What a flow of ideas! What an outpouring of eloquence! What a knowledge of the human heart with all its nicer intricacies! What an intimacy with the springs of human action! What a mastery over the human passions! Ay, this is indeed the triumph of genius.
The author of this exquisite production writes with the pen of a Junius, and thinks with the intellect of a Bacon or a Locke. His language is forcible and epigrammatic, his reasoning clear and profound; yet can nothing be more racy than his pleasantry when he condescends to be playful—nothing more delicately cutting than his irony when he chooses to be satirical—nothing more striking or impressive than his ratiocination when he prefers being philosophical.
We confidently predict a wide and lasting popularity for this extraordinary production. Indeed, if we are not greatly mistaken, it will create quite a sensation in the literary circles of Europe.
PATRIOTIC HUMBUG.
My country, oh! my country! it is for thee, for thee alone, I live; and for thee, my country, will I at any time cheerfully die—(Who’s that calling out fudge?) Nearest my heart is the wish for thy welfare. To see thee happy is the one only desire of my soul, and that thou mayest be so, is my constant prayer.
Night and day dost thou engross my thoughts, and all, all would I sacrifice to thy welfare! My private interests are as dust in the balance—(Who’s that again calling fudge?—turn him out, turn him out)—My private interests are as dust in the balance; and shame, shame, oh! eternal shame to the sordid wretch, unworthy to live, who should for a moment prefer his individual aggrandisement to his country’s good. Perish his name—perish the name of the miserable miscreant!
Wealth! what is wealth to me, my country, compared to thy happiness? Station! what is station, unless thou, too, art advanced? Power! what is power, unless the power of doing thee good? Oh, my country! My country, oh!—(Oh! oh! oh! from various parts of the house.) The patriot sits down, wiping his patriotic forehead with a white handkerchief, amidst thunders of applause.
Before going farther with our Illustrations—indeed we don’t know whether we shall go any farther with them at all or not, as we rather think we have given quite enough of them—before going farther, then, with any thing in the more direct course of our subject, we may pause a moment to remark how carefully every one who comes before the public to claim its patronage, conceals the real object of his doing so. How remote he keeps from this very delicate point! He never whispers its name—never breathes it. How cautiously he avoids all allusion to his own particular interest in the matter! From the unction with which he speaks of the excellences of the thing he has to dispose of, be it what it may, a Dutch cheese or a treatise on philosophy, the enthusiasm with which he dwells on them, you would imagine that he spoke out of a pure feeling of admiration of these excellences. You would never dream—for this he carefully conceals from you—that his sole object is to get hold of as much of your cash as he can; the Dutch cheese or the treatise on philosophy being a mere instrument to accomplish the desired transfer.
It is rather a curious feature this in the social character: every thing offered for sale is so offered through a pure spirit of benevolence, either for the public good or individual benefit; nothing for the sake of mere filthy lucre, or the particular interest of the seller—not at all. He, good soul, has no such motive—not he, indeed.