population may be said to be shelterless, and, if it happen to be a rainy season, their condition must be very miserable. "There is no window. The absence of this is nearly universal. Such light as gains admission is by the door, or through one or two small holes in the eaves of the roof at the top of the wall, or through chinks from deficiencies in the construction of the house. It is, in fact, necessary to their social arrangements that they should live in darkness. A large window would involve distinction of sexes, and revolutionise habits of action and thought alike.' Dr Mitchell adds some curious particulars illustrating the insensibility of the people to offensive exposures of the person and to the most revolting filthiness. An imbecile member of the family is left with scarcely any covering, has a lair with the cattle, and is often corrected with blows and stripes meant for his good. Nine-tenths of the people are cut off from British civilisation by their inability to speak any language but Gaelic. Many of the best educational agencies are totally wanting among them, and others are misdirected.' The backwardness of the people,' says the learned reporter, 'is so great and so peculiar, that I was sometimes at a loss to know whom I ought, and whom I ought not to visit. I heard, for instance, from a reliable source, that at there lived a man who could not make the simplest money calculation, who did not know the number of pence in a shilling, who, on examination, could tell nothing of the fall of man, who had not even the rudiments of Christian knowledge, who could not read, who would not be admitted to the communion, and who was denied baptism for his child. My first and natural impression was, that this man must be at least an imbecile; but when I heard that he was a married man with a family, a crofter, a ratepayer, and selfsupporting, I hesitated as to the propriety of visiting him.' Dr Mitchell concludes his general sketch with the remark, that one comes to know, after a visit to such a place, how great a mistake it is 'to confound the golden age of a people with that of its poverty and ignorance.' faculty of play-makers, or players of comedies, tragedies, interludes, or what other shows soever, from time to time, and at all times, to appear before him with all such plays, tragedies, comedies, or shows, as they shall have in readiness, or mean to set forth, and them to present and recite before our servant or his sufficient deputy, whom we ordain, appoint, and authorise by these presents, of all such shows, plays, players, and play-makers, together with their playingplaces, to order and reform, authorise and put down, as shall be meet or unmeet to him or his said deputy.' -Collier's Dramatic Poetry, i. 42. How this authority was exercised, the following. extracts from the office-book kept by Sir H. Herbert, Astley's deputy, sufficiently shew: For the King's Players, an old play, called Winter's Tale, formerly allowed by Sir George Bucke, and likewise by me, on Mr Heming's word that there was nothing profane added or reformed, though the allowed book was missing; and therefore I returned it without a fee, this 19th of August 1623.'—1624, January 12. For the Palsgrave's Company, The History of the Duchess of Suffolk, which, being full of dangerous matter, was much reformed by me.' Singularly enough, the deputy omits all record of Middleton's Game of Chess, which, after running nine nights, was prohibited, in consequence of the representations of the Spanish ambassador, who complained of it as a very scandalous comedy, wherein the players presumed to represent the person of the king of Spain, spite of the restraint upon bringing modern Christian monarchs on the stage. The privy council took the matter up, and probably Sir Henry was taken to task for licensing the offending piece. Middleton was imprisoned, and petitioned the king in the following rhymes: A harmless game, coined only for delight, Was played between the black house and the white ;* The white house won, yet still the black doth brag They had the power to put me in the bag. Use but your royal hand, 'twill set me free; 'Tis but removing of a man-that's me. James answered the poet's appeal by an order for his release. Philip Massinger seems to have been specially unfortunate; one of his plays was refused a licence THE DRAMATIC CENSORSHIP. in Charles I.'s reign because it contained dangerous ENGLISHMEN are apt to wonder how any nation pre-matter, as the deposing of Sebastian, king of Portutending to be free can tolerate the censorship of the press, forgetting the fact, that one branch of English literature has long been subject to a supervision as despotic, capricious, and partial as any existing. The censorship of the drama is as old as the drama itself. In 1527, a Christmas interlude was performed at Gray's Inn, of which the argument was, that Lord Governance was ruled by Lady Negligence and Lady Dissipation, to the injury of Lady Public Weale, till Kumor Populi rose in indignation, and restored her to her rightful position. The interlude was successful, but its author was imprisoned for his pains, by order of Henry VIII. In Elizabeth's reign, the Master of the Revels, the regulator of public pageants and masques, was invested with authority over the stage, a clause being inserted in the patent