no need to have shared the temptations or been
privy to the acts of the prisoner at the bar. Yet how consummate may be
his analysis!"

"No," cried Waife, roughly. "No! Your illustration destroys your
argument. The judge knows nothing of the prisoner. There are the
circumstances; there is the law. By these he generalizes, by these
he judges,--right or wrong. But of the individual at the bar, of the
world--the tremendous world--within that individual heart, I repeat, he
knows nothing. Did he know, law and circumstances might vanish, human
justice would be paralyzed. Ho, there! place that swart-visaged,
ill-looking foreigner in the dock, and let counsel open the case;
hear the witnesses depose! Oh, horrible wretch! a murderer! unmanly
murderer!--a defenceless woman smothered by caitiff hands! Hang him up!
hang him up! 'Softly,' whispers the POET, and lifts the veil from the
assassin's heart. 'Lo! it is Othello the Moor!' What jury now dare find
that criminal guilty? what judge now put on the black cap? who now says,
'Hang him up! hang him up!"

With such lifelike force did the Comedian vent this passionate outburst
that he thrilled his listener with an awe akin to that which the
convicted Moor gathers round himself at the close of the sublime drama.
Even Sir Isaac was startled; and leaving his hopeless pursuit of the
water-rat, uttered a low bark, came to his master, and looked into his
face with solemn curiosity.

WAIFE (relapsing into colloquial accents).--"Why do we sympathize with
those above us more than with those below? why with the sorrows of a
king rather than those of a beggar? why does Sir Isaac sympathize with
me more than (let that water-rat vex him ever so much) I can possibly
sympathize with him? Whatever be the cause, see at least, Mr. Morley,
one reason why a poor creature like myself finds it better employment
to cultivate the intimacy of brutes than to prosecute the study of men.
Among men, all are too high to sympathize with me; but I have known
two friends who never injured nor betrayed. Sir Isaac is one; Wamba was
another. Wamba, sir, the native of a remote district of the globe (two
friends civilized Europe is not large enough to afford any one man),
Wamba, sir, was less gifted by nature, less refined by education, than
Sir Isaac; but he was a safe and trustworthy companion: Wamba, sir,
was--an opossum."

GEORGE MORLEY.--"Alas, my dear Mr. Waife, I fear that men must have
behaved very ill to yo