er, it is a most comfortless, disheartening, desolating
example. Dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and virtue, and
the completest triumph of the completest villany that ever vexed and
disgraced mankind! The example is ruinous in every point of view,
religious, moral, civil, political. It establishes that dreadful maxim
of Machiavel, that in great affairs men are not to be wicked by halves.
This maxim is not made for a middle sort of beings, who, because they
cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to
become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time,
where the faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect,
timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no
crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence
has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on frailties in favor
of crimes,--who abandon the weak, and court the friendship of the
wicked. To root out these maxims, and the examples that support them, is
a wise object of years of war. This is that war. This is that moral war.
It was said by old Trivulzio, that the Battle of Marignano was the
Battle of the Giants,--that all the rest of the many he had seen were
those of the Cranes and Pygmies. This is true of the objects, at least,
of the contest: for the greater part of those which we have hitherto
contended for, in comparison, were the toys of children.

The October politician is so full of charity and good-nature, that he
supposes that these very robbers and murderers themselves are in a
course of melioration: on what ground I cannot conceive, except on the
long practice of every crime, and by its complete success. He is an
Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the Devil. All that runs in
the place of blood in his veins is nothing but the milk of human
kindness. He is as soft as a curd,--though, as a politician, he might be
supposed to be made of sterner stuff. He supposes (to use his own
expression) "that the salutary truths which he inculcates are making
their way into their bosoms." Their bosom is a rock of granite, on which
Falsehood has long since built her stronghold. Poor Truth has had a hard
work of it, with her little pickaxe. Nothing but gunpowder will do.

As a proof, however, of the progress of this sap of Truth, he gives us a
confession they had made not long before he wrote. "'Their fraternity'
(as was lately stated by themselves