granted to Lord Leicester's servants,' to the effect that all comedies, tragedies, interludes, and stage-plays should be examined and allowed by him. In 1622, James I. appointed Sir John Astley to the office, and in the patent conveying the appointment, his censorial duties are plainly set forth: 'We have and do by these presents authorise and command our said servant, Sir John Astley, Master of our Revels, by himself or his sufficient deputy or deputies, to warn, command, and appoint in all places within this our realm of England, as well within franchises and liberties as without, all and every player and players, with the play-makers, either belonging to any nobleman or otherwise, bearing the name or names, or using the gal, by Philip II., there being a peace sworn between the kings of England and Spain.' His The King and the Subject (now lost) was submitted to Charles himself, who at the time was busy with the question of ship-money. The dramatist had made his king say to his subjects: Moneys? we'll raise supplies what ways we please, Against this passage Charles wrote: "This is too insolent, and to be changed!' and when this and other alterations (among them the title) had been made, the piece was suffered to appear. The last entry but one in Sir H. Herbert's office-book runs thus: Received of Mr Kirke, for a new play, which I burnt for the ribaldry and offence that was in it, L.2.' The civil war, and the ordinance for the suppression of stage-plays, relieved the Master of the Revels from his official duties for a while; and when Herbert attempted, at the Restoration, to resume his authority, the players set him at defiance, and the lord chamberlain usurped his functions. That official prohibited the performance of The Maid's Tragedy, in which a king is killed; and refused to license Tate's alteration of Shakspeare's Richard II., although The churches of Rome and England. the adapter transferred the scene to Italy, and called it The Sicilian Usurper, and prayed that the play might be read. Spite of his efforts, it was condemned without examination.* A man who could write Subjects or kingdoms are but trifling things, When laid together in the scale with kings, might certainly have escaped suspicions of disloyalty; nevertheless, Crowne's alteration of the first part of Henry VI. was, 'ere it lived long, stifled by command.' A like fate awaited Nat Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus; but such lines as To lie at home and languish for a woman! No, Titus! he that makes himself thus vile, Let him not dare pretend to aught that's princely, might well have touched the conscience of the king. William III., finding the managers treated the authority of the lord chamberlain with contempt, issued a royal order, declaring it is his majesty's pleasure that they shall not hereafter presume to put anything in any play contrary to religion and goodmanners, as they shall answer at their utmost peril.' At the same time, the Master of the Revels was instructed to withhold a licence from any play containing profane or immoral expressions, and to inform the lord chamberlain if the actors inserted anything he had erased. In 1690, when the king was engaged fighting in Ireland, Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess was revived, with a new prologue, written by Dryden, in which the old poet dared to sneer at the campaigning, and speak disparagingly of feminine regencies a liberty punished by the prohibition of the prologue after the first night. Cibber, too, suffered from the touchy loyalty of the censor: when his alteration of Richard III. came back from the chamberlain's office, it was minus the whole of the first act! This extraordinary stroke of a sic volo,' says Cibber, occasioned my applying to him for the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other four acts might limp on with a little less absurdity. No; he had not leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive; he had an objection to the whole act, and the reason he gave for it was, that the distresses of King Henry, who is killed by Richard in the first act, would put weak persons in mind of King James, then living in France.' In Anne's reign, a tragedy, called Mary, Queen of Scots, was forbidden; but with this exception, the dramatists for many years pursued their vocation unmolested. The wonderful success of The Beggars Opera having made Rich gay, and Gay rich, the author wrote a sequel, called Polly, in which it is impossible to discover anything that could give offence to the licencers of its predecessor. The piece was accepted by Rich, and the poet thought himself in a fair way of adding to his fame and fortune, when down came a notice from the lord chamberlain forbidding the rehearsal of the new opera till it had received official sanction. Gay writes: It was on Saturday morning, December 7, 1728, that I waited upon the lord chamberlain. I desired to have the honour of reading the opera to His Grace, but he ordered me to leave it with him, which I did, upon expectation of having it returned upon the Monday following, but I had it not till Thursday, December 12, when I received it from His Grace with this answer: "That it was not allowed to be acted, but commanded to be suppressed." This was told me in general, without any reasons assigned, or any charge