benevolences, seems a pleasant object to many persons; a
harmless or insignificant one to almost all. Look at him,
however; scan him till you discern the nature of him, he is not
pleasant, but ugly and perilous. That beautiful speech of his
takes captive every long ear, and kindles into quasi-sacred
enthusiasm the minds of not a few; but it is quite in the teeth
of the everlasting facts of this Universe, and will come only to
mischief for every party concerned. Consider that little
spouting wretch. Within the paltry skin of him, it is too
probable, he holds few human virtues, beyond those essential for
digesting victual: envious, cowardly, vain, splenetic hungry
soul; what heroism, in word or thought or action, will you ever
get from the like of him? He, in his necessity, has taken into
the benevolent line; warms the cold vacuity of his inner man to
some extent, in a comfortable manner, not by silently doing some
virtue of his own, but by fiercely recommending hearsay
pseudo-virtues and respectable benevolences to other people. Do
you call that a good trade? Long-eared fellow-creatures, more
or less resembling himself, answer, "Hear, hear! Live
Fiddlestring forever!" Wherefrom follow Abolition Congresses,
Odes to the Gallows;--perhaps some dirty little Bill, getting
itself debated next Session in Parliament, to waste certain
nights of our legislative Year, and cause skipping in our Morning
Newspaper, till the abortion can be emptied out again and sent
fairly floating down the gutters.

Not with entire approbation do I, for one, look on that eloquent
individual. Wise benevolence, if it had authority, would order
that individual, I believe, to find some other trade: "Eloquent
individual, pleading here against the Laws of Nature,--for many