not driven by the fury of his own distracted brain, but lending his
sacrilegious hand, without any malice of his own, to answer the abandoned
purposes of the human fiends that have subdued his will!--To condemn
crimes like these, we need not talk of laws or of human rules--their
foulness, their deformity does not depend upon local constitutions, upon
human institutes or religious creeds:--they are crimes--and the persons
who perpetrate them are monsters who violate the primitive condition,
upon which the earth was given to man--they are guilty by the general
verdict of human kind."

In some of the sarcasms we are reminded of the quaint contrasts of his
dramatic style. Thus:--

"I must also do credit to them whenever I see any thing like lenity in
Mr. Middleton or his agent:--they do seem to admit here, that it was not
worth while to commit a massacre for the discount of a small note of
hand, and to put two thousand women and children to death, in order to
procure prompt payment."

Of the length to which the language of crimination was carried, as well
by Mr. Sheridan as by Mr. Burke, one example, out of many, will suffice.
It cannot fail, however, to be remarked that, while the denunciations and
invectives of Burke are filled throughout with a passionate earnestness,
which leaves no doubt as to the sincerity of the hate and anger professed
by him,--in Sheridan, whose nature was of a much gentler cast, the
vehemence is evidently more in the words than in the feeling, the tone of
indignation is theatrical and assumed, and the brightness of the flash
seems to be more considered than the destructiveness of the fire:--

"It is this circumstance of deliberation and consciousness of his