against me of my having given any particular offence.' The friends of the poet took the matter up, and although they could not get the fiat revoked, consoled the dramatist in some measure by putting two thousand * In a similar spirit, King Lear was interdicted during the illness of George III. pounds in his pocket as the profits upon the publication of offending Polly. Up to this time, the lord chamberlain's censorial powers were founded simply on precedent, but in 1735, an attempt was made to ratify them by the authority of parliament. Sir John Barnard having introduced a bill to regulate the number of playhouses in London, an attempt was made to insert a clause confirming the powers of the lord chamberlain, without which it was intimated that the king would veto the bill; but the introducer, rather than augment the power of a crown-officer, already too great,' withdrew the measure altogether. Sir Robert Walpole, however, was determined to effect his purpose of fettering the too free-spoken dramatists. În 1737, he procured an underling, who scribbled a farce to order; it was called The Golden Rump, and filled with blasphemy, obscenity, and political abuse. The manager of Goodman's Fields was favoured with the offer of this delectable composition, which he submitted to Walpole, who carried it down to the House, and recited the worst passages. The way being thus prepared, the minister, on the 20th of May, introduced a bill To explain and amend an Act made in the 12th year of the reign of Queen Anne, entituled An Act for reducing the Laws relating to Rogues, Vagabonds, sturdy Beggars, and Vagrants into one act of parliament, and for the more effectually punishing such Rogues, Vagabonds, sturdy Beggars, and Vagrants, and sending them whither they ought to be sent.' By Walpole's bill, it was proposed to limit the number of theatres, and compel the proprietors to obtain a licence from the lord chamberlain for every drama they produced. Of the debates that ensued, one speech only has been preserved, that of Lord Chesterfield, who Unchecked by megrims of patrician brains, And damning dulness of lord chamberlains, argued strenuously and eloquently against the bill. After telling the lords they ought to thank Heaven they were not dependent upon their wit for their support, Chesterfield proceeds: 'I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit, but by this bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised; it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a permit; and the lord chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge, and jury. But what is still more hard, though the poor author-the proprietor, I should say-cannot perhaps dine till he has found out and agreed with a purchaser, yet, before he can propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit to have his goods. rummaged at this new excise-office, where they may be detained fourteen days, and even then he may find them returned as prohibited goods, by which his chief and best market will be for ever shut against him; and that without any cause, without the least shadow of reason, either from the laws of his country or the laws of the stage.' Taking higher ground, he declares: The stage and press are two of our outsentries; if we remove them, if we hoodwink them, if we throw them in fetters, the enemy may surprise us; therefore, I must look on the bill before us as a step towards introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom. If poets and players are to be restrained, let them be restrained as other subjects are, by the known laws of the country; if they offend, let them be tried, as every Englishman ought to be, by God and their country. Do not let us subject them to the arbitrary will and pleasure of any one man!' Chesterfield's eloquence was thrown away; the bill passed both Houses, and received the royal assent on the 21st of June 1737; since which the English dramatists have lain at the mercy of an official, well defined by Barry Cornwall as one whose employment is to cut out words which mean nothing, and sentences innocent of evil' The first effect of the act was to shut up the Haymarket, where Fielding was knocking down all distinctions' in Pasquin. On the 9th of October, a company of French actors were announced at the little theatre; unfortunately for themselves, they headed their bills with the words By Authority. The public determined the protégées of the Lord Chamberlain should not occupy the ground of their locked-out favourites. The rising of the curtain was the signal for hisses, cat-calls, bell-ringing, and pelting. Three files of grenadiers, with their bayonets fixed, failed to overawe the malcontents, who persevered till the curtain was dropped upon the obnoxious performers. The famous or infamous Duchess of Kingston had sufficient influence at the licensing-office to cause any piece to be suppressed that she fancied was levelled at her misdoings. The author of She would be a Duchess was compelled to alter his play, and change the name to The Irishman in Spain, as the English Aristophanes had been forced to alter his Trip to Calais into The Capuchin. When Foote's Minor was sent in for consideration, the lord chamberlain, afraid of the author finding means for retaliation if he ventured to make any alterations, desired the Archbishop of