Among the creatures of the Devil, no one has a more decent claim to his clemency, than the caterwauling canting hypocrite. The hypocrite is a genus to which a variety of species belong, the subdivisions of which are too numerous for our present purpose; we shall only therefore offer a few remarks on one kind of these vampyres, drawn from daily observation. If not absolutely gluttons, although many of them are _gourmands_ in excess, hypocrites are invariably fond of their ungodly guts, for which they are at all times ready to sacrifice their God, their King, their country and their friends. They have a stomach like a horse, and a reservoir like a brewer’s vat. The hypocrite of circumstances prays, or pretends to pray, in adversity, and swears in good earnest, like a trooper, in prosperity,—he is either a roaring bedlamite or a whining calf, a peevish idiot, a buffoon, or a disgusting bacchanal;—in short, he is capable of such derogatory pranks and extremes, that, as the occasion serves, he with equal facility rises from the bended knee of supplication to extend the hand of venality, aye, and of sensuality too, to the object of his latent and ungovernable concupiscence. His bloated chops, at one time, resemble a passive pair of bagpipes, while, at another, they are inflated with all the arrogance of beggarly pride and momentary superfluity. He is never ashamed to beg, and only afraid to steal—although equally adapted for the one as the other. A consummate, a brawling, and a suspicious egotist—he will hear no one but himself, no opinion but his own. In his own house he is a bear; in the house of another, a nuisance; and every where a _nil desideratum_. Self-eulogy is his most constant theme; and his loathsome flattery, either applied to himself or others, is invariably bespattered with the most _impious_ invocations of the Deity, to witness his rebellious professions of patience, submission, abstinence, and every other exotic virtue, which he knows only by name. His cant is of the basest and most servile description; and for the attainment of some object, however pitiful or paltry, important or consequential, he is the same venal wretch all over. Where his expectations are defeated, and the yearnings of his bowels unappeased, his sycophancy is succeeded by slander, impertinence, insult, and the most unfounded suspicion. The cringing, wriggling wretch, at length, having wormed himself through a world of unpitied degradation, filth, and obscenity, attempts, at the end of his career, to offer up to his God, what has been indignantly rejected by the Devil—he dies as he lived, a pauper, equally to fortune and fame—without one redeeming qualification to keep alive even his name, which is never mentioned unless mingled with that kindred contempt and insignificance to which it was by nature and existence so closely allied.