The flatulent stile, the feverish, the aguish, and the atrabilious are all as common as the diseases of body from which they take their name, and of mind in which they originate; and not less common than either is the dyspeptic stile, proceeding from a weakness in the digestive faculty. Learned, or if not learned, Dear Reader, I had much to say of stile, but the under written passage from that beautiful book, Xenophon's Memorabilia Socratis, has induced me, as the Latins say, _stilum vertere_, and to erase a paragraph written with ink in which the gall predominated. _Ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς, ὦ Αντιφῶν, ὥσπερ ἄλλός τις ἢ ἵππῳ ἀγαθῷ ἢ κυνὶ ἢ ὂρνιθι ἥδεται, οὕτω καὶ ἒτι μᾶλλον ἥδομαι τοῖς φίλοις ἀγαθοῖς· καὶ, ἐάν τι σχῶ ἀγαθὸν διδάσκω, καὶ ἄλλοις σύνιστημι, παρ᾽ ὧν ἂν ἡγῶμαι ὠφελήσεσθαί τι αὐτοὺς εἰς ἀρετήν᾽ καὶ, τοὺς θησαυροὺς τῶν πάλι σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν, οὕς ἐκεῖνοι κατέλιπον ἐν βιβλίοις γράφεντες, ἀνελίττων κοινῆ σὺν τοῖς φίλοις διέρχομαι· καὶ ἄν τι ὁρῶμεν ἀγαθὸν, ἐκλεγόμεθα, καὶ μέγα νομίζομεν κέρδος, ἐὰν ἀλλήλοις ὠφέλιμοι γιγνώμεθα._ INTERCHAPTER XXIII. A LITTLE ADVICE BESTOWED UPON THE SCORNFUL READER IN A SHORT INTERCHAPTER. No man is so foolish, but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no other's counsel but his own. BEN JONSON. I will now bestow a little advice upon the scornful reader. And who, the Devil, are you exclaims that reader, who are impertinent enough to offer your advice, and fool enough to suppose that I shall listen to it? Whatever your opinion may be, Sir, concerning an Evil Principle, whether you hold with the thorough-paced Liberals, that there is no Principle at all, (and in one sense, exemplify this in your own conduct,) or with the Unitarians that there is no Evil one; or whether you incline to the Manichean scheme of Two Principles, which is said to have its advocates,—in either case the diabolical expletive in your speech is alike reprehensible: you deserve a reprimand for it; and you are hereby reprimanded accordingly.—Having discharged this duty, I answer your question in the words of Terence, with which I doubt not you are acquainted, because they are to be found in the Eton grammar: _Homo sum, nihil humani à me alienum puto._ And what the Devil have the words of Terence to do with my query? You are again reprimanded Sir. If it be a bad thing to have the Devil at one's elbow, it cannot be a good one to have him at ones tongue's end. The sentence is sufficiently applicable. It is a humane thing to offer advice where it is wanted, and a very humane thing to write and publish a book which is intended to be either useful or delightful to those who read it. A humane thing to write a book!—Martin of Galway's humanity is not a better joke than that!