Canterbury to look over it, and point out any passages he thought objectionable. The prelate wisely declined, on the ground that were he to do so, Foote would be sure to publish the piece as 'corrected and prepared for the press by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.' When Colman was made deputy-licenser, he compounded with his conscience for his own literary lapses by being extraordinarily severe upon the sins of his fellows. He not only erased all profane oaths and invocations to the Deity, but even struck out the boatswain's testimony to the moral character of the hero of Black-eyed Susan His moral character, your honour? why, he plays on the fiddle like an angel!' When Jerrold's Rent Day was about to be produced at Drury Lane, the manager received the following communication 23d January 1832. Please to omit the following underlined words in the representation of the drama called the Rent Day. ACT I. Scene I. The blessed little babes, God bless 'em! Scene III. Heaven be kind to us, for I've almost lost all other hope. Ditto. Damn him! Scene IV. Damn business!—No, don't damn business. I'm very drunk, but I can't damn business-it's profane. Ditto. Isn't that an angel?—I can't tell; I've not been used to such company. Scene V. O Martin, husband, for the love of Heaven. Ditto. Heaven help us-Heaven help us! ACT II. Scene III. Heaven forgive you, can you speak it? I leave you, and may Heaven pardon and protect you! Scene Last. Farmer, neighbours, Heaven bless you. Ditto. They have now the money, and Heaven prosper it with them! G. COLMAN. This wholesale curtailer is also responsible for the burking of Martin Shee's Alasco, the artist-author preferring to withdraw his play rather than submit to the mutilations of the deputy. But he printed it verbatim, with all Colman's erasures italicised; and if any one wishes to comprehend the disadvantage under which a dramatist labours, he cannot do better than study this specimen of official criticism. Alasco, as the leader of a Polish insurrection, naturally launched forth against tyrants and oppressors, much to the deputy's disgust. We give a few of the lines which Colman struck through with his pen. When Roman crimes prevail, methinks 'twere well The scaffold strikes no terrors to his soul If a people will not free themselves, Our country's wrongs unite us. Slander will pour her slime On all who dare dispute the claims of pride, Or question the high privilege of oppression. The official nose doubtlessly smelt treason to the state in the above, and saw some deep design against the church in Whate'er the colour of his creed, The man of honour's orthodox; and in Walsingham's avowal of all a soldier's prejudice to priests.' Possibly the deputy felt his own dignity assailed in the same character's queryAm I so lightly held, so low in estimate, To brook dishonour from a knave in place? And in the mention of Some sland'rous tool of stateSome taunting, dull, unmannered deputy. Although the office of censor is now filled by an accomplished gentleman, qualified for the post in being an able critic and a lover of the drama, this ridiculous sensitiveness is by no means a thing of the past. When Napoleon's coup d'état was the subject of thundering leaders in the papers, the mildest joke upon it was forbidden the concocters of Christmas pantomimes. So, too, a scene representing Shakspeare at the feet of the Queen, and entitled The Drama at Home, was prohibited; and even a punning allusion to a prince of whales has been denied the burlesque writer. With such modern instances before us, we cannot but think with Shee that the power of the licenser to suppress any sentiment not in accordance with his party feelings, or expression offensive to his special taste, is inconsistent alike with the spirit of free government and the dignity and independence of dramatic literature. THISTLE-D O W N. THE thistle-seeds blow down the wind, Filmy white in the autumn sun, All communications to be addressed to 'The Editors of Chambers's Journal, 47 Paternoster Row, London,' accompanied by postage-stamps, as the return of rejected contributions cannot otherwise be guaranteed. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers. TEMPER. SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1863. THE wind being north-east, and the thermometer below freezing-point, I have pitched down my pen and taken it up again, to pass from my proper work to some pleasantries about temper. Keep your temper, indeed! In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, you had better get rid of it. The whim of trying to write it down, like other nuisances, has this moment possessed me. In the first place, though, I remark that it is too bad for people to choose an east wind for the display of their peculiar unpleasantnesses. Then tradesmen call for their 'little accounts,' and servants leave the door open; then buttons come off shirts like last year's leaves, and your wife makes tea with lukewarm water. I have a weakness for taking the side of poor people; and only last week gave my card as a witness to a costermonger, whose barrow was upset by some equipage of a bloated aristocracy in Oxford Street. To-day, a discharged cabman, after pocketing a good halfcrown, performed a series of nauseous and protracted experiments on a bad sixpence over my area