looked upon the sum of evil as a thing not to be
diminished. But he shared the opinions of the most commonplace
believers in sin and trouble, and only congratulated himself on being
exempt from their consequences. The overweening old man found himself
comfortably off somehow; and it is good that he did. It is a comfort to
all of us, wise or foolish. But to reverence him is a jest. You might as
well make a god of an otter. Mr. Wordsworth, because of the servitor
manners of Walton and his biographies of divines (all _anglers_), wrote
an idle line about his "meekness" and his "heavenly memory." When this
is quoted by the gentle brethren, it will be as well if they add to it
another passage from the same poet, which returns to the only point at
issue, and upsets the old gentleman altogether Mr. Wordsworth's
admonition to us is,

"Never to link our pastime, or our pride,
With suffering to the meanest thing that lives."

It was formerly thought effeminate not to hunt Jews; then not to roast
heretics; then not to bait bears and bulls; then not to fight cocks, and
to throw sticks at them. All these evidences of manhood became gradually
looked upon as no such evidences at all, but things fit only for manhood
to renounce; yet the battles of Waterloo and of Sobraon have been won,
and Englishmen are not a jot the less brave all over the world. Probably
they are braver, that is to say, more deliberately brave, more serenely
valiant; also more merciful to the helpless, and that is the crown of
valor.

It was during my infancy, if I am not mistaken, that there lived at
Hampstead (a very unfit place for such a resident), a man whose name I
suppress lest there should be possessors of it surviving, and who was a
famous cock-fighter. He was rich and idle, and therefore had no bounds
to set to the unhappy passions that raged within him. It is related of
this man, that, having lost a bet on a favorite bird, he tied the noble
animal to a spit in his kitchen before the fire, and notwithstanding the
screams of the sufferer and the indignant cries of the beholders, whose
interference he wildly resisted with the poker, actually persisted in
keeping it there burning, till he fell down in his fury and died.

Let us hope he was mad. What, indeed, is more probable? It is always a
great good, when the crimes of a fellow-creature can be traced to
madness; to some fault of the temperament or organization; some "jangle
of the sweet bells;"