* * * * *
I am glad you came in to punctuate my discourse, which I fear has gone on
for an hour without any stop at all.
_July_ 1. 1833.
MANDEVILLE'S FABLE OF THE BEES.--BESTIAL THEORY.--CHARACTER OF BERTRAM.--
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER'S DRAMAS.--AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES,--MILTON.
If I could ever believe that Mandeville really meant any thing more by his
Fable of the Bees than a _bonne bouche_ of solemn raillery, I should like
to ask those man-shaped apes who have taken up his suggestions in earnest,
and seriously maintained them as bases for a rational account of man and
the world--how they explain the very existence of those dexterous cheats,
those superior charlatans, the legislators and philosophers, who have known
how to play so well upon the peacock-like vanity and follies of their
fellow mortals.
By the by, I wonder some of you lawyers (_sub rosa_, of course) have not
quoted the pithy lines in Mandeville upon this registration question:--
"The lawyers, of whose art the basis
Was raising feuds and splitting cases,
_Oppos'd all Registers_, that cheats
Might make more work with dipt estates;
As 'twere unlawful that one's own
Without a lawsuit should be known!
They put off hearings wilfully,
To finger the refreshing fee;
And to defend a wicked cause
Examined and survey'd the laws,
As burglars shops and houses do,
To see where best they may break through.
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