ide down with
their quarrels and disputes from the beginning of time: with the other,
what any two people have ever agreed in is an error on the face of
it. The credulous bigot shudders at the idea of altering anything in
'time-hallowed' institutions; and under this cant phrase can bring
himself to tolerate any knavery or any folly, the Inquisition, Holy Oil,
the Right Divine, etc.;--the more refined sceptic will laugh in your
face at the idea of retaining anything which has the damning stamp of
custom upon it, and is for abating all former precedents, 'all trivial,
fond records,' the whole frame and fabric of society as a nuisance in
the lump. Is not this a pair of wiseacres well matched? The one stickles
through thick and thin for his own religion and government: the other
scouts all religions and all governments with a smile of ineffable
disdain. The one will not move for any consideration out of the broad
and beaten path: the other is continually turning off at right
angles, and losing himself in the labyrinths of his own ignorance and
presumption. The one will not go along with any party: the other
always joins the strongest side. The one will not conform to any common
practice: the other will subscribe to any thriving system. The one is
the slave of habit: the other is the sport of caprice. The first is like
a man obstinately bed-rid: the last is troubled with St. Vitus's dance.
He cannot stand still, he cannot rest upon any conclusion. 'He never
is--but always to be _right.'_

The author of the Prometheus Unbound (to take an individual instance
of the last character) has a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a
maggot in his brain, a hectic flutter in his speech, which mark out the
philosophic fanatic. He is sanguine-complexioned and shrill-voiced. As
is often observable in the case of religious enthusiasts, there is a
slenderness of constitutional stamina, which renders the flesh no match
for the spirit. His bending, flexible form appears to take no strong
hold of things, does not grapple with the world about him, but slides
from it like a river--

And in its liquid texture mortal wound
Receives no more than can the fluid air.

The shock of accident, the weight of authority make no impression on his
opinions, which retire like a feather, or rise from the encounter
unhurt through their own buoyancy. He is clogged by no dull system of
realities, no earth-bound feelings, no rooted prejudices, by nothing
tha