1831.] ■ Affairs in General. 193 



opinions contrary to either reason or the national belief, the country- 

 must have in itself a right to punish the disturber. He is welcome to 

 have any opinion he likes, but he is not welcome to insult, or infect the 

 public mind by labouring to gain proselytes to opinions repulsive to the 

 settled state of things and the dictates of the national religion. He may 

 think corrosive sublimate a pleasant stimulant for his palate, or murder 

 the simplest way of getting rid of an opponent, and no law can prevent 

 his thinking so. But if he exerts his powers of either influence or 

 oratory to the extent of persuading the people to poison themselves or 

 slay their neighbours, we must stop his progress as soon as we can. 



But there is still another and a higher reason — by suffering absolute 

 and palpable blasphemy to go unmarked through the land, we share the 

 offence against heaven. Common sense and Christianity alike protest 

 against the desperate wickedness of insulting the person and attributes 

 of the Deity ; and if we suffer the Insults to be offered, when we have 

 the means of repelling it, we are undoubtedly blasphemers in one degree 

 just as the man, who with the power in his hands to prevent treason yet 

 permits the treason to go undivulged and unarrested, is by law and rea- 

 son a traitor himself. It is thus, on the simplest principles, we are 

 tinder a moral obligation to restrain blasphemy, for by neglecting it, we 

 participate in the guilt, and bring down the wrath of heaven on the 

 country. 



How oddly fame flies about the world. A year or two since, Greece 

 was the universal theme. And the world was full of astonishment at its 

 red caps, its sabres, its capitani, and its fireships. Libel and laudation 

 were busy with all their brushes, and Leicester Stanhope was alternately 

 lifted to the skies as an abettor of the new printing press, and plunged 

 into the deepest profound for the bad quality of his Greek, his razors, 

 and his Jesuit's bark. Sir Francis Burdett was weekly put upon his 

 trial for building steam-boats by the help of a gas-pipe man, who 

 naturally thought that gas and steam were one and the same thing ; and 

 Bo wring and his financial friends were tossed and gored, much to the 

 public pleasantry, for the many thousands of pounds which they cleared 

 by their patriotism and the Greek loan. And now, who hears a syllable 

 about Greece. Even Bowring himself has turned the cock of his peren- 

 nial fount of poesy upon the Esquemaux, and Hume never condescends 

 so much as to ask whether Greek stock is at a discount of a hundred per 

 cent. Prince Leopold himself has bade adieu to the chance of rivalling 

 Pericles or Themistocles ; and Capo d'Istria, to whose crafty soul, Rus- 

 sian packet, and Italian lady, we have a hearty aversion, is left at his 

 ease to viceroy it over the sons of the sons of Hercules and Homer. AH 

 that all the records of the day furnish is the story of a torrent of insur- 

 rectionary water in one of the islands. Let it be an omen of washing 

 out the stains of the land, including Turk, Russian, and Capo d'Istria 

 together. 



Samos has lately been visited by an earthquake of an extraordinary nature, 

 for it produced a large oi)ening in one of the highest mountains of tlie island, 

 from wliich suddenly issued an enormous torrent of water, oveiliowing the 

 country, and making its way to the sea. By degrees the inundation subsided, 

 and terminated in forming a river, which has its source at the opening formed 

 in the mountain. If tlie river should continue to How with the same abundance, 

 it >vill be a great benefit to the country. 



MM. New Scries.— Vol. XII. No. OH. X 



