I can scarcely believe that Captain Whitefeather was a reader of the Essays of David Hume; and yet a similar opinion—a friend of mine, a poor curate to whom I showed the Captain’s MS., pointed it out to me—is expressed by the sceptic philosopher, who, in his Essay on “Delicacy of Taste,” says:—“You will seldom find that mere men of the world, whatever strong sense they may be endowed with, are very nice in distinguishing characters, or in marking those insensible differences and gradations which make one man preferable to another.”—[JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.] Blissful time—glorious return of the golden age—when rapine and fire, and cutting and maiming shall no longer be the evils adopted by comprehensive minds to work out, as they conceive, a great good; but when one half of the people shall live peaceably upon the other; when the whole aim and end of every two men out of four shall be to possess themselves of their daily bread—(philosophers will receive the phrase in its more enlarged meaning)—by an art demanding in its exercise the highest and most chastened faculties of the moral creature. The two halves of society will then be fairly arrayed against each other; and for ruthless weapons—for sword, dagger, and pistol on one side, and bayonet, sabre, and carbine on the other—we shall have the more peaceful and courteous instruments, silvery words, blandest smiles, and the happiest self-possession, opposed by cautious interrogation, wary looks and silent heavy doubtings. Here then is a contest worthy of intellectual beings! This is indeed a duello of the immortal principle! How poor, how savage, how unworthy of a rational creature to break into the peaceful dwelling of an honest silversmith—to fire his bed-curtains—to bruise and batter his ornate cream-jugs, his chased candlesticks, and embossed tankards,—or, the spoil carried off amidst the exulting howl of barbarians, to fling it into the hospitable melting-pot—how loathsome, how degrading this brutal mode of a division of property, to that refined and gracious system, the cunning birth of better times—the fruit of a loftier and truer consideration of man’s dignity towards his fellow!