f high metaphysical promise. Emily was asking why one flower was blue,
and another pink, and another yellow. 'Why, in short,' said Douglas, 'it is
their _nature_; and, when we say that, what do we mean? It is only another
word for _mystery_; it only means that we know nothing at all about the
matter.' This observation from a child eight years old is not common."

The second and third courses of lectures would force us (even if we had not
the lecturer's confession to guide us) irresistibly to the conclusion that
he had said all he knew about Moral Philosophy, and rather more, in the
first course. It is only by the exercise of a genial violence that his
dissertations on Wit and Humour, Irish Bulls, Taste, Animals, and Habit,
can be forced to take shelter under the dignified title of Moral
Philosophy. But, philosophical defects apart, they are excellent lectures.
They abound in miscellaneous knowledge and out-of-the-way reading, and they
bristle with illustrations which have passed into the common anecdotage of
mankind.

"In the late rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a
high degree of indignation against some great banker, passed a
resolution that they would burn his notes, which accordingly they did,
with great assiduity; forgetting that, in burning his notes, they were
destroying his debts, and that for every note which went into the
flames, a correspondent value went into the banker's pocket."

In every war of the last century this story has been revived. It would be
curious to see if it can be traced back further than Sydney Smith.

From the lecture on Habit, I cull this pleasing anecdote:--

"The famous Isaac Barrow, the mathematician and divine, had an
habitual dislike of dogs, and it proceeded from the following
cause:--He was a very early riser; and one morning, as he was walking
in the garden of a friend's house, with whom he was staying, a fierce
mastiff, that used to be chained all day, and let loose all night, for
the security of the house, set upon him with the greatest fury. The
doctor caught him by the throat, threw him, and lay upon him; and,
whilst he kept him down, considered what he should do in that
exigence. The account the doctor gave of it to his friends was, that
he had once a mind to have killed the dog; but he altered his
resolution upon recollecting that it would be unjust, since the dog
only did his duty,