1831.] The Spiril-Scekei: GU 



vion blot out the light from my throbbing eye-balls, may I hope to 

 find that peace — 



' Where the wicked cease from troubling. 

 And the weary are at rest.' " 



Such was his story. I had occasion to leave him for a few days, and 

 when I returned, I heard — but, as the reader may imagine, without 

 surprise — that he had shown such strong evidence of insanity, as to 

 make it a matter of necessity to place him in confinement. *W. 



BREVITIES, 



The surest way to acquire the worship of mean sjjirits, is to begin by 

 worshipping yourself. 



Our reasons for excluding the Jews from political privileges tend to 

 make them good Jews ; but our proper business is to make them good 

 citizens. 



The press is the right-arm of reason ; though, like the arm of a mad- 

 man, it is sometimes used to wound its owner. 



The gentry should cherish the peasantry for the same reason (if they 

 were incapable of a higher feeling) that they preserve the sturdy old 

 groves that protect their family mansions from the cutting winds. When 

 the bodily vigour of the working-classes is destroyed by hard fare and 

 ill-usage, the scions of the aristocracy will soon degenerate into slaves 

 and prostitutes either to a despotic court or a hardier nation. 



A man's intimates, however free from jealousy or envy, are not in 

 general the best judges of the value of his literary or other intellectual 

 efforts ; they are equally liable to overrate what is indifferent, and to 

 underrate, or at least not sufficiently to admire, what is really excellent. 

 If they are led, by the author's general conversation and manners, to 

 expect excellence, it can of course excite no sensation when it comes ; 

 and if his public efforts far transcend what might have been expected 

 from him, his friends can scarcely, in the moment of surprise, avoid sus- 

 pecting that there is some mystery, some legerdemain, in the matter; 

 and judging the candidate for fame rather by what they hear, than by 

 what they read or see. Talent, however, is not tlie less real because it is 

 variously developed ; and those who possess it in one form should 

 always be ready to hail its manifestation in another. 



The vessel of the state is in danger of foundering from being over- 

 laden, and some of our self-called practical reformers would consent to 

 throw over a band-box to [lighten her : — or she is running on a rock, 

 and they wish to hang out a sheet of tissue-paper by way of defender. 



If a man's genius do not influence his conduct and language, it is little 

 better to him than a machine that he has the power of putting in motion; 

 and he will not be much more loved or respected on account of it, in 

 private life, than he would for being the possessor of an elaboi'ate steam- 

 enjiine. O. 



