word _example_ reminds us of another fine word which is in use
upon these occasions--_encouragement_. "People in our sphere must
not be thought to give encouragement to such proceedings." To such
a frantic height is this principle capable of being carried, that
we have known individuals who have thought it within the scope of
their influence to sanction despair, and give _eclat_ to--suicide. A
domestic in the family of a county member lately deceased, for love,
or some unknown cause, cut his throat, but not successfully. The poor
fellow was otherwise much loved and respected; and great interest was
used in his behalf, upon his recovery, that he might be permitted
to retain his place; his word being first pledged, not without some
substantial sponsors to promise for him, than the like should never
happen again. His master was inclinable to keep him, but his mistress
thought otherwise; and John in the end was dismissed, her ladyship
declaring that she "could not think of encouraging any such doings in
the county."

VI.--THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST

Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who really
believes this saying. The inventor of it did not believe it himself.
It was made in revenge by somebody, who was disappointed of a regale.
It is a vile cold-scrag-of-mutton sophism; a lie palmed upon the
palate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for
a feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually
something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to
a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervalue
_money_. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is
not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which
makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces fine
clothing to the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome
excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which imputes dirt to
acres--a sophistry so barefaced, that even the literal sense of it is
true only in a wet season. This, and abundance of similar sage saws
assuming to inculcate _content_, we verily believe to have been the
invention of some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse of
his wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to carry by force of
these verbal jugglings. Translate any one of these sayings out of the
artful metonyme which envelops it, and the trick is apparent. Goodly
legs and shoulders of m