Note 22 — CANTO I. OURSELF!
Reading edition
They might as well have none at all.
The process by which this fabrication is effected is copied from Nature; and her manipulations in similar performances have been thus described in some of our heretofore publications:
Certain sages learn’d and twistical, By reasoning not a whit sophistical, Have proved what’s wonderful, to wit, The smallest atom may be split, Then split again, ad infinitum; And diagrams, which much delight ’em, By Mr Martin make this out Beyond the shadow of a doubt. Matter thus splittable, I wean, With half an eye it may be seen, That spirit, being much diviner, May be proportionably finer; Nor is this merely postulatum, ’Tis proved by facts, and thus I state them. Dame Nature erst, in mood of merriment, Perform’d the following odd experiment; She took a most diminish’d sprite, Smaller than microscopic mite, An hundred thousand such might lie Wedged in a cambric needle’s eye, And first, by dint of her divinity, Divided that one whole infinity, Then cull’d the very smallest particle, And shaped therefrom that worthless article, That tiny evanescent dole, Which serves for Dicky Dapper’s soul.