assuredly, if he finds any mischief in the wind against his countryman, he
will show _his_ teeth also; and, please the wind, will take up such a
position as to rake both of these pirates by turns. The two dialogists are
introduced walking out after breakfast, 'each his Milton in his pocket;'
and says Southey, 'Let us collect all the graver faults we can lay our
hands upon, without a too minute and troublesome research;'--just so;
there would be danger in _that_--help might put off from shore;--'not,'
says he, 'in the spirit of Johnson, but in our own.' Johnson we may
suppose, is some old ruffian well known upon that coast; and '_faults_'
may be a flash term for what the Americans call 'notions.' A part of the
cargo it clearly is; and one is not surprised to hear Landor, whilst
assenting to the general plan of attack, suggesting in a whisper 'that
they should abase their eyes in reverence to so great a man, without
absolutely closing them;' which I take to mean--that, without trusting
entirely to their boarders, or absolutely closing their ports, they should
depress their guns and fire down into the hold, in respect of the vessel
attacked standing so high out of the water. After such plain speaking,
nobody can wonder much at the junior pirate (Landor) muttering, 'It will
be difficult for us always to refrain.' Of course it will: _refraining_
was no part of the business, I should fancy, taught by that same
buccaneer, Johnson. There is mischief, you see, reader, singing in the
air--'miching malhecho'--and it is our business to watch it.

But, before coming to the main attack, I must suffer myself to be detained
for a few moments by what Mr. L. premises upon the 'moral' of any great
fable, and the relation which it bears, or _should_ bear, to the solution
of such a fable. Philosophic criticism is so far improved, that, at this
day, few people, who have reflected at all upon such subjects, but are
agreed as to one point: viz., that in metaphysical language the moral
of an epos or a drama should be _immanent_, not _transient_; or,