ro, in a well-known passage of his _Ethics_, speaks of trade as
irredeemably base, if petty; but as not so absolutely felonious if
wholesale. He gives a _real_ merchant (one who is such in the English
sense) leave to think himself a shade above small-beer.

[4] "_The astonishment of science._"--Her medical attendants were Dr
Percival, a well-known literary physician, who had been a correspondent of
Condorcet, D'Alembert, &c., and Mr Charles White, a very distinguished
surgeon. It was he who pronounced her head to be the finest in its
structure and development of any that he had ever seen--an assertion
which, to my own knowledge, he repeated in after years, and with
enthusiasm. That he had some acquaintance with the subject may be presumed
from this, that he wrote and published a work on the human skull,
supported by many measurements which he had made of heads selected from
all varieties of the human species. Meantime, as I would be loth that any
trait of what might seem vanity should creep into this record, I will
candidly admit that she died of hydrocephalus; and it has been often
supposed that the premature expansion of the intellect in cases of that
class, is altogether morbid--forced on, in fact, by the mere stimulation
of the disease. I would, however, suggest, as a possibility, the very
inverse order of relation between the disease and the intellectual
manifestations. Not the disease may always have caused the preternatural
growth of the intellect, but, on the contrary, this growth coming on
spontaneously, and outrunning the capacities of the physical structure,
may have caused the disease.

[5] Amongst the oversights in the _Paradise Lost_, some of which have not
yet been perceived, it is certainly _one_--that, by placing in such
overpowering light of pathos the sublime sacrifice of Adam to his love for
his frail companion, he has too much lowered the guilt of his disobedience
to God. All that Milton can say afterwards, does not, and cannot, obscure
the beauty of that action: reviewing it calmly, we condemn--but taking the
impassioned station of Adam at the moment of temptation, we approve in our
hearts. This was certainly an oversight; but it was one very difficult to
redress. I remember, amongst the many exquisite thoughts of John Paul,
(Richter,) one which strikes me as peculiarly touching upon this subject.
He suggests--not as any grave theological comment, but as the wandering
fancy of a poetic heart--that,