railings, to the delight of some men who were unloading a wagon of coals into my cellar, and a kitchenwindowful of servants. I had given him more than his fare, and was set down as a stingy cheat. There are many kinds of temper, and I am in no humour to classify them categorically. The moment, however, that I summon the crowd of varieties to my mind, the phlegmatic generally presents itself first (probably because it is too slow to have gone far), as the most permanently irritating. There is no excuse whatever for a man who cannot be provoked. His negative excellence is in itself vexatious. Not only does he get a character for good-nature under false pretences-being considered amiable by shallow observers-but he is directly and personally objectionable to those who really know him. He sets up a fallacious test of goodness. The mischief he does is double: he perverts the judgment of the multitude, and exhausts the patience of the man. Reflect for a moment. He cannot be provoked. There is some unnatural defect in his constitution. It is small praise to a broken-legged soldier to say that he didn't run away; it is equally meaningless to extol a phlegmatic man for never being angry. I daresay he would be angry if he could; but he can't, and I wish I might say there was an end of the PRICE 14d. matter. No such thing: he is as obstructive and provoking as a street that is blocked up; he checks the rush of feeling with no soft word, but with dogged motionless hindrance; he fails in that undefinable but respondent sympathy which is mortar to the bricks of society; he is persistently unfeeling; he will be neither with you nor against you; and perhaps his only use is to perfect the temper of saints, who must not only be tried by the froward and malicious, but survive the searching ordeal of dull indifference. I take next a character in many respects unlike this last, but one with also much negative power of provocation-I mean the compliant man. He is unpleasantly pleasant; he responds, if that may be called response, with so little capacity for opposition. You deliver an opinion, he assents with a smile, and will do the same to your opponent. The sportsman does not value a fish which yields immediately to the pull of the line. An easy capture is an ill compliment to the angler; you prize a remonstrant little fish far more than a great scaly sluggard who suffers himself to be towed at once into the landing-net, and gapes out immediate submission the moment he feels the point of your argument. Just so the compliant man disappoints you; you suspect your own reasons when they are at once assented to. Your wit is thrown away unless it has a little tussle for supremacy. You have said a rich thing; he laughs, but in a tone of vacant readiness which shews that he would have done the same at a poor one. You ask him to carry all the umbrellas at a picnic, to ring the bell, to sit at a side-table, to take down the eldest Miss Scraggleblew, to fill a gap-he complies, gratefully. Any thing to make himself agreeable-forgetting, kind soul, that of man's aims and capabilities, this perhaps is not the highest. However, he piques himself upon his amiability, and must take the consequence. I think the compliant man is most disagreeable when you try to take him into confidence. He shuts his book to listen; he lays down his knife and fork; he lets his soup grow cold; he runs the risk of losing the train. Well, you make the first move: you look oppressed, mysterious, sympathetic, and you begin. Before you can disclose your intentions, he approves of them. Before you can deliver your mind, he hugs it in his embrace. He swallows your words before they are out of your own mouth, and still yearns with receptive amiability. Nothing can choke him. He is affected, interested, he will hear all you want to mind, the sooner it exhausts itself the better. I have say; but his mind is small, he does not comprehend heard that there is no remedy for a runaway horse you; you go through him like water through a sieve. so effective as a flogging. He must needs gallop; He takes in all you give, and gets rid of it at once. well, my friend, then gallop. I have a good pair of But perhaps the worst effect of his compliance is, spurs on-in they go. I have a whip, hard, pliant, that you cannot really gratify him, or do him a kind-heavy-lay on thick. Here is a nice steep hill-up ness. He has not will enough of his own to appre- we go. Here is a deep-ploughed field-O yes, keep ciate unselfishness or generosity. He is not obstinate up your pace, and how do you like it? I remember a enough for you to do him a civility. If you ask him, horse-dealer who always cured a fault by indulging it. quite sincerely, whether he will have a leg or a wing, He had once a brute sent to him which occasionally he will resign the responsibility of the answer. Either stood still. Farmer Waistcoat had flogged him, and -which you please. Confound him! How can you he would not move for an hour. Well, this man took please a man who has no choice of pleasures? the beast, put him in his break, and drove off. In ten minutes, he came to a dead stand. Breaker said nothing, did nothing. Horse didn't quite know what to reply, tried to look back with his ears, waited half an hour, and then began to move on. No, my friend, said the breaker; you stay here all