hat befal others: all their good-humour
is to be resolved into giving themselves no concern about any thing but
their own ease and self-indulgence. Their charity begins and ends at
home. Their being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing to
their indifference to the common feelings of humanity; and if you touch
the sore place, they betray more resentment, and break out (like spoiled
children) into greater fractiousness than others, partly from a greater
degree of selfishness, and partly because they are taken by surprise,
and mad to think they have not guarded every point against annoyance or
attack, by a habit of callous insensibility and pampered indolence.

An instance of what we mean occurred but the other day. An allusion was
made in the House of Commons to something in the proceedings in the
Court of Chancery, and the Lord Chancellor comes to his place in the
Court, with the statement in his hand, fire in his eyes, and a direct
charge of falsehood in his mouth, without knowing any thing certain
of the matter, without making any inquiry into it, without using any
precaution or putting the least restraint upon himself, and all on no
better authority than a common newspaper report. The thing was (not that
we are imputing any strong blame in this case, we merely bring it as an
illustration) it touched himself, his office, the inviolability of his
jurisdiction, the unexceptionableness of his proceedings, and the wet
blanket of the Chancellor's temper instantly took fire like tinder! All
the fine balancing was at an end; all the doubts, all the delicacy, all
the candour real or affected, all the chances that there might be a
mistake in the report, all the decencies to be observed towards a Member
of the House, are overlooked by the blindness of passion, and the wary
Judge pounces upon the paragraph without mercy, without a moment's
delay, or the smallest attention to forms! This was indeed serious
business, there was to be no trifling here; every instant was an age
till the Chancellor had discharged his sense of indignation on the head
of the indiscreet interloper on his authority. Had it been another
person's case, another person's dignity that had been compromised,
another person's conduct that had been called in question, who doubts
but that the matter might have stood over till the next term, that the
Noble Lord would have taken the Newspaper home in his pocket, that he
would have compared it carefully w