he turns to the new arch villain whose dark mind is even at the moment busily employed in calculating the risks and gains of killing him in his sleep—he turns to his new “Cawdor” with O worthiest cousin! The sin of my ingratitude even now Lies heavy on me: thou art so far before, That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved; That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine! only I have left to say, More is thy due, than more than all can pay. Certainly were I a king I should either not read Macbeth, or the reading of it would often disturb my peace and check the flow of my feelings and opinions. Hence royalty _is_, and is obliged to be, closed in itself—surrounded by cold forms and highly artificial ceremonies, removed from the action of the common, simple and sweet impulses and emotions of life—removed from friendship—love—ordinary social society—from the pleasures of confidence and independence—from visits and acquaintance-making, and many others which the private subject enjoys and derives as much unconscious pleasure from as from the air and sun. If I were a king I should never trust a human being. I should feel ever as if I were led along blindfold to suit purposes, of the existence of which I could not be aware—to injure people whom perhaps, if I knew them, I should desire to protect—and to aid others, who, were their real natures open to my inspection, I might perhaps be the first to punish. I should shrink from offers of service lest, even in them who had most served me, might lurk a Macbeth to defend, honor and ruin me. The master of a household finds it impossible to follow with his eye or his mind the daily course of his own domestics. Watch them as he may they are sure of continually returning opportunities to deceive and cheat him. Neglect and fraud and duplicity, although on a minute scale, are in perpetual operation, the prevention of which, even when detected, baffles his utmost address. There are few families in the world—at least in the old European metropolises—where a certain description of dishonesty is not almost openly practiced and even consciously permitted. I have heard an anecdote of a master who made his servant an offer to add twenty pounds a year to his annual wages on condition of his swearing not to cheat him out of a cent. The valet, after calculating half an hour, declined the proposition. In humanity, the great central pervading principle is _selfishness_. It exists in _every bosom_, as attraction exists in every object. In some it is modified, mastered and even beautified by warmth of heart, sincerity of religion and clearness of understanding. In others it is augmented beyond its natural proportions, by the peculiar temperament and the want of moral and intellectual cultivation. In the slender opportunities I have had of observing the world I have been particularly and painfully struck with