day. The farmers passed him going to market with uncompli mentary greetings. What, can't you make him move? Breaker doesn't look put out, though. Tck! Farmers drive on, shew their samples, dine at the ordinary, and jog home a trifle merrier, late in the afternoon. Breaker still there, master of the position. The horse never stopped again. Next, of all people who provoke us, few are more tiresome than those who will never do anything thoroughly. Let us call theirs the hesitating temper. Their actions are incomplete. A natural deficiency of brain - structure mars their deeds. They leave the door open; they always remember something to be done just as they are leaving the house, and spoil the effect and good augury of the departure by running back for a pocket-handkerchief, a memorandum-book, or a final order to the servants. But the worst of it is, they won't let others do what they want right off. A matter has been settled. It is an immense fact and saving of time to accept decisions; it clears the way. A small thing done, is better than a big one prepared or in preparation. These hesitating tempers, however, won't let the small thing do itself. The matter, as I said, has been settled, dismissed. Then they say: Oh! but The luckless decision is caught by the last joint of its tail, just as it was going steadily and safely out of the room-caught by the last joint of its tail, pulled back all flustered and rampant to have a smut rubbed off its nose. Plague on it, let it go with the smut! As it is, the charm of the launch is spoiled. These people, too, won't eat or drink in a complete way. They put back, ask you to take back a piece. They will have 'Only half a glass, please.' They will be helped presently.' They affect a combination of meals, tea and dinner, say, and a cloth over half the table. They save the fly-leaves of notes for memoranda, and mourn over a wholesale clearance of old papers. They dread nothing more than a final decision of little things, and whatever they do, leave some part designedly unfinished. The above defects, however, are infinitely less trying than those of the sulky, uncertain temper. You may depend, in some sense, upon a phlegmatic, compliant, or a minutely cautious man; you know what he will do on any given occasion; you may shape your course accordingly. But the sulky, treacherous temper defies calculation. All at once, a cloud comes over the face. You have unwittingly touched some sore, and he sulks. There is no honest anger, no blaze, but the coals are alight in the mine, and generally you must wait till they are burned out. You can't get at the hidden heat. It smoulders on; all work is stopped, though the outside looks much the same as usual. Give me a man who, if angry, will flare up. It is very disagreeable and provoking this sometimes; but if the temper is there, let it come to the top as soon as may be, bubble away, boil over, and be gone. It is best, no doubt, to check your anger, and bite it down. It is well to stop it with a jerk, a painful effort, if need be, pulling the curb of the temper sharp. But if it defies your power, or eludes your presence of So may we sometimes treat human temper. Put upon the compliant man till he is ashamed of himself; give the sulky something to sulk about. A soft answer does not turn away all wrath; not, for instance, a bully's wrath; on the contrary, a hearty blowing up is likely enough to bring him to his senses, if so be it is administered with zest; plainly, unsparingly, without passion or malice, but without any affectation of pity or reserve. Let him get more than he brings. He is a bouncing fool, who will be a tyrant if permitted. Don't permit him, but give him the hardest metaphorical punch on the head you can. It has a wonderful and speedy effect. He will stop, and gape, and probably end by saying he didn't mean it; which last word may as well be flatly contradicted, to finish him up with. The respect which is gained, or rather the obedience which is exacted by a cross man, is frequently noticed. It is, however, impossible to force it. No goodtempered man can thus act severity and get his own way; you must be naturally cross to succeed. And then, being naturally cross, it becomes a question whether you really enjoy the full flavour of concessions. No; I think you had better rather be put upon sometimes, than be always arbitrary and dominant. There is genuine pleasure in yielding to another, in resigning your rights. Of course, I don't mean always, because then you would at last have no rights to resign. They must have at least sufficient protection to give a value to their resignation. If you cut off your hand, you can't shake a friend's. But let us pass on. Talking of temper, have we not all felt how truly fits of anger are called passion. We suffer; it seems as if an alien spirit snatched us up and whisked us out of ourselves before we could stop him. We don't get angry on purpose; we don't light the fire in the boiler, and blow the coals, and listen for the first simmerings of the heat. No. We are in a passion. The mighty mysterious influence, which will, suddenly perhaps, drop us all flustered and ashamed of ourselves, comes on like a squall. O yes, we know very well it is wrong; no one suffers from his passion more than the passionate man. It usually thwarts his object, putting |