PHILO.

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GRAVITATION.

(For the Mirror.)

In a matter-of-fact age like the present, methinks it behoves every man to apply the improvements of scientific research as much as possible to the ordinary concerns of life.  Science and society may thus be called at par, and philosophical theory will hence enlighten the practical tradesman.

To demonstrate the truth of the above remarks, I mean, with the editor’s leave, to prove the necessity of keeping a friend in one’s pocket, upon the principles of gravitation, according to Sir Isaac Newton’s “Principia.”

The learned doctor has mathematically proved that all bodies gravitate or incline to the centre.  It is on this principle only that we can account for our being fixed to the earth; that we are surrounded by the atmosphere; and that we are constantly attended by, and seem constantly to attend, the planets around us.

Should any farther demonstration be necessary than the incomparable Sir Isaac has himself furnished us with, let any sceptic who doubts that the earth attracts all smaller bodies towards its centre, only take a hop from the Monument or St. Paul’s, and he will soon find the power of gravitation, and die by the truth of the experiment.

But what, methinks, exclaims the reader, has all this to do with the proposition in hand, viz. the necessity of keeping a friend in one’s pocket?  Why, I’ll tell you—­from a due consideration of this very principle, you will soon see the use of a man’s keeping his money in his pocket.  It is this alone (the pocket) which nowadays constitutes the centre of friendship; there alone, therefore, must this most valuable, most faithful of all friends (money) be deposited.  Now if this friend be of magnitude, he will soon collect many more around you, who, true as the needle to the pole, will point to you from every quarter—­friends who will smile in your prosperity, bask in the sunshine of your glory, dance while you pay the piper, and to the very ground will be “votre tres humble serviteur, monsieur.”  But if by sickness, misfortune, generosity, or the like, this friend be removed from your pocket, the centre is destroyed, the equilibrium is lost, away fly your friends, and, like pelicans, turn their beaks at your breast whenever you approach.  “It is your own fault, fellow; you might have done well if you would; but you are an ass, and could not keep a friend when you had him; and so you may die in a ditch, and go to the devil, my dear.”

The man of affluence, who lavishes away his substance, may aptly enough be likened to a porpoise sporting in the ocean—­the smaller fry play around him, admire his dexterity, fan his follies, glory in his gambols; but let him once be enmeshed in the net of misfortune, and they who foremost fawned under his fins, will first fall foul of him.