.