assenting to this observation. It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, my
Lords, worthy the mind of him who uttered it, worthy that proud disdain,
that generous scorn of the means and instruments of vice, which virtue
and genius must ever feel. But I should doubt whether we can read the
history of a Philip of Macedon, a Caesar, or a Cromwell, without
confessing, that there have been evil purposes, baneful to the peace and
to the rights of men, conducted--if I may not say, with prudence or with
wisdom--yet with awful craft and most successful and commanding subtlety.
If, however, I might make a distinction, I should say that it is the
proud attempt to mix a _variety_ of lordly crimes, that unsettles
the prudence of the mind, and breeds this distraction of the brain.

"_One_ master-passion, domineering in the breast, may win the
faculties of the understanding to advance its purpose, and to direct to
that object every thing that thought or human knowledge can effect; but,
to succeed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind;--each
rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage upon its
throne. For, the Power, that has not forbad the entrance of evil passions
into man's mind, has, at least, forbad their union;--if they meet they
defeat their object, and their conquest, or their attempt at it, is
tumult. Turn to the Virtues--how different the decree! Formed to connect,
to blend, to associate, and to cooperate; bearing the same course, with
kindred energies and harmonious sympathy, each perfect in its own lovely
sphere, each moving in its wider or more contracted orbit, with
different, but concentering, powers, guided by the same influence of
reason, and endeavoring at the same blessed end--the happiness of the
individual, the harmony of the species, and the glory of the Creator. In
the Vices, on the other hand, it is the discord that insures the
defeat--each clamors to be heard in its own barbarous language; each
claims the exclusive cunning of the brain; each thwarts and reproaches