So says Gay of the world, in one of his letters to Swift, and we have
adapted the quotation to our idea of liberty. True it is that Addison
apostrophizes liberty as a


Goddess, heavenly bright!


but we hope our laughter will not be considered as indecorous or
profane. Our great essayist has exalted her into a Deity, and invested
her with a mythological charm, which makes us doubt her existence; so
that to laugh at her can be no more irreverend than to sneer at the
belief in apparitions, a joke which is very generally enjoyed in these
good days of spick-and-span philosophy. Whether Liberty ever existed
or not, is to us a matter of little import, since it is certain that
she belongs to the grand hoax which is the whole scheme of life. The
extension of liberty into concerns of every-day life is therefore
reasonable enough, and to prove that we are happy in possessing this
ideal blessing, seems to have been the aim of all who have written on
the subject. One, however, if we remember right, sets the matter in a
grave light, when he says to man--


Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost.


He who loves to scatter crumbs of comfort in these starving times, will