Just so. Besides, my excellent friend, if you consider well the feeling which takes possession of us, on contemplating some splendid act of heroic and self-devoting Virtue, we shall find that the sort of enthusiastic transport which may kindle towards him who has performed it, is not properly a moral transport at all; but it is a burst of love and admiration. Take out, then, from any such emotion, what Imagination, and Love, and Sympathy have supplied, and leave only what the Moral Spirit recognises of Moral Will in the act, and you will find that much of that dazzling and splendid Beauty which produced the transport of loving admiration is removed. SEWARD. And if so, sir, then must it be very important that we should not deceive ourselves, and rely upon the warmth of emotion we may feel towards generous and heroic actions as evidence of the force of the Moral Principle in our own breasts, which requires to be ascertained by a very different test-- NORTH. Ay, Seward; and it is important also, that we should learn to acknowledge and to respect, in those who, without the capacity of such vivid feelings, are yet conscientiously faithful to the known Moral Law, the merit and dignity of their Moral Obedience. We must allow to Virtue, my dearest Seward, all that is her due--her countenance beautiful in its sweet serenity--her voice gentle and mild--her demeanour graceful--and a simple majesty in the flowing folds of her stainless raiment. So may we picture her to our imagination, and to our hearts. But we must beware of making such abstractions fantastic and visionary, lest we come at last to think of emotions of Virtue and Taste as one and the same--a fatal error indeed--and that would rob human life of much of its melancholy grandeur. The beauty of Virtue is but the smile on her celestial countenance--and may be admired--loved--by those who hold but little communion with her inner heart--and it may be overlooked by those who pay to her the most devout worship. TALBOYS. Methinks, sir, that the moral emotion with which we regard actions greatly right or greatly wrong, is no transport; it is an earnest, solemn feeling of a mind knowing there is no peace for living souls, except in their Moral Obedience, and therefore receiving a deep and grateful assurance of the peace of one soul more, in witnessing its adherence to its virtue; and the pain which is suffered from crime is much more allied to sorrow, in contemplating the wilful departure of a spirit from its only possible Good, than to those feelings of repugnance and hate which characterise the temper of our common human emotion towards crimes offering violence and outrage to humanity. NORTH.