In Every Age The Vilest Specimens Of

If Any Person Had Told The Parliament Which Met In Terror And Perplexity After The Crash Of 1720 That In 1830 The Wealth Of England Would Surpass All Their Wildest Dreams, That The Annual Revenue Would Equal The Principal Of That Debt Which They Considered An Intolerable Burden, That For One Man Of

Great Minds Do Indeed React On The Society Which Has Made Them What They Are; But They Only Pay With Interest What They Have Received.

Both In Individuals And In Masses Violent Excitement Is Always Followed By Remission, And Often By Reaction. We Are All Inclined To Depreciate Whatever We Have Overpraised, And, On The Other Hand, To Show Undue Indulgence Where We Have Shown Undue Rigor.

There Was, It Is Said, A Criminal In Italy Who Was Suffered To Make His Choice Between Guicciardini And The Galleys. He Chose The History. But The War Of Pisa Was Too Much For Him; He Changed His Mind, And Went To The Oars.

Language, The Machine Of The Poet, Is Best Fitted For His Purpose In Its Rudest State. Nations, Like Individuals, First Perceive, And Then Abstract. They Advance From Particular Images To General Terms. Hence The Vocabulary Of An Enlightened Society Is Philosophical, That Of A Half-civilized People Is Poetical.