THE AFFECTION OF IDIOTS. 375 



on what principle to account for it, that the grief or affec- 

 tion of poor helpless things of this class has something in 

 it which touches us more than the expression of similar 

 feelings in persons possessed of an ordinary share of 

 understanding. Perhaps we are more convinced of their 

 sincerity, perhaps struck by finding amid such miser- 

 able ruins of our nature a part, and that no unimport- 

 ant one, so entire and unbroken, a human heart so 

 abstracted from a human understanding, as to remind 

 us of the story of John Huss, whose heart remained 

 unconsumed among his ashes ; or, perhaps, as they 

 stand so much in need of our protection, there is a 

 natural provision made for them in our bosoms, on the 

 same principle that there is a provision made for the 

 helplessness of children in the affection of their mothers ; 

 and the interest taken in their uncouth expressions of 

 affection, may be but a natural effect of the principle. 

 Whatever the cause, the feeling certainly exists, and 

 some of our best writers have not disdained to appeal to 

 it. The fool in Lear is not less true to his poor forlorn 

 master than the most devoted of his nobles. It is Davic 

 Gellatly whom Scott has described as moaning in the 

 bitterness of regret amid the ruins of the Baron's 

 mansion, and as faithful to him in his lowest extremity. 

 It is Wamba, too, who of all Cedric's servants is readiest 

 to lay down his life for him, like a faithful fool, and 

 whose devoted attachment extorts tears from the stern 

 old man, though he has none to shed over his own 

 disasters, or the dead body of his friend. 



1 Mr Stewart has just closed a course of sermons on 

 the future return of the Jews to their own land, in 

 which he has delighted the thinking part of us with 

 many splendid bursts of eloquence, and an immense 

 body of original thought. Some of his bolder opinions 



