or to take up the cudgel in defence of the
very man whom he loads with obloquy—in
short, to doubt a Trajan, or to acquit a Nero.

That I am correct in these views is proved
by the fact that both the best and the worst of
historic personages have never wanted either
a detractor or an apologist; and how account
for such a phenomenon otherwise than by
supposing, in each case, the judge to have
been biassed either ab extrà or ab intrà?
And what bias is so great as that of a man's
own mood and temper, especially if lashed up
and exasperated by Circumstance—that
unspiritual god?

Yes! Man is the slave of association; and
if there ever once has existed an argumentum
ad hominem for or against a thing or a person,
it is more than probable that, in exact
accordance to the personal argument, we
shall love or hate that thing or person for
ever after. An infantine surfeit of oysters
may so extend its influence over a whole life
as to make us for ever regard with aversion
that admirable mollusc: a whipping at school,
while we were learning Greek or English
history, may, according to the period it was
inflicted in, impart to us doubts of the justice
of Aristides, or absolute nausea respecting
the patriotic virtue of Hampden. On the
other hand, it may be questioned whether
the eulogists of Saint Dunstan, of Bloody
Queen Mary, and other execrated notabilities,
may not have had holidays and sugar-plums,
or a plum-cake from home, just at the
moment when they were successfully getting
over the Dunstan or Mary period. But how
much is this reasoning intensified when the
agreeable or disagreeable association is not
past, but present and immediate: when (to
drop the pleasant half of the argument) the
nuisance, instead of being remembered dimly
through the softening mists of life's great
yesterday, glares upon us in the full blaze of
to-day; of this very hour perhaps, when it is
no more an abstract question, but a vital
appeal to actual feeling? Then, indeed, the
matter becomes a personal concern, under the
smart of which cool impartial judgment is
not to be expected from us. A younger
brother, after he has stepped into the shoes
of his elder, may mildly discuss the law of
primogeniture; but, when he overhears
himself called a scorpion, will he not storm and
thunder against that same iniquitous, detestable,
damnable right of the first-born?
Doubtless, in such a mood, should he read
the biography of some red-hot red republican,
who treated of equality, and wrote down in
blood "Les aristocrats à la lanterne!" doubtless,
I say, in such a mood, he will hug to his
heart the precious volume, and bless the
author of it as a most clear-headed, kind-
hearted, benevolent gentleman, and a true
friend to humanity. So I, tormented by a
dozen flies that will, by turns, make a perch
of my nose, fretted by their hum, conscious
that my finest thoughts are at their mercy (I
was just going to write down some perfectly
original ideas on the subject of political
economy), smarting under the irritation and
sting of the moment, happen to take up an
odd volume lying on my table, and read:
"Nero, that imperial monster, amused
himself with killing flies." What are my feelings?
Amused himself? I cry. No, no! a thousand
times no! Say rather, made it a duty to kill
flies. For what pleasure could there be in
killing flies?

I am sick of the whole paraphernalia of
fly-killing,—of the man who wakes me at
four o'clock by the maddening and monstrous
cry of "Catch 'em alive O!—catch 'em alive
O!" which goes and returns up and down
the street like the drone of the creatures it
professes to annihilate,—like, in fact, the
ghost of some giant buzzer revenging his
wrongs upon mankind. Then, I remember
all the horrid results of the efforts (after all,
abortive) of my sisters Jane and Ann to rid
our neat little dwelling of the fly-pest. First
there was an infallible recipe of saucers full
of powdered sugar and pepper, in a state of
mixture, set about the room (themselves
disagreeable to behold), of which the effects
were as follows: a visitor calls,—a lady in a
beautiful sea-green pelisse. She sits down,
affably, in the best chair. We converse.
Suddenly, two or three flies, in kicking
convulsions, fall upon her lap. The visitor
starts, and—herself half in a convulsion—
shakes off the nasty intruders. Is there a
spot on the sea-green? 'Tis of this she
thinks, not of my agreeable conversation.
Twice, thrice, the kicking flies repeat their
invasions. My sister Jane apologises: "We
are so troubled with flies; and sugar and
pepper is a capital thing to kill them; but,
unluckily, when the pepper has stupefied
them, the flies are apt to fall about."

After the sugar and pepper followed
arsenic-paper soaked in plates full of milk.
The results of this experiment were very
similar to those of the last, with this
addition,—that my sister's favourite lap dog,
poor old Fan (who was very fond of me, and
had become an habitual house-pet), lapped up
the milk one day, fell also into kicking
convulsions, and expired.

The plague of tumblers followed—fly-
traps, Ann called them; for my sister Ann
began to be inventive in fly-catching. The
fly-trap was thus constructed: a tumbler
was nearly filled with soap-suds: to the top
of the tumbler was fitted a circular piece of
bread, with a funnel-shaped hole in the
centre; the inner side of the bread was
smeared with moist-sugar. So the flies
smelt the sugar, crept down the ant-lion sort
of sloping hole to get at it, were intoxicated
by the fumes of the soap-suds (a thing I
should never have imagined), and fell, half-
stupefied, into the gulf below. Certain it is,
that shortly after setting such a trap, the
interior of the tumbler became a dark mass