Chapter 17

[3.1] Mr Knight, in a note to the Landscape, having taken the liberty of laughing at a notable device of a celebrated _improver_, for giving greatness of character to a place, and showing an undivided extent of property, by placing the family arms on the neighbouring _milestones_, the improver retorted on him with a charge of misquotation, misrepresentation, and malice prepense. Mr Knight, in the preface to the second edition of his poem, quotes the improver's words:--"The market-house, or other public edifice, or even a _mere stone with distances_, may bear the arms of the family:" and adds:--"By a _mere stone with distances_, the author of the Landscape certainly thought he meant a _milestone_; but, if he did not, any other interpretation which he may think more advantageous to himself shall readily be adopted, as it will equally answer the purpose of the quotation." The improver, however, did not condescend to explain what he really meant by a _mere stone with distances_, though he strenuously maintained that he did _not_ mean a _milestone._ His idea, therefore, stands on record, invested with all the sublimity that obscurity can confer.

[3.2] "Il est constant qu'elles se baisent de meilleur coeur, et se caressent avec plus de grace devant les hommes, fieres d'aiguiser impunement leur convoitise par l'image des faveurs qu'elles savent leur faire envier."--Rousseau, _Emile_, liv. 5.