overruling decree of divine wrath, but the tyranny of the sinner's own
evil imagination, which he has voluntarily chosen as his master.

Compare the contemptuous Swift with the contemned De Foe, and how
superior will the latter be found! But by what test?--Even by this; that
the writer who makes me sympathize with his presentations with the whole
of my being, is more estimable than he who calls forth, and appeals but
to, a part of my being--my sense of the ludicrous, for instance. De
Foe's excellence it is, to make me forget my specific class, character,
and circumstances, and to raise me while I read him, into the universal
man.

(P. 80.)
I smiled to myself at the sight of this money: "O drug!" said I aloud,
&c. 'However, upon second thoughts, I took it away'; and wrapping
all this in a piece of canvass, &c.

Worthy of Shakspeare!--and yet the simple semicolon after it, the
instant passing on without the least pause of reflex consciousness, is
more exquisite and masterlike than the touch itself. A meaner writer, a
Marmontel, would have put an (!) after 'away,' and have commenced
a fresh paragraph. 30th July, 1830.

(P. 111.)
And I must confess, my religious thankfulness to God's providence
began to abate too, upon the discovering that all this was nothing
but what was common; though I ought to have been as thankful for so
strange and unforeseen a providence, as if it had been miraculous.

To make men feel the truth of this is one characteristic object of the