out all their kindred and latent fire, till that moment invisible, all but _in posse_ non-existent. But for any thing like a public conscience so kindling since the repentance of the Ninevites, it is not to be thought of. The pretence of such a thing is a sign of the last state of national hypocrisy. It was not that sense which emancipated the Negroes and forbade the slave trade. Take, for example, the Portuguese, and their "board of conscience" at Lisbon, which they set up to quiet the remorse, if any should exist, of those who had bought the miserable natives of Reoxcave, when they sold themselves and their children for food. This very convenient scruple was started in "the court, to sanction the purchase, that if these so purchased slaves were set free, they might _apostatize_!" Now, who were the judges in such a court? Oh! the villany of the whole conclave!--yet was each individual, perhaps, of demure and sanctimonious manners, to whom the moral eye of a people looked--villains all in the guise of goodness:-- "Vir bonus, omne forum quem spectat et omne tribunal, Quandocuncque Deos vel porco vel bove placat, Jane Pater, clare, clare, cum dixit, Apollo, Labra movet metuens audiri--Pulchra Laverna, Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri, Noctem peccatis et fraudibus objice nubem." We are told that there is such a disease as a cannibal madness, and that it was common among the North American savages; that those seized with it have a raving desire for human flesh, and rush like wolves upon all they meet. Now, in what was this court of conscience better than these cannibals? Better! a thousand times worse--for wolves are honest. Now I well know, Eusebius, how I have put a coal under the very fountain of your blood--and it is boiling at a fine rate. Let me allay it, and follow the stage directions of "soft music;" only on this occasion we omit the music, and take the rhyme. So here do I exhibit conscience in its playful vein. Our friend S., the other day, repeated me off the following lines; he cannot remember where he had them--he says it was when a boy that he met with them somewhere. Call it the Conscientious Toper; yet that is too common--it is the characteristic of all topers--never was one that could not find an excuse. Drink wonderfully elicits moral words, to compound for immoral deeds. Call it then-- THE CONTROVERSY. No plate had John and Joan to hoard-- Plain folks in humble plight-- One only tankard graced their board, But that was fill'd each night; Upon whose inner bottom, sketch'd In pride of chubby grace, Some rude engraver's hand had etch'd A baby angel's face. John took at first a moderate sup-- But Joan was not like John-- For when her lips once touch'd the cup, She swill'd till all was gone.