"Is it even so?" said he, slowly and musingly. "Are my hopes but delusions? Has my life been but one idle, though convulsive dream? Is the goddess of our religion banished from this great and populous earth to the seared and barren hearts of a few solitary worshippers, whom all else despise as madmen or persecute as idolaters? And if so, shall we adore her the less?---No! though we perish in her cause, it is around her altar that our corpses shall be found!" "My friend," said Glendower, kindly, for he was touched by the sincerity though opposed to the opinions of the republican, "the night is yet early: we will sit down to discuss our several doctrines calmly and in the spirit of truth and investigation." "Away!" cried Wolfe, rising and slouching his hat over his bent and lowering brows; "away! I will not listen to you: I dread your reasonings; I would not have a particle of my faith shaken. If I err, I have erred from my birth,--erred with Brutus and Tell, Hampden and Milton, and all whom the thousand tribes and parties of earth consecrate with their common gratitude and eternal reverence. In that error I will die! If our party can struggle not with hosts, there may yet arise some minister with the ambition of Caesar, if not his genius,--of whom a single dagger can rid the earth!" "And if not?" said Glendower. "I have the same dagger for myself!" replied Wolfe, as he closed the door. CHAPTER XLI. Bolingbroke has said that "Man is his own sharper and his own bubble;" and certainly he who is acutest in duping others is ever the most ingenious in outwitting himself. The criminal is always a sophist; and finds in his own reason a special pleader to twist laws human and divine into a sanction of his crime. The rogue is so much in the habit of cheating, that he packs the cards even when playing at Patience with himself.--STEPHEN MONTAGUE.