Let us repose
on them in blind but contented reliance.
I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at
seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every
body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them,
impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their
premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as
the scarlet cloak on the bull in the _corrida_, making him stamp and
roar hideously. The angry gods had demented him. _Vae misero!_ How could
such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of
the prophet, he attempted a certain pass in the Tyrol alone, and, losing
his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am
sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his
last breath. _Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere--_
Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would
found a "Murray's Traveling Fellowship" in one or both of the
Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to
Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published "Childe
Harold," and the Hand-book to Every Where.
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