Metaphysics) describes what he calls [Greek: kleptaen teleion], i.e., _a
perfect thief_; and, as to Mr. Howship, in a work of his on Indigestion, he
makes no scruple to talk with admiration of a certain ulcer which he had
seen, and which he styles "a beautiful ulcer." Now will any man pretend,
that, abstractedly considered, a thief could appear to Aristotle a perfect
character, or that Mr. Howship could be enamored of an ulcer? Aristotle,
it is well known, was himself so very moral a character, that, not content
with writing his Nichomachean Ethics, in one volume octavo, he also
wrote another system, called _Magna Moralia_, or Big Ethics. Now, it is
impossible that a man who composes any ethics at all, big or little, should
admire a thief _per se_, and, as to Mr. Howship, it is well known that he
makes war upon all ulcers; and, without suffering himself to be seduced by
their charms, endeavors to banish them from the county of Middlesex. But
the truth is, that, however objectionable _per se_, yet, relatively to
others of their class, both a thief and an ulcer may have infinite degrees
of merit. They are both imperfections, it is true; but to be imperfect
being their essence, the very greatness of their imperfection becomes their
perfection. _Spartam nactus es, hunc exorna_. A thief like Autolycus or
Mr. Barrington, and a grim phagedænic ulcer, superbly defined, and running
regularly through all its natural stages, may no less justly be regarded
as ideals after _their_ kind, than the most faultless moss-rose amongst
flowers, in its progress from bud to "bright consummate flower;" or,
amongst human flowers, the most magnificent young female, apparelled in
the pomp of womanhood. And thus not only the ideal of an inkstand may be
imagined, (as Mr. Coleridge demonstrated in his celebrated correspondence
with Mr. Blackwood,) in which, by the way, there is not so much, because an
inkstand is a laudable sort of thing, and a valuable member of society; but
even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state.

Really, gentlemen, I beg pardon for so much philosophy at one time, and now