Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

KROUSIANIA:
In imitation of Boswell's Johnsoniana
The learned Dr. Krou asserted one day, in the lobby of the senate chamber, that "man was a hissing animal." "That—(said the famous general Blucher, who was present, and who is another Boswell to the Doctor)—that I deny, unless you can prove that a man is a goose."
The Doctor.—"Sir, it is not necessary to prove a man a goose in order to prove him a hissing animal. He may be a hissing animal in a variety of ways. Do you remember the case of Leda and her eggs? Now, sir, will you be so bold as to deny that if Jupiter had appeared in the form of a gander instead of a swan, the eggs of Leda would not have been goose eggs, and Castor and Pollux hissing animals? Again, sir; imagine a case which may happen in our own times—suppose a real gander to stand in the place of Jupiter, or a real goose in the place of Leda; and then suppose a thing, sir, by no means improbable, that the egg produced by such an amour should be dropped upon a dung hill, and there hatched, in the Egyptian manner, by the sun's rays, or the caloric contained in the dung itself; would not the gosling from such an egg be a hissing animal? He might have the form and outward exterior of a man, but in every other sense he would be a goose. Yes, sir, such instances are known. Besides, sir, nature is not so circumscribed in her efforts as those who study little and think less, appear to imagine and too often have the impertinence to assert. You are not so ignorant as never to have heard of Alexander the Great? Does not Herodotus, and all the ancient historians of any credit, assert positively that Alexander was not the son of Philip, but the progeny of Jupiter Ammon, who, in the form of a serpent, rolled in bed with his mother? Alexander, sir, thus begotten, was a hissing animal. These, sir, are cases from the ancients, established beyond the possibility of doubt. Infidels and heretics only would have the insolence to avow their disbelief of them. Sir, we need not look far to find among our contemporaries a hissing animal and one who, in addition to that quality has many other of the properties of the viper."
Thus was the Doctor, as usual, victorious; astonishing his audience by the profundity of his learning and that prodigious force of intellect which shows, when it grasps its subject, the paw of the lion,
[London paper.