Narr. Heute Abend wieg’ ich mich im Grundbesitz. (ab.) Meph. (solus.) Wer zweifelt noch an unsres Narren Witz!” [32] I have written it out from a perfect English psalter of early thirteenth century work, with St. Edward, St. Edmund, and St. Cuthbert in its calendar; it probably having belonged to the cathedral of York. The writing is very full, but quick; meant for service more than beauty; illuminated sparingly, but with extreme care. Its contractions are curiously varied and capricious: thus, here in the fifth verse, c in constituisti stands for ‘con’ merely by being turned the wrong way. I prefer its text, nevertheless, to that of more elaborate MSS., for when very great attention is paid to the writing, there are apt to be mistakes in the words. In the best thirteenth-century service-book I have, ‘tuos’ in the third verse is written ‘meos.’ [33] Compare the ‘Crown of Wild Olive,’ p. 57; and put in the fifth line of that page, a comma after ‘heaven,’ and in the eighth line a semicolon after ‘blessing.’ [34] I am sensitive for other writers in this point, my own readers being in the almost universal practice of choosing any bit they may happen to fancy in what I say, without ever considering what it was said for. [35] Collated out of Sapientia xv. and xvi. [36] Compare Jeremiah ix. 6; in the Septuagint, τόκος ἐπὶ τόκῳ, καὶ δόλος ἐπὶ δόλῳ: “usury on usury, and trick upon trick.” [37] The instinct for the study of parasites, modes of disease, the lower forms of undeveloped creatures, and the instinctive processes of digestion and generation, rather than the varied and noble habit of life,—which shows itself so grotesquely in modern science, is the precise counterpart of the forms of idolatry (as of beetle and serpent, rather than of clean or innocent creatures,) which were in great part the cause of final corruption in ancient mythology and morals. [38] If my good correspondent will try practically the difference in the effect on the minds of the next two beggars he meets, between imputing a penny to the one, and imparting it to the other, he will receive a profitable lesson both in religion and English. Of Felix Neff’s influence, past and present, I will take other occasion to speak. [39] See the note at p. 151. [40] Action, observe, I say here; in thought I was too independent, as I said above. [41] At least, I think the terms of my letter might have been easily construed into such recommendation; I fear they were not as clear as they might have been. [42] I permit the waste of type, and, it may well be, of my reader’s patience, involved in reprinting (instead of merely referring to) the quoted passages and letter, lest it should be thought that I wished to evade the points, or, by interruption, deaden the eloquence, of the Birmingham article.