Note 24 — TABLE TALK; OR, ORIGINAL ESSAYS ON MEN AND MANNERS (continued 2)

These fantastic poets are like a foolish ringer at Plymouth that Northcote tells the story of. He was proud of his ringing, and the boys who made a jest of his foible used to get him in the belfry, and ask him, ‘Well now, John, how many good ringers are there in Plymouth?’ ‘Two,’ he would say, without any hesitation. ‘Ay, indeed! and who are they?’—‘Why, first, there’s myself, that’s one: and—and’—‘Well, and who’s the other?’—‘Why there’s, there’s—Ecod, I can’t think of any other but myself.’ Talk we of one Master Launcelot. The story is of ringers: it will do for any vain, shallow, self-satisfied egotist of them all.