PARODIES.

PARODIES on new poems are read as satires; on old ones, the soliloquy of Hamlet for instance-as compliments. A man of genius may securely laugh at a mode of attack by which his reviler, in half a century or less, becomes his encomiast.

M. DUPUIS.

AMONG the extravagancies of faith which have characterized many infidel writers, who would swallow a whale to avoid believing that a whale swallowed Jonas,―a high rank should be given to Dupuis, who, at the commencement of the French Revolution, published a work in twelve volumes, octavo, in order to prove that Jesus Christ was the sun, and all Christians, worshippers of Mithra. His arguments, if arguments they can be called, consist chiefly of metaphors quoted from the Fathers. What irresistible conviction would not the following passage from South's sermons (vol. v. p. 165.) have flashed on his fancy, had it occurred in the writings of Origen or Tertullian! and how complete a confutation of all his grounds does not the passage afford to those humble souls, who, gifted with common sense alone, can boast

of no additional light received through a crack in their upper apartments :

Christ the great sun of righteousness and saviour of the world, having by a glorious rising, after a red and bloody setting, proclaimed his deity to men and angels; and by a complete triumph over the two grand enemies of mankind, sin and death, set up the everlasting gospel in the room of all false religions, has now changed the Persian superstition into the Christian doctrine, and without the least approach to the idolatry of the former, made it henceforward the duty of all nations, Jews and Gentiles, to worship the rising sun.

This one passage outblazes the whole host of Dupuis' evidences and extracts. In the same sermon, the reader will meet with Hume's argument against miracles anticipated, and put in Thomas's mouth.

ORIGIN OF THE WORSHIP OF HYMEN.

THE origin of the worship of Hymen is thus related by Lactantius. The story would furnish matter for an excellent pantomime. Hymen was a beautiful youth of Athens, who for the love of a young virgin disguised himself, and assisted at the Eleusinian rites: and at this time he, together with his beloved, and divers other young ladies of that city, was surprized and carried off by pirates, who supposing him to be what he appeared, lodged him with his mistress. In the dead of the night when the robbers were all asleep, he arose and cut their throats. Thence making hasty way back to

Athens, he bargained with the parents that he would restore to them their daughter and all her companions, if they would consent to her marriage with him. They did so, and this marriage proving remarkably happy, it became the custom to invoke the name of Hymen at all nuptials.

EGOTISM.

It is hard and uncandid to censure the great reformers in philosophy and religion for their egotism and boastfulness. It is scarcely possible for a man to meet with continued personal abuse, on account of his superior talents, without associating more and more the sense of the value of his discoveries or detections with his own person. The necessity of repelling unjust contempt, forces the most modest man into a feeling of pride and self-consciousness. How can a tall man help thinking of his size, when dwarfs are constantly on tiptoe beside him?Paracelsus was a braggart and a quack; so was Cardan; but it was their merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism both in his prefaces and in his ordi

nary conversation, and the same holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, and of his great namesake Giordano Bruno. The more decorous manners of the present age have attached a disproportionate opprobrium to this foible, and many therefore abstain with cautious prudence from all displays of what they feel. Nay, some do actually flatter themselves, that they abhor all egotism, and never betray it either in their writings or discourse. But watch these men narrowly; and in the greater number of cases you will find their thoughts, feelings, and mode of expression, saturated with the passion of contempt, which is the concentrated vinegar of egotism.

Your very humble men in company, if they produce any thing, are in that thing of the most exquisite irritability and vanity.

If, for

When a man is attempting to describe another person's character, he may be right or he may be wrong; but in one thing he will always succeed, that is, in describing himself. example, he expresses simple approbation, he praises from a consciousness of possessing similar qualities;-if he approves with admiration, it is from a consciousness of deficiency. A. "Ay! he is a sober man." B. "Ah! Sir, what a blessing is sobriety!" Here A. is a man conscious of sobriety, who egotizes in tuism;-B. is one who, feeling the ill effects of a contrary habit, contemplates sobriety with blameless envy. Again :-A. " Yes, he is a

“

warm man, a moneyed fellow; you may rely upon him." B. B. "Yes, yes, Sir, no wonder ! he has the blessing of being well in the world." This reflection might be introduced in defence of plaintive egotism, and by way of preface to an examination of all the charges against it, and from what feelings they proceed. 1800.*

Contempt is egotism in ill humour. Appetite without moral affection, social sympathy, and even without passion and imagination(in plain English, mere lust,)-is the basest form of egotism,--and being infra human, or below humanity, should be pronounced with the harsh breathing, as he-goat-ism. 1820.

CAP OF LIBERTY.

THOSE Who hoped proudly of human nature, and admitted no distinction between Christians and Frenchmen, regarded the first constitution as a colossal statue of Corinthian brass, formed by the fusion and commixture of all metals in the conflagration of the state. But there is a common fungus, which so exactly represents the pole and cap of liberty, that it seems offered by nature herself as the appropriate emblem of Gallic republicanism,—mushroom patriots, with a mushroom cap of liberty.

* From Mr. Gutch's commonplace book. Ed.