The Modern Philosophy, counterscarp, outworks, citadel, and all,
fell without a blow, by "the whiff and wind of his fell _doctrine_," as
if it had been a pack of cards. The volcano of the French Revolution
was seen expiring in its own flames, like a bon-fire made of straw: the
principles of Reform were scattered in all directions, like chaff before
the keen northern blast. He laid about him like one inspired; nothing
could withstand his envenomed tooth. Like some savage beast got into
the garden of the fabled Hesperides, he made clear work of it, root and
branch, with white, foaming tusks--

"Laid waste the borders, and o'erthrew the bowers."

The havoc was amazing, the desolation was complete. As to our visionary
sceptics and Utopian philosophers, they stood no chance with our
lecturer--he did not "carve them as a dish fit for the Gods, but hewed
them as a carcase fit for hounds." Poor Godwin, who had come, in the
_bonhommie_ and candour of his nature, to hear what new light had broken
in upon his old friend, was obliged to quit the field, and slunk away
after an exulting taunt thrown out at "such fanciful chimeras as a
golden mountain or a perfect man." Mr. Mackintosh had something of the
air, much of the dexterity and self-possession, of a political and
philosophical juggler; and an eager and admiring audience gaped and
greedily swallowed the gilded bait of sophistry, prepared for their
credulity and wonder. Those of us who attended day after day, and were
accustomed to have all our previous notions confounded and struck out of
our hands by some metaphysical legerdemain, were at last at some loss to
know _whether two and two made four_, till we had heard the lecturer's
opinion on that head. He might have some mental reservation on the
subject, some pointed ridicule to pour upon the common supposition,
some learned authority to quote against it. To anticipate the line of
argument he might pursue, was evidently presumptuous and premature. One
thing only appeared certain, that whatever opinion he chose to take up,
he was able to make good either by the foils or the cudgels, by gross
banter or nice distinctions, by a well-timed mixture of paradox and
common-place, by an appeal to vulgar prejudices or startling scepticism.
It seemed to be equally his object, or the tendency of his Discourses,
to unsettle every principle of reason or of common sense, and to leave
his audience at the mercy of the _dictum_ of a lawyer, the